NCJ Number
104246
Date Published
1986
Length
240 pages
Annotation
This book relates key advances in management and organization theory to policing in Britain and America.
Abstract
A review of the problems currently besetting police managers focuses on the increasing number of employees to manage, increased police specialization, technological changes, and social changes. The importance of basing police practice in theory is discussed, with particular attention to the setting of policing goals. A discussion of the ambiguities attending police goal setting notes that this makes policing objectives matters of contention. This means that the generation, legitimation, and substance of police goals must be derived from consultation with community representatives. The book examines how organizational, economic, and human resources are used by police managers to implement goals. Police management challenges considered include bureaucratic systems, monetary constraints, and the dilemmas inherent in policing. A discussion of occupational perspectives and police behavior considers police officer characteristics; the general form of police work and its implications for attitudes, orientations, and behavior; police role diversity; and police socialization. The concluding chapter suggests how the power of the police manager may best be exercised in consultation with the community. 214-item bibliography and subject index.