Mapping Police Organizational Change: From a Mechanistic Toward an Organic Model

Community police organizations have been the focus of substantial research since the 1960s. Recommendations from this research have frequently suggested some degree of reform. This reform effort has been directed in part at the oragnizational design of police departments, emphasizing movement away from a mechanistic to more of an organic approach. This article describes mechanistic and organic model constructs and relates them to both continuum and matrix change perspectives and a change problem-intervention strategy typology. The matrix and typology are used to “map” the change process associated with team policing, which is one example of attempts to make police organizations more organic.