NCJ Number
86236
Date Published
Unknown
Length
48 pages
Annotation
This study develops several of the components believed to be necessary for an understanding of intra- and interorganizational influences on public service delivery, particularly police services.
Abstract
The study begins with a consideration of an output or production function for a bureau and discusses how such a function, once empirically estimated, could be used to examine bureau behavior. Then the technical exigencies of production functions are examined, and the psychological factors likely to influence managerial decisionmaking in public bureaus are considered. A third theoretical section discusses how different service delivery structures may affect bureaucratic supply, i.e., how might the technical, psychological, and behavioral aspects of a bureaucratic supply model change from one form of service delivery structure to another. Overall, the models proposed include an output or production function model, a model of bureau supply that suggests utility maximizing bureau chiefs may tradeoff increments of net community benefits for status-raising choices of personnel deployment, and a model of some ways that interorganizational structure might influence such trade-offs. The empirical section develops production function estimates for the police outputs of response capacity and arrests for serious crimes. This is a report on work in progress, and continuing efforts at the methodological level involve developing alternative specifications for output functions which move toward simultaneous estimation of functions for multiple outputs. At the theoretical level, the study is moving toward more complete specifications of intra- and interorganizational influences on bureau decisionmaking. Tabular and graphic data, 42 bibliographic listings, and 7 footnotes are provided.