Chapter 3
Organizing the Police Department
Learning Objectives
LO1 Identify the major managerial concepts that must be considered when organizing a police
department.
LO2 Describe some recent examples of shared leadership in policing.
Lesson Plan
I. Organizing the Department: Managerial Concepts
Learning Objective 1: Identify the major managerial concepts that must be considered when
organizing a police department.
A. Division of Labor
2. A good organizational chart is a snapshot of the organization.
Class Discussion/Activity:
Identify the major managerial concepts that must be considered when organizing a police
department.
3. Organizations consist of a deliberate arrangement of people doing specific jobs
and following particular procedures to accomplish a set of goals determined by
some authority.
See Assignment 1
B. Managerial Definitions
1. Organization
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3. Management: PODSCORB
4. The major managerial definitions common to most organizations include
C. Managers, Supervisors . . . or Leaders?
What-If Scenario
You have been asked by your Chief to establish a list of leadership qualities to look for in a
supervisor. What should your list contain and why?
1. Leadership is essential in police management.
2. Leaders, by teaching and setting examples, develop new leaders.
Class Discussion/Activity:
Discuss some of the qualities of a leader.
D. Ethical Leadership
1. Ethical leaders demonstrate integrity on a daily basis in every decision that is
made.
See Assignment 2
See Assignment 3
E. Traditional Organizational Model and Structure
1. Police departments are quasi-military organizations (organizations similar to the
military).
3. The scientific management principles of Frederick Taylor were applied to
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F. Chain of Command
1. Hierarchy of authority wherein each individual is supervised by one immediate
supervisor or boss.
2. Always starts with the chief of police.
2. Affected by many factors, including distance, time, knowledge, personality, and
the complexity of the work to be performed.
1. Accountability is to only one supervisor.
2. May be violated in emergency situations
J. Rules, Regulations, and Discipline
II. Alternative Organizational Models and Structures
Learning Objective 2: Describe some recent examples of shared leadership in policing.
A. Shared Leadership
Class Discussion/Activity:
What is “shared leadership”? Describe and discuss some recent examples of it in policing.
2. Employee empowerment
4. Participative decision-making
What-If Scenario
You are a supervisor that has been asked by your lieutenant to become more participative in your
decision-making. What does the lieutenant mean by this statement and what should you do to meet
See Assignment 4
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her requirements?
5. Dispersed leadership
7. Quality circles (QC)
8. Power-sharing methods have found little acceptance in police organizations,
III. Organizing by Personnel
Learning Objective 3: Describe the differences between sworn and nonsworn or civilian police
department members, and explain the benefits of civilianization in policing.
A. The Civil Service System
2. The civil service system has reduced political interference and created a merit
system, but critics say it is difficult to appoint, promote, demote, or terminate
employees.
Class Discussion/Activity:
The civil service system is a method of hiring and managing government employees that is
designed to eliminate political influence, favoritism, nepotism, and bias. How does a civil service
system actually accomplish this?
3. The Pendleton Act created a civil service system for federal employees.
Media Tool
“Civil Service Reform”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUlRs14O1Vc
o Discussion of the Pendleton Act
o Discussion: Discuss what you see on the video. What was the policy of President Andrew
Jackson? What was the cost to Chester Arthur? How has civil service reform helped the
federal worker?
B. Sworn and Nonsworn (Civilian) Personnel
1. Sworn Members: those people in the police organization we usually think of as
police officers, troopers, or deputy sheriffs.
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3. Sworn members of police organizations are those given traditional police
powers—such as arrest and the ability to stop, question, and search—by state and
local laws. Nonsworn members are those without these traditional police powers
who perform managerial, administrative, technical, and clerical duties in police
organizations.
What-If Scenario
You are a sworn police officer union representative. What is your response to the civilianization
of your department and what suggestions would you provide to implement the chief’s directive?
C. Rank Structure
1. Police Officer
3. Detective/Investigator
4. Sergeant
a. The immediate supervisor of a number of officers assigned to his or her
5. Lieutenant
6. Captain
8. Chief of Police/Police Commissioner
a. Head of the police
D. Other Personnel
1. Civilianization—the process of removing sworn officers from noncritical or
nonenforcement tasks and replacing them with civilians or nonsworn employees.
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Media Tool
“Levy Presses for Civilianization”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIbZ7il-GNo
o A video documenting the duties of the firearms section range officer position. Suffolk
County Executive Steve Levy has pushed for the civilianization of this position in order to
redeploy its officers.
o Discussion: Based on what you have seen in this video, should this position be
civilianized? Why or why not?
2. Community Service Officers
3. Police Reserves/Auxiliaries
2. Transferring officer must be fully trained to new department.
F. Police Unions
2. The blue flu
4. Unionization has a long and colorful history in policing. Today, most police
unions are local, and many American rank-and-file officers are covered by some
form of collective bargaining agreement.
IV. Organizing by Area
Learning Objective 4: Discuss the pros and cons of organizing a law enforcement department
by area.
A. Beats
1. Smallest geographic area that a single patrol unit—one or two people in a car or
on foot—can patrol effectively
2. Should be as geographically limited as possible
B. Precincts/Districts/Stations
2. The precinct house or station house is the administrative headquarters of the
precinct.
3. The desk officer supervises all activities at the station house and is in charge of
the police blotter, the record of all activity in the precinct.
See Assignment 5
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V. Organizing by Time
Learning Objective 5: Discuss the special problems that must be dealt with in organizing a
police department that operates 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
A. The Three-Tour System
2. When days off, vacation time, and sick time are factored into the three-tour
3. Because of the responsibility of being available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the
police often employ a three-tour system.
Class Discussion/Activity:
Discuss the special problems that must be dealt with in organizing a police department that
operates 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
B. Tour Length: 8 Hours, 10 Hours, or 12 Hours
1. The 8-hour tour is easy for departments to schedule as most civilian work places
operate on an 8-hour schedule.
3. The 12-hour tour is gaining in popularity and has the benefit to the officers of
being predictable like the 10-hour tour.
What-If Scenario
You are a supervisor planning shift assignments. You have officers who are demanding their
seniority should come first above all else. How do you address this issue and still staff your
shift? Which tour length should be used to meet the demands of your staff?
C. Tour Conditions
1. Graveyard
3. Evening
D. Steady (Fixed Tours)
1. Much like the rest of the United States
3. Based on seniority or the officer’s own choices
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Media Tool
“Police Shift Work—The Police Foundation Study”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGxKUYBANOA
o Results from the Police Foundation’s study on shift work, presented by Dr. Karen
Amendola
o Discussion: Discuss how shift work affects police officers. What is the current trend in
shift work for police? Do you feel this is a good trend or not and why or why not?
A. Line and Staff (Support) Functions
1. Line functions are those tasks that directly facilitate the accomplishment of
organizational goals.
3. The functions the police are charged with performing are complex and diverse:
maintain order, enforce the law, and provide services to citizens. These functions
B. Police Department Units
1. Operational Units
a. Patrol
b. Traffic
2. Administrative Units
a. Personnel
b. Training
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3. Auxiliary Services Units
a. Records
b. Communications
c. Property
d. Laboratory
VII. Summary
Lecture Notes
1. What are the managerial concepts used in organizing police departments?
The managerial concepts used in organizing policing emphasize division of labor, managerial
2. What complexities do modern police agencies face?
Police departments are open for business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This inherently creates
3. What are the common ranks and their responsibilities within a police department?
Police departments have a highly organized rank structure. Not all police departments have the
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4. What major operational units are contained within a police department and what are
their responsibilities?
Operational units include patrol, traffic, criminal investigations, vice, organized crime, juvenile
services, community services, crime prevention, and community relations. Patrol performs the
basic mission of the police department: maintaining order, enforcing the law, responding to calls
5. What is meant by ethical leadership?
Ethical leaders demonstrate integrity on a daily basis in every decision that is made. The ethical
leader is the one to whom others are drawn, the one whom others want to emulate. The life and
actions of an ethical leader demonstrate integrity, character, credibility, honesty, fairness,
loyalty, and respect.
Key Terms
beat The smallest geographical area an individual officer can patrol. (p. 93)
blue flu Informal job actions by officers in which they call in sick and/or refuse to perform
bureaucracy An organizational model marked by hierarchy, promotion on professional merit
and skill, the development of a career service, reliance on and use of rules and regulations, and
impersonality of relationships among career professionals in the bureaucracy and with their
chain of command Managerial concept stating that each individual in an organization is
supervised by and reports to only one immediate supervisor. (p. 76)
civil service system A method of hiring and managing government employees that is designed to
eliminate political influence, favoritism, nepotism, and bias. (p. 84)
community service officers (CSOs) Entry-level police employees without general law
enforcement powers, as suggested by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and
lateral transfers The ability and opportunity to transfer from one police department to another.
(p. 90)
leadership An influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that
reflect their mutual purposes. (p. 74)
management The process of running an organization so that the organization can accomplish its
nonsworn (civilian) members Police employees without traditional police powers generally
assigned to noncritical or nonenforcement tasks. (p. 85)
organization A deliberate arrangement of people doing specific jobs, following particular
procedures to accomplish a set of goals determined by some authority. (p. 72)
Pendleton Act A federal law passed in 1883 to establish a civil service system to test, appoint,
platoon All of the people working on a particular tour or shift. (p. 87)
PODSCORB Acronym for the basic functions of management: planning, organizing, directing,
staffing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. (p. 74)
precinct/district/station The entire collection of beats in a given geographic area; the
organizational headquarters of a police department. (p. 94)
reserve officer Either part-time compensated or noncompensated sworn police employees who
shared leadership Power-sharing arrangement in which workplace influence is shared among
individuals who are otherwise hierarchical unequals. (p. 82)
squad A group of officers who generally work together all the time under the supervision of a
sworn members Police employees given traditional police powers by state and local laws,
including penal or criminal laws and criminal procedure laws. (p. 85)
unity of command A managerial concept that specifies that each individual in an organization is
Assignments
1. You have been appointed the new commissioner of the Anycity Police Department.
Anycity is a suburban city 60 miles from a major U.S. city; it has a population of 30,000
people and a police department of 100 officers. The major police problems in Anycity are
disorderly teens making unnecessary noise at night, parking and traffic problems in the
supervisors. In view of what you learned in this chapter, would you reorganize the
department? Why, or why not? If you would reorganize, how would you do it? [LO 1]
2. You have been appointed an assistant to your local police chief or sheriff. She tells you
that the department has a leadership crisis in its supervisory ranks and asks you to advise
her on what qualities she should look for when appointing new supervisors. How would
3. Police officers often talk about locations that will give half-price meals or a free cup of
coffee to those in law enforcement. Do you think accepting such offers is a good
4. Police unions exist to harness the power of individual workers into one group, the union,
5. Explain the concept of unity of command. Why is this important to law enforcement?
end of the chapter. Revise?