Part I
The Nature and Setting of Police
Administration
Chapter 1
Introduction to
Police Administration
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Learning Objectives
1. Understand the importance that administration plays in the
operation of a police department.
2. Develop a familiarity with the roles of management and
organization in police administration.
3. Discuss the role of supervisors, commanders, and administrators in
the police organization.
4. Know the different goals of police organizations and how police
departments attempt to fulfill goals and objectives.
5. Understand the different historical eras of policing and how the
police functioned within each of these eras.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
How the Police Is a
Unique Institution
• Work
– Diversity of roles and tasks
– Charged with a lot of responsibilities
• Authority
– Can arrest and use deadly force
• Availability
– Expected to operate 24/7
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
What Is an Organization?
• A group of people working together to accomplish a goal
• The goal legitimizes the organization.
– Suboptimization occurs when individuals concentrate on their own
objectives without considering the overall goal.
• Consciously coordinated
– Implies management
• Social entity
– Composed of people who interact with each other
• Relatively identifiable boundary
– Jurisdiction or service population
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Police Department
as an Organization
• Line personnel
– Perform fundamental police activities or supervise them
• Staff personnel
– Help line personnel by providing support or assistance
• Boundaries
– The department’s goals and the people it serves
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
What Is Administration?
• The general managing and organizing that occurs at the
highest levels of an organization
• Establishes the department’s purposes, mission,
policies, and procedures
• Develops ways of controlling the department so that
personnel follow the guideposts
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Activities Associated
with Administration
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Planning
Organizing
Staffing
Directing
Coordinating
Reporting
Budgeting
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What Is Organization?
• The structuring and staffing of people in
the department
• Facilitates working relationships and goal
attainment
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
What Is Management?
• The processes administrators, middle managers, and
supervisors use to give an organization direction
• Used to influence people to work toward organizational
goals
• The actions taken by administrators to implement
decisions and policies
• Consists of activities designed to induce cooperation and
facilitate work
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Management Levels
• The typical police organization resembles a
military structure
– Administrators (chief, assistant chief, majors)
– Commanders or midlevel managers (captains and
lieutenants)
– Supervisors (sergeants)
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Role of Managers
• Assist employees by providing the equipment and
technical support necessary for the employee to function
effectively
• Clarify tasks and guide the employee to become more
effective
– Give direction
– Issue policies, procedures, and orders
– Develop employees
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Aspects of Management
• Organizational maintenance
– Activities that maintain the department’s ability to respond to public
needs
– Includes: staffing, training, and organizational development
– Enables the department to be in a better position to respond to
situations
• Adaptation
– Public expectations and needs are constantly changing.
– The department must change and adapt with the public.
– Effective administrators are understanding visionaries.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
How Police Departments Differ From
Other Organizations
• Only the police possess legitimate arrest power and
authority within our society.
• Police departments are government organizations.
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Public organizations exist within a political environment.
Governmental agencies do not have a profit motive.
The government is involved in the provision of services, not goods.
Bureaucratic governmental rules stymie creativity and flexibility.
Government has limited, inflexible resources.
A government must answer to its many and diverse citizens.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Problems of the Service Industry
• Intangible product
• Must have built-in flexibility for responding to
differing service needs
• Higher degree of customer participation
• Must have immediate response timing
• Labor-intensive
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Police Departments’ Mission
• A mission statement gives the department’s purpose.
• Notifies and educates people about the department’s
values
• Establishes what is important
• Establishes a yardstick with which to measure
successes and failures
• Serves as a guide to establishing training and other
socialization programs
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Roles Served by
Police Departments
• Order maintenance
– Focus on order by intervening in fights, etc.
• Service
– Assisting citizens with problems
• Law enforcement
– Focus on arrests and citations
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
What Are Goals?
• The specific results or achievements toward which the
police organization directs its efforts
• Conditions or benchmarks the organization desires to
achieve
• State of affairs the organization strives to realize
• Directly tied to the mission and roles of the organization
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Police Mission in the Political Era
• Characterized as political, decentralized arms of the
local politicians
• Politicians dictated what laws were enforced, who was
hired and who was promoted.
• Primary roles of police:
– Order maintenance
– Provision of services to community
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Police Mission in the
Progressive Reform Era
• Shift from order maintenance and provision of services
to law enforcement or crime fighting
• Police given sole responsibility for crime reduction
• Police used unethical means to meet public expectations
• Police and public became adversaries
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Police Mission in the
Professional Era
• Police became professional law enforcers
• Activities outside of law enforcement were
viewed as chores
• Service role deemphasized
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Police Mission in the
Community Relations Era
• Responded to increased violence by deepening role as crime
fighters
• Emphasis placed on arrests, citations and restoring order
through force
• Created isolation from community
– Large minority population distrusted police and were uncooperative
when confronted by police.
– Crime is usually highest in minority communities.
• Police departments implemented public and community
relations programs.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Return to Law and Order
• Community relations programs of the ‘60s and ‘70s
evolved into crime prevention programs.
• Drug and crime wars persisted.
• Some police began to recognize that law enforcement—
in combination with social services—was a more
effective strategy.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Community Policing Era
• Embraced by politicians and police toward the end of the
’80s and into the ’90s
• Uses participatory management, geographic stability of
assignment, and community involvement
• Police engaged in diverse programs and tactics with the
objective of developing a partnership with citizens to
solve crimes
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Beyond 9/11: Policing and Homeland
Security
• For a police agency to be successful at catching terrorists, it
must have positive relations with citizens and communities.
• Local police are working more closely with state and federal
agencies to collect intelligence and coordinate responses to
threats.
• Police departments are increasing their own intelligence
operations.
• Police are focusing on critical infrastructure vital to
government and business.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning