NCJ Number
81027
Journal
Public Management Dated: (December 1979) Pages: 1,3-4
Date Published
1979
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Changes in policing over the past 15 years are reviewed, and factors likely to affect policing in the future are identified.
Abstract
The last 15 years have seen many police forces moving from being dominated by white males with only high school educations to agencies with significant minority and female personnel, as well as management and line personnel with college and even graduate degrees. These trends have brought a new openness to innovations in policing and an increased emphasis on police-community relations. Personnel with advanced academic backgrounds have been more open to the importance of research as a means of evaluating policing methods, so that inefficiency and ineffectiveness do not become as entrenched as in the past. In the coming decade, police will need even more capable management, more research, and a continued dedication to improving police-community relations, particularly with minorities. Police must become even more productive with fewer resources since funding for police is dropping, and the impetus for reform and governmental and community commitment to improve policing is waning. Police management must not only cope with financial austerity in the years ahead but also aggressive police unionism, which often involves the obstruction of management policy. No references are cited.