Police Organization and Policing Environment - Case Study of a Disjuncture

• NCJ Number: 104506
• Journal: Sociological Focus Volume: 20 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1987) Pages: 77-94
• Author(s): J S Slovak
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: An earlier version of this paper was read to the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Toronto, 1981.

Annotation

This article focuses on the problem of organization-environment interfaces in police work.

Abstract

Reporting on data collected in a case study of one American city, it describes and juxtaposes the patterns of services delivered by police in the different neighborhoods of the city with (1) social and economic variations across neighborhoods, (2) attitudes of residents of the neighborhoods toward crime, personal security and the police, (3) police officer preferences for patrol assignments and (4) the formal organizational structure of the local police agency. It finds that police service-delivery varies little across neighborhoods, in conformity with the structure of the agency but in disjuncture with the differentiation characteristic of the neighborhoods, the citizens' attitudes and the police officers' preferences. Concluding note is then taken of the implications of these findings for future research. (Publisher abstract)