Management and Control of Organizations - Occupational Deviance, Responsibility and Accountability

• NCJ Number: 81657
• Journal: Police Science Abstracts Volume: 9 Issue: 6 Dated: (1981) Pages: i-iv
• Author(s): M Punch
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 4 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: Netherlands

Annotation

Based primarily upon an examination of the aftermath of the corruption scandal in the Amsterdam Police in the late 1970's, the nature of the police organization, the police occupational culture, and police work are examined from a symbolic interactionist sociological perspective.

Abstract

The corruption in the Amsterdam Police involved an assortment of illegal activity, including entrapment and receiving gifts and payments from known or reputed criminals. The illegal practices were apparently most common among plainclothes officers involved in the investigation of illegal drug trafficking, vice, and aliens. The aftermath of the corruption revelations was marked by protracted conflict between the lower ranks and senior officers as each sought to fix blame on the other group for the corruption. A major conflict of interest is latent in virtually every police department, which mirrors that between bosses and workers in many organizations, but which becomes acute on occasions when moral blame is being distributed. The Amsterdam situation exposed a deep dichotomy between the values, styles, and vulnerability of lower ranks and senior officers, characterized by social distance, mutual mistrust, and varying levels of manipulation, control, and acquiescence in deviant practices. The Amsterdam Police represented the classic deficiencies of a public bureaucracy. The system produced leaders with low managerial competence, lacking vision and administrative skills, incapable of formulating and implementing policies, and addicted to formal rules and procedures which were no longer effective or useful. The fundamental problem for the police organization is to select and develop senior officers with experience and insight in practical police work who are also managerially competent. The needed change in police organization will require a combination of political will, research and evaluation, experiment in organizational change, improved training for senior officers, and motivation for change within the police themselves.