New York Police Department Practice Work When Dealing With Gangs

New York Police department practice work when dealing with gangs

Introduction

The changing face of society is forcing many New York Police departments to make many changes in the way they run, organize and structure their departments. As public expectations of New York Police department's officers change from crime fighters to public safety problem solvers, New York Police department's officers administrators must modify their organizational structure in order to meet broader mission statements and carry out new tasks. This structural modification is not simply a matter of changes boxes on organizational charts.

New York Police department practice work when dealing with gangs

To study New York Police department, it is necessary to first study the way in which law enforcement agencies are organized. An organizational pattern must be looked upon as a structure of authority headed by an executive possessing formal power to fulfill the department’s mission and to delegate portions of his power to his subordinates. An organization is a formal structure to facilitate tasks. When we consider the formal structure of an organization, we typically focus on two areas. The first, is the formal relationship and duties of personnel in the organization, which include the organizational chart and job descriptions. The other area is the set of formal rules, policies, or procedures, and controls that serve to guide behavior of organizational members within the framework of the formal relationships and duties (Tansik & Elliot, 1981).

The challenge for professional New York Police department's officers managers is to devise an integrated model of organization that takes into account both traditional organization theory and more contemporary organization theories (Trojanowicz & Bucqueroux, 1990). This paper looks at this challenge as New York Police departments make the transition from traditional to community policing strategies.

Traditional Organizational Theory

Fundamentally, classical or traditional organization theory seeks to control from the top down ( Maris, 1997). In Weber’s bureaucratic model, the organization of officers follows the principle of hierarchy, each member is specified with a division of labor, all administrative acts or decisions are recorded in writing, a centralized authority, and the organizational members do not own their means of production (Swanson, Territo, & Taylor, 1998). In traditional New York Police departments people and activities are arranged in a pyramid form, where the chief of New York Police department's officers sits at the top and the patrolmen are at the bottom (Melnicoe & Menning, 1969). In the traditional New York Police department's officers approach, administrators tell supervisors what to do, then supervisors tell officers what to do, and the officers tell the people in the community what to do (Donaldon, 1995).

Organizational Theory: Community Policing

Community policing is the first major reform in policing since New York Police department's officer's departments embraced scientific management principles. The emergence of community policing presents a challenge for law enforcement because it requires a fundamental shift in the longstanding philosophy of maintenance of law and order. Community policing theory is based on the concept that New York Police department's ...