Making Sense of COMPSTAT: A Theory-Based Analysis of Organizational Change in Three Police Departments

COMPSTAT, the latest innovation in American policing, has been widely heralded as a management and technological system whose elements work together to transform police organizations radically. Skeptical observers suggest that COMPSTAT merely reinforces existing structures and practices. However, in trying to assess how much COMPSTAT has altered police organizations, research has failed to provide a broader theoretical basis for explaining how COMPSTAT operates and for understanding the implications of this reform. This article compares two different perspectives on organizations—technical/rational and institutional—to COMPSTAT's adoption and operation in three municipal police departments. Based on fieldwork, our analysis suggests that relative to technical considerations for changing each organization to improve its effectiveness, all three sites adopted COMPSTAT in response to strong institutional pressures to appear progressive and successful. Furthermore, institutional theory better explained the nature of the changes we observed under COMPSTAT than the technical/rational model. The greatest collective emphasis was on those COMPSTAT elements that were most likely to confer legitimacy, and on implementing them in ways that would minimize disruption to existing organizational routines. COMPSTAT was less successful when trying to provide a basis for rigorously assessing organizational performance, and when trying to change those structures and routines widely accepted as being "appropriate." We posit that it will take profound changes in the technical and institutional environments of American police agencies for police departments to restructure in the ways anticipated by a technically efficient COMPSTAT.     

You can lead a horse to water …: A case study of a police department's response to stricter drunk-driving laws

We present a case study illustrating the complexity of the process that determines how vigorously local police agencies enforce recent drunk-driving laws. Police enforcement practices are influenced most strongly by the play of local factors in a system of “games.” The local forces exerting greatest influence are 1) the local demand for drunk-driving enforcement, 2) the police leadership's priority for DUI enforcement, 3) the police leadership's capacity for command and control of the organization, and 4) the disposition of the local police culture regarding drunk driving and related work issues. In “Melville,” the study site, there is little external demand for drunk-driving enforcement, and police management tries to suppress it while making only symbolic gestures of support. Management's capacity to control street-level enforcement practices is limited, however, and a small cadre of officers generates a disproportionate number of arrests for personal financial gain (bounty), giving the department a much higher arrest rate than the department desires. Thus Melville's responsiveness to the state's drunk-driving law is not due to external political pressure or formal policy, but rather to the inability of local authorities to impose their will on street-level practices. Melville's case suggests that the degree to which police implement a new criminal law may be entirely independent of efforts to ensure political accountability and organizational control.     

Violence,bureaucracy and intreccio in Brazil

ABSTRACT

For Brazil’s ‘violence worker’ street-level bureaucrats, violence is woven into everyday practice. But violent influence flows in multiple directions; from the state to society, within the state and its agencies, from violent actors upon state bureaucrats. Real and potential violence defines the bureaucratic regime of truth, alongside the influence of a self-defined organised crime group. Using ethnographic evidence, I show some of the fissures that are wedged open through violence, and demonstrate the ways that violent uncertainty shapes a need for leverage and spheres of trust. This shows the dissonance between bureaucratic form and bureaucratic rationale, where other violence workers – ontological bureaucrats – have become an everyday part of bureaucratic rationale. What matters is not the relationship between the state and bureaucracy, but the relationship between sovereign power and bureaucracy.     

Compstat in Australia: An analysis of the spatial and temporal impact

One of the major trends in policing sweeping across democratic societies since the mid-1990s is a management approach commonly known as COMPSTAT. Despite widespread global adoption, empirical evaluation of the impact of COMPSTAT lags behind popular accounts of its crime control benefits.

Purpose

This article evaluates the crime control impact of Queensland Police Service's version of COMPSTAT known as “Operational Performance Reviews” (OPRs).

Method

A mixed model analytic approach was used to assess the role of OPRs in explaining spatial and temporal variations in crime patterns across Queensland's 29 police districts.

Results

Analysis of the impact of OPRs on reported crime (specifically assaults, robberies and unlawful entries) suggests major differences between police districts, and that some districts are driving overall statewide crime reductions, whilst others confound positive effects of implementation of OPRs in Queensland.

Conclusions

The results demonstrate that the crime drop experienced throughout Queensland found in prior research (Mazerolle et al., 2007) is most likely attributable to a small number of police districts. The implication of these findings is that a number of districts could (and should) be called-upon during maturation of Queensland's OPRs to reduce specific crime problems in their districts and facilitate ongoing crime reductions across the state.     

The commemoration of death,organizational memory,and police culture

Police scholars document that although there is fragmentation of the so‐called “monolithic” police culture, historically consistent features of the occupational culture of police exist. By drawing on ethnographic observations in three U.S. police departments, I describe how one consistent feature of police culture—the preoccupation with danger and potential death—is maintained by the commemoration of officers killed in the line of duty. Through the use of commemorative cultural artifacts, officers and departments construct an organizational memory that locally reflects and reifies the salience of danger and potential death in policing. Furthermore, commemoration of fallen officers is not restricted to a department's own; the dead of other departments are commemorated by distant police organizations and their officers, maintaining broad, occupational assumptions of dangerous and deadly police work that transcend a single department and its localized organizational memory. Implications for the study of police culture, inequalities in policing, and police reform are considered.     

English Prosecutions: Twenty Years of Changing Institutions and Values

Twenty years ago England had a prosecutorial system founded upon traditional values. In 1986, a Crown Prosecution Service founded upon the values of modern rationalized bureaucracy will be introduced. In 1966, English prosecutions were overwhelmingly police conducted, often without legal assistance. By the mid-seventies, a majority of police forces had created ad hoc, non-statutory prosecuting solicitors departments. In 1986, a statutory professional prosecuting national bureaucratic service independent of the police will replace the traditional prosecutorial structures. This twenty-year change provides an excellent example of a Weberian movement from traditional to bureaucratic institutions and has enormous implications for further change in remaining traditionally based English criminal justice institutions.     

Book review essay

This article examines changes in organizational priorities related to the three core functions of American policing—crime control, the maintenance of order, and the provision of services—during the era of community-oriented policing (COP). The change in priorities is analyzed using panel data from three national surveys of more than 200 municipal police departments conducted in 1993, 1996, and 2000. The primary finding is that police core-function priorities remained largely unchanged during this period. However, the systematic implementation of COP programs reflects an all-out effort to address all three core functions of policing at a higher level of achievement.     

Police culture,individualism, and community policing: Evidence from two police departments

According to the conventional wisdom, the police culture consists of a set of values, attitudes, and norms that are widely shared among officers, who find in the culture a way to cope with the strains of their working environment. Some research implies that the conventional wisdom is overdrawn, and recent research has begun to question it more directly. Changes in the composition (i.e., the race, sex, and education) of police personnel, as well as philosophical and organizational changes associated with community policing, could be expected to further fragment police culture and to shift the distribution of police attitudes. Here we examine variation in outlooks that, according to conventional wisdom, are part of the police culture, using survey data collected in two police departments. We also examine the relationships between these outlooks and characteristics of officers—sex, race, education, length of service, community-policing training, and community-policing specialist assignment—that are associated with the changes in policing. We find that officers' outlooks do not conform to the pattern that we would expect on the basis of conventional wisdom. We also find that the variation in officers' occupational attitudes is not patterned to a great extent by their characteristics. We conclude with directions for future research on police attitudes.     

Gender dynamics in youth gangs: A comparison of males' and females' accounts

Based on interviews with 58 gang members in St. Louis, this paper compares males' and females' perspectives on the gender dynamics in street gangs. Feminist scholars have long criticized traditional gang scholarship for its reliance on male gang members to gain information about young women. We suggest that it is useful to revisit what male gang members say about gender dynamics in youth gangs because these accounts provide insights into the normative features of these groups. Research has consistently shown that gangs are largely male-dominated in structure, status hierarchies, and activities. Research in other male-dominated settings—for instance, fraternities, athletics, and the military—has shown the importance of examining peer and organizational dynamics in shaping the treatment of women. We argue that insights into young men's accounts of gender provide important information for understanding more clearly the milieu in which young women in gangs must negotiate.     

‘If it’s not worth doing half-assed,then it’s not worth doing at all’: Police views as to why new strategy implementation fails

ABSTRACT

Strategy implementation is the most challenging aspect of strategic management. In the case of police organizations, failure to effectively carry out a strategy results in loss of organizational resources and employee commitment. The present study is an attempt to explore the reasons behind failure of new strategies by drawing upon qualitative survey responses from 353 police officers and civilian employees from seven agencies across Canada. The results reflect mostly negative sentiments towards strategy implementation efforts, with failure attributed to issues ranging from leadership incompetence to lack of organizational resources. These concerns must be taken into account by police leaders in order to address challenges associated with strategy implementation in their organizations.     

Search,Seizure, and Immunity: Second-Order Normative Authority and Rights

Abstract

A paradigmatic aspect of a paradigmatic kind of right is that the rights holder is the only one who can alienate it. When individuals waive rights, the normative source of that waiving is normally taken to be the individual herself. This moral feature—immunity—is usually in the background of discussions about rights. We bring it into the foreground here, with specific attention to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Kentucky v. King (2011), concerning search and seizure rights. An entailment of the Court's decision is that, at least in some cases, a right can be removed by the intentional actions of the very party against whom the right supposedly protects the rights holder. We argue that the Court's decision is mistaken. The police officers in the case were not morally permitted, and should not be legally permitted, to intentionally create the very circumstances that result in the removal of an individual's right against forced, warrantless search and seizure.     

Driving While Black

Abstract

The phenomenon of “driving while black” has ignited a heated debate: Do the police use race to target drivers? Most research on the topic compares the number of police stops and searches for a racial group to that group's distribution in the population. This approach ignores sociological theories of law, the driver's social status, the combined influence of race and sex, and whether the driver carries drugs in the car. In addition, the police are aware of being observed. To address these limitations, we surveyed undergraduates (N = 1,192) at one of the most diverse universities in the nation about their experiences with the police and their personal criminal behavior. Drawing on Black's (1976) theory of law, we examine whether a driver's race, sex, and social status influence police behavior (stop, exit, frisk, search, ticket/arrest). We also examine which drivers are most likely to have drugs in the car. The results suggest that a driver's race, sex, and social status all shape police behavior: African American men and Hispanic men experience more social control than white men; all men experience more social control than women; and low status drivers experience more social control than high status drivers. But despite the police focus on minority males, white males were the most likely to report carrying drugs in the car.     

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A POLICE GANG UNIT: AN EXAMINATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS*

Although researchers have begun to document the programs and activities performed by police gang units, little research has examined why police gang units are created and why they have responded to local gang problems in the way they have over the past 10 years. Using a multimethodological research design, the present study examines the factors that shaped a Midwestern police department's response to its community's gang problem. The results from the present study lend support for the institutional perspective. The data suggest that the gang unit was created as a consequence of pressures placed on the police department from various powerful elements within the community and that, once created, the unit's response was largely driven by its need to achieve and maintain organizational legitimacy.     

Do stings control crime? An evaluation of a police fencing operation

Police antifencing operations, euphemistically called “stings,” have been and continue to be a popular police undercover tactic for combating property crime. This paper is a time-series analysis of the effects of an antifencing sting project on what Mohr (1973) described as transitive (environmental impact) and reflexive (organizational survival) police organizational goals. The study, based on data from a 1985–86 Birmingham, Alabama sting, finds that only the reflexive goals were served and that the project may have had a negative environmental impact. It is concluded that the potential benefits to police reflexive goal achievement do not offset the potential costs associated with storefront stings and that the police industry should give serious consideration to removing this tactic from its arsenal.     

The fourth amendment and aerial surveillance: Searching for guidelines

Advances in technology have given law enforcement agencies additional capabilities when performing surveillance activities. One area in particular—aerial surveillance—especially demonstrates the possible intrusiveness of police investigatory activity.

One of the most important considerations in the area of aerial surveillance is striking a balance between the necessity of police activities and protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. Cases relating to aerial surveillance have sought to develop guidelines for police agencies in this expanding area of search and seizure inquiry.     

The problem of writing,enforcing, and teaching ethical rules: A reply to professor Goldman

psychological terms, the [Japanese] system relies on positive rather than negative reinforcement, emphasizing loving acceptance in exchange for genuine repentance. An analogue of what the Japanese policeman wants the offender to feel is the tearful relief of a child when confession of wrongdoing to his parents results in a gentle laugh and a warm hug. In relation to American policemen, Japanese officers want to be known for the warmth of their care rather than the strictness of their enforcement.¹

Much of the most disturbing police behaviour stems from two connected facts: the system's overwhelming dependence on admissions of guilt, and the absence of checks on police power in the interrogation room. In Japan, the conditions of interrogation—the duration and intensity of questioning, the duty to endure questioning even after the right to silence has been invoked, and the unavailability of defence lawyers—means that an ‘overborne will’ is more than merely an occasional problem.²     

Citizen Review of the Police

Abstract

The research presents the summary and analysis of ten-year data (1991-2000) involving the People's Law Enforcement Board (PLEB). It describes the types of police officers and the police departments that had cases before the People's Law Enforcement Board (PLEB). It also examines the types of cases that were handled by these civilian review boards as well as the manner of dispositions of these cases, the number of times its decisions were affirmed, reversed, or modified by an appellate board, and the composition and qualifications of the members of the boards. The data indicate that the propensity of police officers for receiving complaints in the boards may be a function of both rank and assignment. The data also suggest that the PLEB tends to be lenient in its disposition of cases. However, the People's Law Enforcement Board appears to make good quality decisions as indicated by the appellate boards' upholding of PLEB decisions.     

PROBLEMS AND STRATEGIES IN GAINING RESEARCH ACCESS IN POLICE ORGANIZATIONS

“Access” is conceived of as involving passage through two gates: one manned by the top-level authority figures of the organization, and the other by the proposed subjects of one's study. Within this framework, informal contacts, contingent acceptance at successive organizational levels, and self-selection are identified and discussed as the factors most central to an understanding of our successful access into three police organizations and our failures to gain access to two police organizations.     

Beat patrol deployment in Hong Kong

This article addresses critical policy issues raised in the SB vs. DB debate. How should such a policy debate be resolved? What are the pros and cons of both patrol deployment measures? More importantly, what immediate and effective remedial steps can be taken to secure the front line police officers’ desire for safety and security without compromising the public's legitimate expectation for order and service. This article provides the HKP community — policymakers, operational managers and front line officers — with relevant research literature and pertinent empirical data to understand the issues involved and help resolve the debate in an informed and reflective manner. In the end, the article argues that education and training are more important than patrol deployment in reducing risk of injury to police officers in the line of duty. Removal of side arms and demilitarization of the HKP is also suggested.     

Law's Allure and the Power of Path-Dependent Legal Ideas

Gordon Silverstein's Law's Allure (2009) advances a two-part thesis on the power of legal ideas. The first is that legal precedents establish the ideological baselines on which legislative and bureaucratic policies are developed. Silverstein amply demonstrates the validity of this thesis. The second is that by establishing ideological baselines, legal precedents contribute to a version of path dependency (or the idea that early choices determine long-term developments) that is significantly more constraining than other forms of institutional entrenchment. Put simply, law shackles creativity in politics. This thesis I do not find persuasive, in part because Silverstein offers little evidence for it and in part because a growing body of literature suggests the contrary: the cross-fertilization of ideas from one field to another—law to politics, for instance—contributes to, rather than retards, creative change. Nonetheless, while its broader ambitions are not satisfied, Law's Allure's narrow thesis—that precedent profoundly shapes policy development—is important and worthy of a major book in itself.