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The Role of Experience in Prioritizing Adherence to SOPs in Police Agencies

Casey LaFrance & Jonathan Day

Published online: 19 August 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Abstract Research has perennially substantiated the belief that experience is a crucial determinant of an officer’s ability to effectively use discretion in making decisions. Officers cite experience as “the best teacher”, and police managers are likely to agree, usually with an anecdote or two about their personal maturation experiences. This study is an attempt to investigate this question with a bit more subtlety. In the following sections, we will: (1) explain the theory behind the discretion-experience relationship we propose, as well as theoretical opposition to this notion, (2) hone in on the perceived importance of agency standard operating procedures as an influence on discretion, (3) demonstrate that the relationship between officer experience and the priority attributed to SOPs is parabolic, and (4) discuss our findings in the context of structural functional organiza- tional theory.

Keywords Discretion . SOPs . Experience . Management . Organization theory

Introduction

Research has perennially substantiated the belief that experience is a crucial determinant of an officer’s ability to effectively use discretion in making decisions (Reiser 1974). Officers cite experience as “the best teacher” (Sherman 1984), and police managers are likely to agree, usually with an anecdote or two about their personal maturation experiences (LaFrance 2010a; LaFrance 2010b). Popular

Public Organiz Rev (2013) 13:37–48 DOI 10.1007/s11115-012-0192-9

C. LaFrance (*) : J. Day Department of Political Science, Western Illinois University, 424 Morgan Hall, 1 University Circle, Macomb, IL 61455, USA e-mail: [email protected]

culture is littered with opportunities to witness inexperienced officers behave in an overzealous, yet woefully incompetent fashion, often needing to be rescued by veteran officers (e.g., The Andy Griffith Show’s character, Barney Fife). Still, literature supporting the belief that longer-serving officers have a better grasp on discretion is limited in that it relies almost entirely on anecdotes and self- reports. This study is an attempt to investigate this question with a bit more subtlety. In the following sections, we will: (1) explain the theory behind the discretion-experience relationship we propose, as well as theoretical opposition to this notion, (2) hone in on the perceived importance of agency standard operating procedures as an influence on discretion, (3) demonstrate the rela- tionship between officer experience and the priority attributed to SOPs, and (4) discuss our findings.

Literature review: experience and discretion

Some scholars argue that decision-making, like other skills, is learned from lots of practice (LaFrance 2010a). Over time, this skill becomes deeply ingrained in an officer’s psyche (Reiser 1974). Experience, too, helps an officer to get a feel for different areas in his or her patrol area. For instance, Dunham and colleagues (2005) find that one factor that determines whether an officer will develop suspicion toward a suspect is the officer’s “knowledge of a particular location…..and what activities should or should not be expected there after a partic- ular time” (Dunham et al. 2005, p.5). Thus, we expect police patrol to be akin to other repetitive tasks, such as baking a cake or putting children’s toys together in that, over time, one becomes less reliant on a written source of instruction (the cake recipe or the toy assembly manual). This line of reasoning, though seemingly intuitive, is not compatible with some other models of bureaucracy. For instance, bureau- crats are often alleged to be rule-bound (Weber 1946), sometimes so much so that they engage in “goal displacement,” wherein the rules of the agency become the sole focus of workers, even at the expense of the mission and goals of their organization (Merton 1940). Other theories of bureaucratic behavior would predict that bureaucrats enamor themselves with agency rules in order to maintain the status quo, a phenomenon Downs (1967) labels the “law of increasing conserverism.” Given the legendary status of these theories of rule-bound bureaucrats, the more intuitive hypothesis that we present is certainly ripe for empirical testing. Before proceeding, we should specify the relationship we expect. Foremost, we expect this relationship will manifest itself as a curvilinear, or parabolic, line because it does, indeed take time for officers to develop decision-making skills and overcome the rule-bound mentality, or what Reiser (1974) calls the “John Wayne Syndrome.” We believe that in the first year of learning the rules, officers become focused and attach themselves to following those rules. Then at some point after learning those rules, the officers develop independent decision making skills that allow them to detach from those rules and begin following their intuition. Therefore the adherence to rules over time would follow a typical parabolic relationship. With this in mind, we proceed in the following sections to describe our methodology, report our findings, and discuss the implications of these findings.

38 C. LaFrance, J. Day

Methods

Participants and procedures

Our data originated from surveys dealing with the “Target Model” of discretion (See LaFrance 2010a; LaFrance 2010b; LaFrance 2011a; LaFrance 2011b) . We mailed surveys to three police departments in the West Central Illinois/East Central Iowa region, and, to enable us to test for regional effects, one police department in Georgia. In total, our efforts yielded 97 responses. Of the 97 respondents, 28 were command staff members and nine officers were women. There was very little racial diversity in these agencies. All but four respondents were Caucasian. Participants were asked to rank nine factors that research has shown to influence discretionary decision-making. To assist in conceptualizing this task, respondents were provided with a multi-ringed target. This target served as a metaphor, with the most important priorities being placed in the rings closest to the target’s center and priorities of lesser importance being placed in the outer rings of the target.

Variables of interest and model specification

Since we believe that the priority an officer places on SOPs is parabolic in relation to the number of years of experience in law enforcement, we must use a quadratic equation in our statistical model to represent this relationship. Therefore, we have a variable for the number of years in law enforcement and we include this variable squared. We expect that the coefficient on the variable for years in law enforcement to be negative because we think that during the first years, the priority that an officer places on SOPs will increase (i.e. the number of rings away from the bulls eye of the target will decrease). Also, we expect the coefficient on the square of this variable to be positive and smaller than the coefficient on the original variable because we believe that at some point in an officer’s career, the priority they place on SOPs will begin to decrease. The statistical model will let us know the tipping point (i.e. the average number of years of experience where officers begin to decrease their priority on SOPs). Other control variables include whether the officer is in the command staff, an interaction between command staff and years in law enforcement, and a dummy variable for the sample taken from Georgia. These control variables are added into the model because we believe that commanding officers will have a different relationship with the change they place on SOPs as they increase in experience and there will be a difference in SOP priority between those in the Midwest and those in the South. The descriptive statistics for all these variables are found in Table 1. As the descriptive statistics show, the sample is very diverse in years of experience. The number of years in law enforcement for the officers in the sample range from 1 year to 34 years.

Results

The results of the statistical model are displayed in Table 2. Every variable in the model is statistically significant and the results show that it takes an average of 9 years before the priority that an officer places on SOPs stops increasing and begins

The Role of Experience in Prioritizing Adherence to SOPs... 39

to decrease. The results further show that most officers begin to experience the tipping point between 5 and 13 years. This lends statistical support to anecdotal evidence that 5 years is when officers start to lose the John Wayne Syndrome (Reiser 1974; LaFrance 2010b). Surprisingly, command staff members initially place a lower priority on SOPs than non-command staff, but over time, more experienced command staff officers place an increasingly greater emphasis on SOPs. This is most likely explained by the fact that longer-serving command staff members are likely to have some personal input in the formulation of agency SOPs.

The dummy variable for Georgia, shows that officers in the South have a higher priority on SOPs than those in the Midwest. The reason for this could be that Southern states are reputed to have a traditionalistic political culture that discourages independence and innovation at the expense of following rules (Elazar 1972).

The graph in Fig. 1 shows the average priority officers place on SOPs over the course of their careers. It shows that the priority that an officer places on SOPs greatly decreases every year after 9 years in law enforcement. This lends credence to the notion that officers develop a degree of discretionary autonomy and become less reliant on agency standard operating procedures.

Table 2 OLS Regression on Importance Placed on Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)

Model Coefficients (Standard Errors) t statistics (p-value)

Total Years in Law Enforcement −.113* (.049) −2.303 (.024) Total Years in Law Enforcement Squared .006** (.002) 3.775 (0.001)

Command Staff 1.985** (.686) 2.894 (.005)

Command Staff X Total Years in Law Enforcement −.147** (.037) −3.963 (0.001) Georgia Dummy Variable −.844** (.311) −2.718 (0.008) Constant 2.276** (.329) 6.921 (0.001)

R square .306

Adjusted R square .267

Standard Error of Estimate 1.1

*0p<.05, **0p<.01

Table 1 Descriptive Statistics of Variables

Variable Mean Standard Deviation Minimum Maximum

Years in Law Enforcement 13.24 8.5 1 34

Years in Law Enforcement Squared 246.9 272.26 1 1156

Command Staff .29 .46 0 1

Command Staff X Years in Law Enforcement 5.03 8.94 0 34

Georgia .175 .38 0 1

40 C. LaFrance, J. Day

Discussion I: a normative debate over the role of rules

Our study revisits a classic debate inherent in structural-functional theories of organ- izations. One the one hand, scholars like Merton (1940) argue that bureaucratic structural arrangements tend to result in an unhealthy attachment and overreliance on agency rules (SOPs). Over time, Merton argues, this tendency can result in goal displacement, a phenomenon that occurs when a bureaucrat becomes so enamored with agency rules that adherence to these rules become the goals he or she works to fulfill, rather than the goals derived from the agency’s mission or legislative autho- rization. Opponents of this perspective, such as Cohen (1970) argue that bureaucratic shortcomings do not result from over-adherence to SOPs. Instead, Cohen contends, bureaucracies have a reputation of inefficiency due to too much flexibility in inter- preting the rules. One of the authors of this study heard a similar message articulated by a law enforcement manager, who claimed that acting outside of the SOP will quickly become the new SOP for an agency. This fear is reiterated by other scholars (Lipsky 1980; Lowi 1969), who claim that street level bureaucrats have too much discretion and that legislative bodies exacerbate this problem because the bills they write are far too ambiguous and vague.

Our study is interesting because it substantiates both schools of thought on the topic of rule commitment. Merton’s argument, that SOPs are strictly relied upon, is shown to have some credence in the formative years of an officer’s career. Later on, flexibility appears to become the norm in that rules become less of a priority for veteran officers. Future studies of the “bureaucratic personality” might conceptualize bureaucratic tendencies in less absolute terms, looking instead for changes in a bureaucrat’s commitment to rules over time.

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33

P ri

o ri

ty P

la c e d

o n

S

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Years in Law Enforcement

Priority Level of SOPs

Priority Level of SOPs

Fig. 1 Graph of the Priority Level of SOPs during an Officer’s Career

The Role of Experience in Prioritizing Adherence to SOPs... 41

Other Considerations

In addition to experience, research shows that officers’ adherence to rules is influ- enced by the legitimacy with which they perceive command staff members and whether the rules are compatible with their personal morality (Tyler et al. 2007). Future research should consider these variables in explaining adherence to SOPs.

Discussion II: analyzing our findings through the lens of contemporary organization/public management theory

While our study has provided insight into the enduring caricature of rule-bound bureaucrats, this paper also provides a glimpse into the application of more recent scholarly work in organization theory and public management. Given our results, we are forced to concede that there is more to our research puzzle than antiquated structural-functional theories of organization might suggest. It is not sufficient to point out that officers begin to place less importance on agency SOPs over time. Here, we must step beyond the immediate results and consider the relative influence of other factors that go into one’s discretionary decision-making. Fortunately, this is the explicit purpose of the Target Model of Discretion referenced earlier. In this section, we will consider how the Target Model, in concert with recent public management and organization theory literature, can provide a broader view of the discretionary dynamic.

A brief explanation of the target model of discretion

The Target Model is meant to add nuance to discussions of officer discretion. Until very recently, scholars have used Dworkin’s (1977) “doughnut” metaphor to explain police discretion. In this model, discretion in envisioned as a series of decisions and actions that take place in the center of a doughnut. These discretionary behaviors are limited by a ring of constraint, depicted as the doughnut itself. This model is flawed for two reasons. Foremost, it assumes a single ring of constraint made up of all the factors that influence an officer’s discretion at a given moment. In short, the doughnut model fails to separate each individual factor influencing discretion for analysis. Secondly, and more germane to the discussion at hand, the doughnut model assumes that all the influences on discretion are given the same priority by an officer. To remedy these flaws, researchers advanced the Target Model of Discretion (LaFrance 2011a; LaFrance 2010a), wherein discretion is presented as a multi-ringed target. The bull’s eye of this target represents discretion. Each ring of the target represents a single factor that is apt to influence discretion. A thorough review of the criminal justice and public administration literature allows us to identify nine variables that have been shown to influence officer discretion: (1) personal values, (2) community norms, (3) peer group norms and the informal organization, (4) departmental standard operating procedures, (5) legal liability, (6) expectations from accreditation bodies, (7) expectations from various professional associations, (8) political pressures, and (9) behaviors of other managers. (LaFrance 2011b). The proximity of each ring

42 C. LaFrance, J. Day

represents the priority level that a particular factor has been ascribed by an officer. While we have considered the priority level ascribed to SOPs, we have not yet explained how these other discretionary factors might become more important to a public servant over time. In the following section, we will evaluate the three most crucial determinants on discretion that officers cite in their discretionary choices.

Personal values

In previous studies of the Target Model, officers have, in the aggregate, cited the influence category labeled personal values as the second most important discretionary category behind agency SOPs (LaFrance 2011b). In short, personality affects orga- nization behavior (Argyris 1973). This comes as no surprise, given the fact that each of us constructs a personal moral or ethical code based upon our personal experi- ences, demographic characteristics, and cultural background. This personal code, scholars argue, provide a public employee with his or her subject position, or collection of values and decisions, in a given circumstance (Maynard-Moody and Musheno 2000). Maynard-Moody and Musheno (2000, p. 329) argue that these subject positions compel public employees to respond to “individuals and circum- stances” instead of “rules, procedures, and law.” If this is the case, then the findings of the current study might demonstrate that the subject position(s) one develops as a public employee are not immediately formed. That is, since one’s attitudes, behav- iors, and cognitive heuristics and schemas are predicated on experience, officers must first experience a range of “individuals and circumstances” before their personal values will be sufficiently solidified to become a primary influence on discretion.

This line of reasoning fits nicely with the “John Wayne Syndrome” cited above (Reiser 1974), where officers are more apt to view decision-making and law enforce- ment activity as dualistic, “right or wrong”, phenomena. Because they have not yet developed the personal compass necessary to consider the various shades of grey inherent in the exercise of discretion, inexperienced officers can understandably come to rely on codified agency rules to inform their decisions. Over time, however, this “state agent” model of bureaucratic behavior can give way to one’s personal values or subject positions. Moreover, because the collection of individual subject positions and values cannot be codified in a single agency policy manual, the policy manual itself might become less relevant to an officer’s activity as he or she develops these values.

It is important to note that command staff members become even more committed to SOPs over time. At first glance, this seems puzzling given the preceding discussion of the development of personal values. However, thoughtful scholars can quickly unravel this puzzle by appreciating the fact that the SOPs created by top management are often reflective of top managers’ personal values and experiences. Because they can codify their personal values, top managers have little need to deviate from the SOPs that they write and promulgate. One author’s experience in conducting inter- views with sheriffs and police chiefs provides anecdotal evidence of this fact, when the author heard command staff members in a variety of agencies refer to the agency SOP manual as “my SOPs” and”my policies.” It is useful to note, then, that one way managers might reinforce the importance of an agency’s SOPs could be to make the

The Role of Experience in Prioritizing Adherence to SOPs... 43

process of writing and implementing SOPs a democratic, participative endeavor. This could provide a venue for organization development that could assist command staff members and their subordinates in creating a mission, vision, and other components of an agency-wide strategic plan. The personal values category, then, provides some potential explanatory capacity for the findings we have uncovered. More broadly, this category speaks to the utility of cognitive approaches to organization management, as each worker’s attitudes, behaviors, and cognitions interact with the organization itself as well as the task environment to bring about decisions and actions that one makes and takes in his or her organizational role (Wood and Bandura 1989; Fioretti and Visser 2004). Next, we will explore the importance of legal liability.

Legal liability

LaFrance (2011b) found that, in the aggregate, legal liability is the third most influential factor on front line officer discretion. There are two bodies of literature that account for the high priority level this category brings to bear. The accountability literature would argue that officers prize legal liability considerations because they want to ward off the threat of civil and criminal suits that could result from stepping outside the boundaries of the law (Romzek and Dubnick 1987). There is merit to this argument, especially in the field of law enforcement, where officers are threatened with lawsuits on a regular basis. In addition to this relatively simple concept from the accountability literature, scholars such as John Rohr (1986) explain that legal liability consists of much more than avoiding sanctions from external sources. Instead, Rohr (1986; 1998) argues, legal liability is rooted in the Constitution’s grant of authority to public administrators. To Rohr (1986; 1998), a bureaucrat’s chief allegiance should be to the supreme law of the land rather than state or local laws, much less a narrow set of agency SOPs. Because the Constitution intends for bureaucracies to be the most representative institutions of government, bureaucrats have a staunch obligation to base their decisions upon the tenets of this governing document, and by doing so, provide responsiveness to members of their communities and nation. This idea is closely related to the Target Model’s inclusion of a community norms category, which we will explore next.

Community norms

Previous research shows that front line officers, in the aggregate, select community norms as the fourth most important influence on their discretionary decisions (LaFrance 2011a; LaFrance 2011b). It is sensible to suggest that front line officers come to appreciate and respect community norms because they interact directly with members of the community on a daily basis. This results in less mechanical, “John Wayne” style enforcement activity because it allows front line officers to see the necessity of long- term relationships with community members. Appreciating the norms and customs of a community is the primary mechanism through which officers are able to demon- strate respect and concern for citizens. Because respect is often a reciprocal phenom- enon, showing community members that one values their norms can pay off as an officer is gradually seen to be a part of the community he is charged with serving and protecting. Becoming a member of one’s service community is integral in building

44 C. LaFrance, J. Day

trust with citizens who can provide useful information and assistance to the officer. Through the process of mutual acknowledgement of shared community, cynical, “us vs. them” perspectives of citizens toward local law enforcement can erode. This paves the way for more open dialogue and the establishment of shared goals between the agency and the community.

The preceding rationale for appreciating community norms has been extremely influential in criminal justice literature and practice over the past three decades, resulting in an almost paradigmatic reverence for “community-oriented policing” (Goldstein 1987; Greene and Mastrofski 1988), “community-based policing” (Clairmont 1991; Mur- phy and Muir 1985; Groenewald and Peake 2004), and other variants of the ideas presented in Kelling and Wilson’s (1982) “Broken Windows” article. Interestingly, an agency’s awareness for community norms is premised on the bottom-up transmission of ideas from street level bureaucrats to top managers. This stands in stark contrast to the transmission of rules and orders, which typically flow from the apex of the organization down to the front line employees.

Organizational adaptation to the changing realities of governance

Since these priorities compete with one another for the attention of an officer and his or her manager, the organization could be slower to adapt to changing realities within their service jurisdictions than might be desirable. Still, awareness of the community and its norms highlights the fact that organizations do not operate in isolation from their task environments (Easton 1953). Law enforcement managers are attuned to this fact, and often take measures to cooperate with actors in related systems of govern- ment, including local legislators, public health officials, other law enforcement managers, court officials, and others (LaFrance and Placide 2010; LaFrance and Allen 2010; LaFrance 2012). The importance placed on community norms provides evidence of organizational adaptation to the environment. This adaptation assists the organization’s members in integrating new information and basing future decisions off of this data. That is, the agency can become a learning organization that is more nimble and flexible than older views of rule-bound public sector bureaucracies would portend (O’Keeffe 2002; Huber 1991; Farazmand 2003). Organizational learning and its consequent adaptations have replaced the incremental model of muddling through in many organizations, as we continue to enter an age of new governance arrange- ments predicated on uncertainty, ambiguity, and dynamic relationships between organizations and levels of government (Farazmand 2003; Paquet 2005; Kettl 2000). Traditional, vending machine models of public service provision are useless in the face of collaborative partnerships are forged in an effort to deal with non- routine, sometimes “wicked” problems that an SOP manual simply cannot foresee, much less provide detailed instruction for action (Kettl 2008). In this era of new governance, accountability is diffused and shared by the participants in governance arrangements (Kettl 2008), leading many street level bureaucrats to wonder not if they should adhere to rules and policies, but to whose rules and policies. Standard operating procedures, because they are unique to each agency, are difficult to transfer to an arena populated by a myriad of agencies. In light of this, top managers and street level bureaucrats are being forced to make hasty agreements through discussions with

The Role of Experience in Prioritizing Adherence to SOPs... 45

their counterparts in other agencies and other jurisdictions (Frederickson 1999). Considering this state of affairs, it should not surprise the reader that front line officers, over time, begin to think beyond the rules of their respective agencies. From the perspective of classical theorists in public administration who sought to standard- ize individual behaviors within an organization and develop universal principles of managing organizations (Wilson 1887; Gulick 1937), it is ironic that organizational survival might, in fact, be reached only through the aggregate rule-bending of an agency’s front-line employees.

Conclusion

Our results lend credence to the hypothesized parabolic relationship between experience and the level of importance officers attribute to agency standard operating procedures. However, future research with larger samples (perhaps from other regions) is necessary before any generalizations can be made. Despite the limitations at hand with the present study, we have mustered some empirical evidence that substantiates anecdotes and propositions regarding the experience-discretion relationship. We have tapped into what may prove to be fertile ground for detailed research on standard operating procedures as a source of discretionary constraint among police officers. We urge scholars to replicate and expand our work with additional projects.

Perhaps more importantly, we have shown the versatility of the target model in bridging classical organization theory with more contemporary literature concerning cognitive organization theory and relatively new literature bent on exploring the new avenues of governance upon which public organizations have begun to travel.

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The Role of Experience in Prioritizing Adherence to SOPs... 47

Casey LaFrance is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Western Illinois University. He studies local law enforcement administration and public administration. His previous work has appeared in the International Journal of Police Science & Management, the Law Enforcement Executive Forum, American Politics Research, Judicature, Politics & Policy, and other outlets.

Jonathan Day is an assistant professor in the political science department at Western Illinois University. He studies the presidency, campaigns and elections, and game theory. He has published in the Law Enforce- ment Executive Forum, The Journal of Game Theory, Politics & Policy, and other outlets.

48 C. LaFrance, J. Day

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