Police administration and organizational management

Law Enforcement & Police Administration

Explain what is meant by community policing. What strategies are involved? Identify examples of community policing.

Community policing refers, generally, to a philosophy of policing that emphasizes developing closer connection to the community, crime prevention rather than criminal apprehension, and a decentralized organizational and administrative functions.

The primary strategies involved are rapport-building programs that promote good community relations, foot-patrol that includes relationship-building community interaction, and crime deterrence over RMP sector patrol, criminal apprehension and building cases for prosecution.

Examples of community policing include:

community-based relationship-building activities such as presentations by police officers at career fairs and youth tours of police facilities;

officers on foot patrol de-emphasizing motorized sector patrol and locating crimes in progress; cultivation of rapport with local merchants; and establishing a deterrence by their visible foot presence.

2. Explain why it is inevitable that police officers have discretion in their duties. Give an example of police discretion.

Discretion is natural within first-line patrol officers for several reasons. First, technical violations of law are so numerous, that it would be impossible to fulfill the full spectrum of patrol responsibilities if every motorist who exceeded the posted speed limit by one mile per hour, or parked farther than twelve inches from the curb, or who spat on the ground required police action without discretion to focus on more important violations of law. Second, informal verbal warnings or instructions are sometimes more effective than strict enforcement, particularly in the community policing model. Third, laws are often vague, requiring interpretation in their application

3. Explain the difference between an open and closed system. What is feedback and why is it so important?

The primary difference between open and closed systems, especially in the context of policing philosophy, is that open systems incorporate community input into procedures and operational focus whereas closed systems do not. Closed systems develop operational focus and direction of resources completely independently. Openness in this regard is especially important in community policing..

Open-looped systems, on the other hand, are systems that include a feedback mechanism, whereas open-looped systems do not. Therefore, in the context of policing, open-looped systems would invest less in monitoring the results of operational strategies and procedures and would typically implement changes based mainly on the basis of compliance with hierarchical direction in the form of orders.

By contrast, closed-loop systems monitor the results of existing operational design for effectiveness and provide a mechanism for two-way communication between first-line patrol officers and their supervisors, as well as at every level of command.

Unlike open-looped systems, closed-loop systems implement change in relation to the objective measurement of results and emphasize bottom-up communication as well as -to-bottom communications.

4. According to the book, identify and describe the six basic functions of police management.

The six basic functions of police management are: system building, planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling.