NCJ Number
97876
Editor(s)
J J Fyfe
Date Published
1985
Length
217 pages
Annotation
This compendium of articles on the most pressing concerns of contemporary police administrators focuses on laws and policies governing police performance, operational innovations, and personnel management.
Abstract
The first two articles address leadership and management, with attention to the police chief's management, with attention to the police chief's relationships with key groups and individuals and long-term solutions to problems caused by fiscal stress. Additional articles examine police conduct and accountability. Two opposing views on national accreditation are followed by articles which examine lawsuits against the police, civilian review boards, a model policy for handling citizen complaints, and a policy controlling high-speed pursuits. Later chapters shift to operational concerns, such as an evaluation of recent efforts to put patrol officers back on the beat rather than assign them to car patrol and a summary of one department's effort to cope with false alarms by drafting a new city ordinance. Articles also report on a study in which police responses to domestic violence were experimentally manipulated and assess the effectiveness of community anticrime programs in terms of quality of life improvements as well as crime reduction. Essays in a section devoted to personnel problems consider affirmative action programs and police unionization. Also addressed are fiscal and police unionization. Also addressed are fiscal and management problems experienced by six California cities; the problems were caused by forced arbitration of police and firefighters contracts. Methods for handling the marginal police employee are suggested. A study of shift rotation concludes that permanent shifts may be easier on officers' health than rotating ones. Also in the health area, one paper describes a mandatory fitness program for new employees and incumbents developed by a police department. The last two articles treat the application of the Japanese quality circle to police agencies in Dallas, Tex., and Orlando, Fla. Footnotes accompany most papers.