NCJ Number
105560
Journal
Policing Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1987) Pages: 48-60
Date Published
1987
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This article reviews some current theories on how the British police should be managed and controlled.
Abstract
Police discretion is a key factor in the management of police behavior. So long as frontline officers exercise discretion in law enforcement, this must be the focal point of police control. One proposal to provide more direction for police discretion is the adoption of the American managerial strategy of 'policing by objectives' (PBO), which imposes rational management principles on police organizations, principles which focus on the operational implementation of precise policy objectives. Coupled with PBO is a proposal for community and line officer input for police policy, which would help ensure that both citizens and the officers exercising discretion will understand agency policy. The PBO proposal, however, is not likely to satisfy many Britishers who advocate local political control of the police. Other views of police control are the 'rejectionist' position, which holds that the police in a capitalist society are inevitably the arm of a repressive state, which must be challenged by citizen groups; the 'formalist' view of the police as a modern institution which has gotten out of control and must be reined in by locally elected police authorities; and the 'realist' view, which holds that the real problem lies in public perceptions of crime and that the police should be more responsive to public perceptions of crime rather than actual crime. Each of the aforementioned views is briefly critiqued.