Departmental Project: Strategic Plan Departmental

Departmental Project: Strategic Plan Departmental project strategic plan The police department has recently been faced with a surge in violent crimes (homicide, sexual assault and robbery) and it faces increased pressure to address the raise in criminality. In order to attain this objective, it will restructure its internal construction in the meaning that it will add six new departments to the task force aimed at fighting violent crimes. These departments include the following: Administrative Emergency unit Crime analysis Citizen complaints Investigations Crime prevention unit.

The administrative department is currently a separate entity, which is too large and too complex to efficiently handle department specific issues. In such a setting then, it will be useful to integrate an administrative division within the new structure of the task force in order to better manage the operations of the unit. The administrators of the task force will have particular skills in administration and will report to their supervisors in the larger administrative department.

They will also offer support and guidance to the task force relative to administrative issues, rather than operational. They will, for instance, allocate and review the budgets, comprise the schedules, assign tasks and so on. The emergency unit is in charge of quickly intervening and responding to crisis situations. The need for this department is revealed when violent crimes occur and the task force has the ability to intervene in real time, rather than after the fact.

This unit will be formed from regular police officers, who have special training in emergency situations. Under regular circumstances, they will act as police staffs, assigned the regular tasks and duties. The crime analysis unit is in charge of the forensics of criminality, such as the processing of a crime scene or the analysis of the collected evidence. They provide the material proof to find out what happened in a given situation or to bring the guilty parties in front of justice. This department is essential to fighting violent crimes.

The behavior recognition unit is in charge of assessing the behavior of people, such as suspects, witnesses or other individuals who might play a notable role in helping to solve a crime situation. The behavior specialists have the ability to identify when people are telling the truth or lying, helping as such to advance the investigation. Additionally, behavior specialists can also understand and foresee the behavior of criminals, which would make them more easily to catch and also to stop before committing other crimes.

All these features make the behavior unit a valuable component of the crime task force. The citizens' complaints unit might initially seem as a unit without much relevance for violent crime fighting, but, in essence, it is rather important. While taking complaints from citizens, the task force can identify new crimes, receive valuable information on violent crimes they are investigating, or even understand potential threats and mitigate them. In such a context, the citizen complaints unit will also be integrated within the task force.

The fifth unit -- and the core of the entire department -- is represented by the investigations unit, which will be in charge of assessing crimes, pursuing and solving them. This unit will be at the center of the department and will fully and extensively collaborate with all of the other units in order to gather and process any information linked to a case, such as forensic evidence, citizen complaints, witness testimonies, suspect interrogations and so on.

Last, the final unit to be integrated in the task force for fighting is represented by the crime prevention unit. The rationale for integrating this unit is based on the fact that crimes -- like most of all other social problems -- are easier to prevent than to deal with afterwards.

Within this unit, emphasis is placed on watching people and businesses for any indication of criminal behavior, ensuring the safety of children (providing the names of offenders), providing tips for safety and crime prevention and so on (Bloomington MN Government Site). Aside from the departments to be included, the discussion at this level should also focus on the departments that will not be included in the new effort to fight violent crime.

These four departments that will not be included in the task force include the following: training, traffic investigation unit, personnel unit and the records keeping unit. Al these units have some connection with crime fighting, but can collaborate with the task force, without needing to be included within it. The training unit is in charge of forming the police staffs for the future; it focuses on providing them with the theoretical and practical knowledge to respond to the safety needs of the population.

Its interaction with other units within the task force is rather limited, being mostly an educational effort. The new recruits nevertheless are gradually introduced to the force and they gain practical experience by interacting with the task force. While this effort is vital, it is less relevant in the context of dealing with violent crime, where the staffs have the priority of decreasing crime, rather than forming new police staffs.

The traffic investigation unit is in charge of preventing and addressing crimes that occur in traffic, accidents or any other incidents reported by the participants to traffic. While the findings of this unit might sometimes be relevant to fighting violent crimes, it has to be recognized that the activities it undergoes are different from those of the task force. In such a setting, the two units would collaborate and hare information, when this is necessary, but will not be integrated within the same department.