Principles of Leadership and Management in Law Enforcement

Michael L. Birzer, Gerald J. Bayens, Cliff Roberson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781466512962
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Criminal Law
• Index: Law

Effective police organizations are run with sound leadership and management strategies that take into account the myriad of challenges that confront today's law enforcement professionals. Principles of Leadership and Management in Law Enforcement is a comprehensive and accessible textbook exploring critical issues of leadership within police agenci

Introduction to the Modern Police Agency

1

Key Individuals, Concepts, and Issues

Preservation of peace

Shire-reeve

Community policing

Styles of policing

Traditional management model

Behavioral science model

Systems model

Wickersham Commission

Bobbies

Justice of the peace

Supervisors

Order maintenance

Human relations model

Human resources model

Rattlewatch

August Vollmer

Definitions

Community policing: A decentralized model of policing in which officers exercise their own initiatives and citizens become actively involved in making the neighborhoods safer.

Leadership: The function of motivating others to perform those tasks that are necessary to the accomplishments of the agency’s goals and objectives.

Management: The process of organizing, leading, planning, and controlling to accomplish the objectives and goals of an organization.

Police: An organized body of government officers representing the civil power of the governmental unit engaged in maintaining public order, peace, and safety and in investigating and arresting persons suspected of or accused of crime.

Chapter Objectives

After completing this chapter you should be able to:

1. Explain what constitutes a police agency

2. Outline the development of the modern police agency

3. Differentiate between leadership and management

4. Describe the general organizational design of police agencies

5. Describe the development of police management theory

6. Explain the concepts of organizational culture

Introduction

The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police.

—Sir Robert Peel 1829

The goal of this book is to provide the student with an understanding of the concepts and principles involved in leadership and management for law enforcement agencies. To do this, we need to examine how police organizations work, how people in them behave, and how individuals and groups may be effectively managed. As will be discussed later in this chapter, management and leadership are not interchangeable terms. For our purposes, police management is defined as police organizational practices undertaken for the purpose of producing knowledge that can be used continuously to improve satisfaction and organizational performance of the employees. The organizational practices include individual, group, organizational, and environment processes.

In the twenty-first century, the quality of management and leadership in most police departments and the quality of service provided the communities are higher than they have ever been. It appears, however, that police agencies will be pressed to even higher standards. Police work is in transition within our communities. Presently, our police are more frequently involved in creating and nurturing partnerships with the communities, schools, and neighborhood organizations (i.e., community policing).¹

General theories of management and organizations and their application to police departments are examined in the text. In presenting these concepts and theories, we have attempted to provide a balance between theoretical and applied research on management and between conceptual and practical perspectives on police management and leadership.

We can narrow the many different purposes of the modern police agency into one broad function: the preservation of the peace within its jurisdiction in a manner consistent with the rights and freedoms secured by federal and state constitutions, judicial decisions, statutes, and regulations. As noted by many researchers, the preservation of peace is a complex process and includes more than simply preventing crimes, making arrests for law violations, and providing assistance in the prosecution of individuals charged with crimes.

The police normally spend more time in “peacekeeping” and “order maintenance” than in crime fighting. In fact, the police generally spend only about 15% of its activities enforcing the law.²

The majority of police agencies are a division of the local city, village, or county government. Local government is closer to the public than any other level of government, and as such generally it is the most trusted level.³ The police agency is the “civil authority” that represents the civil power of the local government.⁴ The word “police” is derived from the Latin word “politia,” which literally means “civil administration.” Local police departments employ approximately 535,000 full-time employees, including about 425,000 sworn personnel. Racial and ethnic minorities constitute approximately 21.5% of full-time sworn officers. Sheriffs’ departments have an estimated 265,000 employees, including about 175,000 sworn personnel.⁵

Management and Leadership

Managers perform four essential functions in every organization: organizing, leading, planning, and controlling. The function of organizing includes making decisions about the purpose, structure, job design, and allocation of resources. Leading is the function of motivating others to perform those tasks that are necessary to the accomplishments of the agency’s goals and objectives. The planning function consists of preparing for the future by setting goals and objectives and formulating courses of action to accomplish the goals and objectives. Planning involves the conducting of research, identifying strategies and methods, developing courses of action, and formulating policies and budgets. Controlling includes the ongoing assessment of how organizational systems and services are meeting the established goals and objectives. It is not based on fixing the blame and punishment, but on improving operations consistent with established plans.

In examining the roles of leadership and management in policing, the nature of the policing in America should be considered. The nature of policing in our society is shaped by the following principles:

• The prevention of crime is a proper role for the government.

• The best government is one that governs least.

• The authority of the government should be limited.

• Any use of police power must be regarded with grave suspicion.⁶

Leadership has two different meanings in our society. First, it refers to the process that helps direct and mobilize people or their ideas. Second, it refers to individuals in formal positions where leadership is expected (e.g., the chief of police). In this text, leadership is used in the first sense, the process that helps direct and mobilize people and or their ideas.

Leadership and management are not used as interchangeable terms in this text. They are alike in that both involve deciding what needs to be done, creating networks that can accomplish an agenda, and then trying to ensure that the job gets done. While they both are complete action systems, neither is simply one aspect of the other. To differentiate between leadership and management, the distinction developed by John Kotter, a professor of organizational behavior at the Harvard School of Business is used.⁷ Kotter defines the functions of management as follows:

• planning and budgeting

• organizing and staffing

• controlling and problem-solving

On the other hand, Kotter defines the process of leadership as:

• establishing direction

• aligning people, motivating, and inspiring

As you will note from the above comments, leadership and management are distinct processes. For example, the planning and budgeting processes of management tend to focus on time frames, details, instrumental rationality, and eliminating risks. Leadership processes often focus on longer time frames, the big picture, strategies that take calculated risks, and people’s values. As Kotter states, controlling and problem-solving (management) usually focus on containment, control, and predictability, whereas motivating and inspiring (leadership) focus on empowerment, expansion, and creating that occasional surprise that energizes people.⁸

Leadership and management also differ in terms of their primary function. Leadership can produce useful change. Management can create orderly results that keep something working efficiently. This does not mean that management is never associated with change, nor does it mean that leadership is never associated with order. As noted by Kotter: “Leadership by itself never keeps an operation on time and on budget year after year. And management by itself never creates significant change.”⁹

The differences in function and form between leadership and management can create conflict. Strong leadership can disrupt an orderly planning system and undermine management hierarchy. Strong management may discourage risk taking and enthusiasm needed for leadership. An organization needs both strong leadership and management. If either is weak or nonexistent, the organization is like a rudderless ship. Both need to be strong. Strong management and weak leadership may create a bureaucratic and stifling environment, producing order for order’s sake. Strong leadership and weak management can create an organization that is cult-like and producing change for the sake of change.

Evolution of the Modern Police Department

America is a nation of small, decentralized police forces.

President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, 1967

Early Policing

Policing started as a private matter. Individuals were responsible for protecting themselves and maintaining an orderly community.¹⁰ Organized police departments did not appear until the fourteenth century in France.

One of the earliest reported efforts in policing was in the sixth century BCE when unpaid magistrates in Athens were given the authority to adjudicate cases brought before them by citizens. It was the responsibility of the citizens to arrest the wrongdoer, bring him or her before the magistrate, and then to punish the offender. Citizens frequently banned together in towns and formed watches that operated during the hours of darkness. In addition, the citizen groups patrolled the town borders to protect the town against invaders.

About the fifth century BCE, questers (trackers of murders) were established as one of the earliest known specialized investigative units. Later, Emperor Augustus, who ruled the Roman Empire at the start of the Christian era, established the praetorian guard, considered by some as the first police force. The praetorian guard’s duty was to protect the emperor and the palace. Augustus also established the vigiles, who patrolled Rome’s streets both day and night. The vigiles were known for their brutality. They are considered by many as the first civil police force designed to protect citizens.

During the first century CE, public officials called licors were used in Rome to serve as the magistrates’ bodyguards. They were also responsible for bringing prisoners before the magistrate and for carrying out the punishments imposed by the magistrates.

Early English Law Enforcement

Most European...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Authors
• 1 Introduction to the Modern Police Agency
• 2 Introduction to Management Theory
• 3 Operational Management of a Police Agency
• 4 Leadership Approaches
• 5 Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation
• 6 A Business Approach to Policing?
• 7 Problem Solving
• 8 Technology and Management
• 9 Job-Related Issues
• 10 Training and Education
• 11 Recruitment and Selection
• 12 Impact of the Courts and Legislation on Police Management
• 13 Homeland Security and Policing
• 14 Ethics
• Index