Part I
The Nature and Setting
of Police Administration
Chapter 2
The Environment
of Administration
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Learning Objectives
1. Identify several organizational environments.
2. Discuss how police departments respond to their organizational environments.
3. Distinguish why a police department must be an open system and respond to its
environment.
4. Understand the nature of politics and how politics affects the police organization.
5. Identify a community’s power structure and its implications for the police manager.
6. Evaluate the relationship between the police and community, and understand the barriers
to developing better relationships.
7. Discuss community policing and its ability to improve police-community relationships.
8. Discuss the role of the media in police administration and how the police executive can
develop better relations with the media.
9. Understand the meaning and implication of cultural diversity within the context of policing.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Environment of Government
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Technological
Legal
Political
Economic
Demographic
Ecological
Cultural
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Reactions to the Environment
• The theory of uncertainty and dependence
– Organizations must maintain a balance throughout changes
between organizational outcomes and environmental
expectations.
– Organizations are dependent on the environment and citizen
support.
• The theory of natural selection
– Some organizations react to their environments more efficiently
than others.
– Organizations that don’t efficiently meet environmental demands
are eliminated.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Interaction between Environment and
Organization
• “Closed” System Model
– Organizations are insulated and closed off from their
environments.
• “Open” System Model
– Organizations exist in a complex environment they
can’t shut out.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Closed Systems
• Planning, decision-making, and day-to-day operations are
conducted without regard to the environment.
• Belief that a department’s agenda should be set by its own
administrators, not the community
– Results in isolationism, ineffectiveness, and sometimes failure on the
part of the police department
• Focus on traditionalism: how things have always been done
– Reduces agency’s ability to cope with changes in the community
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Open Systems
• Organization is involved in dynamic interaction with
environment
• Reacts to changes in the environment by balancing the
actions of the organization
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Police and Political/Governmental
Interaction
• Separation of Powers
– Government is divided into three branches:
1. Legislative
2. Executive
3. Judicial
• Federalism
– Three-tiered form of government providing checks and balances:
1. Federal
2. State
3. Local
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Forms of City Government
• Council-Manager Form
– Separates politics from administration
• Mayor-Council Form
– Strong mayor configuration: mayor is primary administrator exercising
control over departments
– Weak mayor configuration: mayor’s power is limited, in that policy
making and administration rests with the council
• City Commission Form
– Each member of the council also serves as the head of one or more of
the city’s departments
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Three Types of Municipal Executives
• Misfeasors
– Exert a great deal of effort to become involved and get things
going
• Nonfeasors
– Frequently abdicate their authority, choosing to do little or
nothing to avoid upsetting community leaders
• Malfeasors
– Promote corrupt practices or allow them to exist within
government
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Relationships between Municipal and
Police Executives
• Team Approach
– Police and government executives form an active partnership and
collaborate in much of the police decision and policy making
• Professional Autonomy Approach
– Police executive has virtual autonomy over police formulation
– Police and government executives negotiate budget issues
• Political Activist Approach
– Governmental executives perceive themselves as the primary law
enforcement executive and dictate policy to police chiefs
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Community Power Structure and
the Police
• The community exerts a variety of influences on its police
department.
• Community power: the politics, decision-making, and other
processes that determine community direction
• Community power structure is dependent on variables.
• Pluralism: taking more than one idea, concept, or principle
into account
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Threats to Police—Community
Relationships
•
•
•
•
•
•
Excessive force
Police corruption
Rudeness
Authoritarianism
Politics
Racial profiling or biased policing
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Evolution of Community Policing
• Police-community relations programs of
the 1950s and 1960s
• Team policing strategies of the 1970s
• Increase in citizen fear of crime and drugs
that began to dominate public policy
formation in the 1980s
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Community Disorder and Crime
• Broken windows
– Deterioration of neighborhood quality of life begins with minor
neglect and disorder problems.
– Unchecked minor problems worsen over time.
– The best way to attack crime is to deal with minor problems
before they become major problems.
• Problem solving
– Need to solve problems, not just symptoms of problems
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Themes of Community Policing
1. The police should be accountable to the community.
2. They should be connected and integrated into the
community on a personal level.
3. They should be oriented to solving general problems
instead of focusing on incidents.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
What Is Community Policing?
• A cooperative effort to substantively solve crime and
disorder problems
• Community Partnerships
– Efforts by the police to work with the community to solve
common problems
• Problem Solving
– Act of identifying problems that are issues with the police and
public, and attempting to solve them rather than merely respond
to them
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
The Media: The Police Department’s
Window to the World
• Media characterizations of police influence public
perceptions and expectations of the police.
• Members of media consider themselves to be the
“fourth branch of government.”
– Dispensing truth and reporting the news
– Constructing a “social reality” of crime and government
– News may be “packaged” so that sales are maximized
• Police and the media depend on each other.
• Police and the media sometimes face conflict.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Managing the Police-Media
Relationship
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Assign a public information officer from the police to deal with the media.
Encourage reporters to participate in police ride-alongs.
Train police officers in media relations.
Give reporters free access to all departmental records that are legally
available to them.
Conduct regular meetings between police and media.
Have police officials participate in broadcasts to open communications
with the public.
Issue press credentials to give legitimate reporters access to information.
Train public information officer in conflict management.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Cultural Diversity
• The number and population of various cultural and ethnic
groups residing in a community
• Vast social, political, and economic differences among
the many subcultures in our society
• Disadvantaged cultures view the police as an arm of the
dominant class with the primary function of repressing
them.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning
Value Statements of
Community Policing
1. Protecting constitutional rights and democratic values.
2. Engaging a wide range of police resources to further the ends of crime
reduction.
3. Engaging in crime prevention.
4. Developing an understanding of neighborhood crime problems and the
corresponding concerns of citizens.
5. Conducting themselves with integrity and honesty.
6. Soliciting citizen input into the police enterprise.
7. Encouraging and developing community partnerships for improving the
community.
© 2011 Delmar, Cengage Learning