In Thompson's version of a bureaupathology, the actions of individuals do not advance society or themselves, but rather the goals and objectives of the bureaucracy itself, which may not even benefit society as a whole. Individual members become subordinates to authority positions that often find themselves overly arrogant, and potentially even corrupt because of the lack of accountability other members of the bureaucracy hold them to.
There are a number of examples which O'Hara gives of failed strategies that clearly resemble Thompson's idea of a bureaupathology. First, in the prologue, O'Hara discusses Hoover's FBI and how it failed to adhere to the very laws it was supposed to protect with arrogance and exaggerated sense of power leading Hoover to take on personal vendettas, secretly spy on American citizens, and negatively influence the process of American politics. Moreover, O'Hara provides another example of the Philadelphia Police Department and its correlation to the MOVE organization in 1995. Here, the department had compiled a cult-like environment, which discouraged dissent from within the ranks. The blind acceptance of bureau policies eventually led to a debacle where police officers and citizens were placed in immediate danger.
As technology and policy changes continue to evolve within modern law enforcement agencies and other industry organizations, there has been a clear connection to accidents and malfunctions caused as a result of complex interactions between these evolving elements. Normal Accidents are inevitable incidences which occur as technology...
As the environment within industries becomes more complex, there is a greater risk of accidents occurring because of a lack of understanding or ability to deal with these complexities. These accidents are found in almost all industries that are being impacted by innovations of technology.
However, these normal accidents become much more dangerous and potentially damaging within the context of a law enforcement agency. Because law enforcement empowers officers with weapons and the ability to take action in dangerous situations, incidences of normal accidents become incredibly problematic. A normal accident could involve a new weapon that misfires, or a new piece of technology that fails and isolates officers from one another in a crucial situation like a hostage situation or high speed chase. In such crucial cases, there is a need to maintain and avoid normal accidents much more in law enforcement than in any other industry.
Most agencies work tirelessly to use policy manuals as quality control or audits as oversights in order to contain normal accidents from causing devastating consequences. There are definitely advantages to having mandatory training hours with new technologies and enforcing a very strict code of conduct within new law enforcement strategies. Still, these systems do not always work. It is inevitable that some normal accidents will fall through the cracks. Still, it is the occurrence of such accidents that will allow law enforcement agencies to tailor more innovative strategies to avoid such accidents in the future.
