NCJ Number
127029
Date Published
1988
Length
326 pages
Annotation
Observations of the police handling of calls from the public in law enforcement agencies in England and the United States form the basis of this analysis of organizational communications and how it is patterned by selected factors in addition to the content of a message.
Abstract
Data collection began in 1979 and continued over several years. The research focused on how police determine what a call means and what should be done with it and how the process is transformed through subsystems within the police organization. The analysis showed how members of an organization interpret their environment and why the police act in ways that differ from the way that citizens and politicians want them to act. The results showed the uncertainties that surround a police agency's responsiveness and demonstrated how today's computer technologies constrain the coding process, limiting in particular the effectiveness of the 911 systems used in most of our major cities. Figure, tables, notes, index, and 359 references