Organizational DNA: The Pacific Northwest Police Department

Organizational DNA

There is change trying to happen, in a rural Pacific Northwest police department (PD) that is nestled in the corner of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. This Department serves a diverse population of 9000 people and encompasses roughly 4 mi.², as well as being surrounded by water on three of those four sides. When evaluating police departments, according to the state and national averages it is undersized for the population it serves. As one would expect it is a department with a long and rich 126-year history JCHS (2014). As well, as with the majority of all municipal departments, it has suffered its ups and downs, as well as suffering and prospering through healthy and poor administrations.

Organizational environment

This is a picture of the organizational environment that encompasses the PD, Butterfield & Ferris (1974). The PD offers a wide variety of services to its community to include school resource officer, Detective services, loss prevention and mitigation services, domestic violence training, vacation house checks, background checks for public and private sector employees, as well as all of the other normal functions a Police Department would offer to its community. The mission Butterfield & Ferris (1974) of the PD, is to protect the community at large and to develop and maintain a good working relationship with businesses, the public, and its visitors as well as its detractors.

The PD’s values and core competencies are honesty, integrity and value of service. The PD retains several officers who in and of themselves make up several of the core competencies within the PD. Those include Physical Techniques Master instructor, Master Taser instructor, Master Physical Fitness instructor, Master E...

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