Police Department
Every organization or institution is run through some specific protocols that have been put in place by the high-level staff; these are mostly the managers and the leadership team. The ability to oversee is a hundred percent linked to a firm’s profits than any other component involvement (Hanson, 1986). We all know the tasks that are usually faced by the managers when it comes to decision making and problem solving, coming up with rules and regulations, and ensuring that they are enforced. ‘An individual carrying the title isn’t necessarily a manager,’ meaning the people who share high-level positions are privileged to be part of the team that makes decisions, create policies and regulations, and contribute to the long term goals of the organization. (Hecht, 1986).
Let’s take an officer as an example; two police officers may have different ticketing drivers depending on the speed limit. On one end, an officer may ticket the driver due to the driver surpassing five or ten miles exceeding the speed limit enlisted. On the other hand, an officer may ticket the driver after exceeding ten miles or more, which is more than the speed limit given. There are policies in check for the speed limit like no exceeding 55 miles per hour, but police officers have their way of enforcing the law; some may ticket drivers when they consider five or ten miles are more than the speed limit posted. Based on this, it’s safe to say that the police officer is the one in charge of deciding on implementing laws and policies and impacting the organization’s goal mission.
Management can be termed as the agency; this may include organizing colleagues, facilitating resources, and offering training and leading staff members and the whole organization (Dwan, 2003). In another definition, a theory can refer to management; scientific management, scientific management implies that the people in charge are to fulfill the maximization of productivity in an organization through selection, organizing tasks, and well execution of tasks. Some people see management as a process that needs to be examined via cases so that the rest can be taught through the use of correct techniques (Dale, 1960)
Current structure and design in the Sheriff’s department
The majority of police and sheriff departments’ current structure is set up so that they are town agencies controlled by the mayor of that particular town. The mayor is responsible for all the department’s activities directly or indirectly; he/she influences the operations. According to the law, the police chief heads the police department but still reports to the mayor eventually. A chain of command is divided into two under the police chief: the operations division, which involves normal line stuff functions such as detective work, police patrolling, traffic law controlling, and other tasks. The second division is called the administrative division, and it involves tasks such as public relations, communications, records keeping, and training (McGrath, 2019). The division may affect civilian employees as well, along with the police officers. As part of the police intelligence, all these divisions are believed to be significant in any police field. Everyone in the various departments (divisions) has a role to play to enforce justice.
The conventional police structure is based on the paramilitary format, which has a firm chain of command that emphasizes directives and orders. There are three levels of management in the police organization; top-level management includes the police chief and assistant chiefs, the middle management, which provides for sergeants and corporals, and the lower power, including the sergeants. It is also vital to note that these departments may further be broken down further and divided in other ways depending on the city and its capacity needs.
Example:
An example of where this type of design is used is the Crete, Nebraska police department. The Crete, Nebraska police agency is structured in that similar design only that there are a few differences in the command chain’s absolute levels. For starters, the chief of police heads the department and is directly answerable to the mayor of Nebraska. Under the law director, the command chain involves four personnel: communications supervisor, patrol sergeant, support sergeant, and the investigations sergeant (McGrath, 2019). All of whom make up the middle management level of the police structure. Under the central management personnel lies the lower management level: the community service officers, dispatchers, police officers, and the law enforcement explorers. The communications supervisor is responsible for maintaining records, controlling warning systems, answering police calls, and assisting visitors in the police premises (McGrath, 2019).
The dispatchers usually work under this department. The patrol sergeant is responsible for answering service calls, doing city patrols, arresting lawbreakers, helping out other investigation agencies, and offering public safety programs. The regular police officers work under this department (McGrath, 2019). The support sergeant is responsible for managing volunteer support programs, maintaining the police’s tools and equipment, and handling minor police offenses. The community service officers usually work under this department (McGrath, 2019). The investigations sergeant is tasked with doing criminal investigations, training the patrol officers with new techniques for undertaking their investigation duties.
The major problem with the design
One of the significant problems with this kind of police structure is the complicated procedures that have to be followed to respond to society’s ever-changing needs and the environment that happens to occur on a day-to-day basis. Another major problem is the issue of management of discretion. Usually, police officers use their choice to come up with a decision; hence there is always that chance that an officer can mishandle or exploit that discretion. In the end, the middle management will be responsible for those actions. With that, most of police management duties can be viewed as the management of police judgment. There’s also a significant problem with this type of structure, which is the disparity that occurs between the middle management and the lower management officers. The more inadequate management are usually focused on performing their duties. In contrast, the middle management officers are mainly focused on how the lower power does that work is presented to the public, and with such, there comes conflict. Each management level can make the work of either difficult and generally making the operations not be efficient.
Recommendation
A specialized police organizational structure would be highly recommended to offer room for specialization in departments and the services provided to better deal with new and upcoming ills of the society conveniently. For example, the police agency could have different specialized units that deal with gangs, juvenile misconducts, drugs and narcotics, terrorism, and cyber-crime (McGrath, 2019). Having these other units will help the officers better concentrate and deal with matters virtually instead of working on general issues. It’s highly recommended that the police agency enforce accreditation as a law to create an environment of a high level of professionalism and accountability.
Accreditation brings about standards through which the police agency’s performance levels can be determined and seen. In general, it will help raise the police agency’s performance standards and improve on the traditional organizational police agencies that do not have techniques to measure performance and determine where to make improvements (Johnson, 2015). Accreditation also enhances the relationship between the public and the police agency; this is due to the trust that will come about from the high standards of performance and professionalism. Accreditation also provides agencies with a pool of knowledge to undertake changes needed and conformity across management levels (Johnson, 2015). Other changes that I would recommend to the police agencies would be to restructure how they undertake their employees’ hiring. It could be done by raising the number of females in the recruitment and the minorities; this will help create a balanced police agency that is balanced and lacks bias.
Example supporting the recommendation
An illustrative example of where a police agency has implemented specialization and accreditation is the Los Angeles police department (Hays, 2005). Looking wholesomely at that police agency, you can see that it has created specialized roles managed by the deputy chiefs under the chief of police in the chain of command in the organizational structure (Hays, 2005). These deputy chiefs are tasked with heading different sections such as community policing and policy, special operations, professional standards bureau, community relations, information technology bureau, counterterrorism, internal affairs, and transit services bureau. These are whole departments solely focused on the different tasks, making them an instrumental police department in undertaking their duties. The Los Angeles police department has also implemented accreditation by having a chief of staff whose responsibilities include ensuring the employees’ performance standards always reach a certain level of professionalism (Hays, 2005).
Another example is the New York City police agency, which employs the specialization technique in undertaking their duties. New York police agency has managed to implement specialization in its organizational structure and created departments such as the crime control plans bureau, intelligence bureau, internal affairs bureau, counterterrorism bureau, community events bureau, collaborative policing bureau, and the special operations bureau. These departments are tasked with handling different specific duties, and in effect, this has mostly improved their performance in terms of tackling and solving issues that needed police attention. The New York police agency has also adopted accreditation in almost all of its subsidiary smaller departments. This has highly raised public confidence with that institution and its affiliates. It has also improved the training of the personnel who work in these departments and, in general, improving the quality of operations. Accreditation has also made it possible for cooperation among law enforcement agencies in the city to be much easier and more cohesive (White, 2014).
Conclusion
In our society, the police department has been working round the clock to ensure that people in the community are safe. Through accreditation, the police department’s performance can be determined and rated by society, improving the interaction between the two parties. It’s with structure and organization that makes the whole police department competent with the services they provide.
References
Allen, J. M., & Sawhney, R. (2009). Administration and management in criminal justice: A service quality approach. Sage.
Cordner, G. (2017). Police culture: individual and organizational differences in police officer perspectives. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management.
Johnson, A. D. (2019). Police Subcultural Traits and Police Organizational Failure. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences, 14(2), 120-131.
McCarty, W. P., & Dewald, S. (2017). Sheriff’s deputies and police officers: comparing their views. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management.