Developing a Responsive Police Organisation

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." -- Abraham Lincoln

INTRODUCTION

The responsibility to maintain a peaceful society is shared by each level of government; local, state, and federal. However, because crime is an immediate threat to the communities, the police have a highly visible and primary role in overcoming the threat and fear of crime. The process of policing a democratic society is complex and due to this fact, a police department is probably one of the most difficult public institutions to manage effectively. It is therefore important to have processes that are critical to operating police departments and their commitments in securing peace in the society.

In order to understand the field of police administrations, one has to look further beyond the dynamism and complexity aspects of the field. Laws are constantly modified, the environments police officers regulate in continually change, new problems regularly occur, and administrative practices that were once treated as gospels are now facing constantly modifications, often challenged and in some cases, discarded. The terrorist attacks of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, have significantly changed the ways police departments police globally. The primary mission of police in local communities has become somewhat blurred as community policing efforts from the last decade fade to the emergence of security checks, intelligence gathering, and participation in join terrorism task forces. Police organisations are now facing ever changing ordeals that require the administrators to change the ways policing is performed, by which creating a more open and responsive organisation through the positiv...

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