NCJ Number
144075
Journal
Law Enforcement Tomorrow Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Dated: (April 1993) Pages: 17- 21
Date Published
1993
Length
5 pages
Annotation
The changes that will occur in the police workforce in the coming years will require a new style of police management and organization that involves the sharing of power between executives and line officers.
Abstract
In the coming decades, the most profound changes in the workforce will probably happen as a result of new trends that affect and interact with the needs, values, and beliefs of individual employees. These values and cultural trends include greater emphasis on the individual; increasing pluralism in personal needs and values between people of different ages, genders, and ethnicities; and changing attitudes toward work and work satisfaction. These values cannot be accommodated in a traditional top-down power structure. Today's police officers want to be involved in decisionmaking that affects their duties. The organizational structure of the police department is under pressure to mold itself to adjust to the changing internal and external environment. This means that police organizational structure must facilitate the empowerment of personnel to participate in decisions and policymaking that vitally affects them.