Organizational Culture and How It Is Taught in Excellent Police Service Agencies Now and in the Year 2000

• NCJ Number: 110409
• Author(s): S H Staveley
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 54 pages
• Corporate Author: California Cmssn on Peace Officer Standards and Training
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services; POST Media Distribution Ctr
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Structured personal interviews with a number of experienced police executives provide information used to develop a descriptive model for changing police organizational culture.

Abstract

The interview group defined culture as a commonly held set of beliefs about an organization's purpose, how it achieves that purpose, the way people in the organization are treated, and the way the organization operates. The challenge for police executives is to change existing police organizational culture to another cultural format that better reflects enlightened policing goals. The fostering of such cultural change involves having a clear view of what police organizational values should be, exposing the inadequacy of the existing culture, modeling and selling the new culture to existing and new employees, and rewarding those who model the new culture. A central feature in the fostering of cultural change in a police organization is the hiring and training of new personnel. The chief should ensure that hiring criteria and training content as well as field training reflect and model the beliefs, values, and behaviors that constitute the envisioned culture. Interview form, 22 footnotes, 59-item bibliography.