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.     

Sustaining Labor‐Environmental Coalitions: Banana Allies in Costa Rica

What is required for sustaining an alliance between union and environmental activists? Applying grounded theory to a case study in the Costa Rican banana sector, this article reveals five historical phases. First, unions and environmentalists identify common opportunity structures for joint action. Second, a preexisting network becomes a resource for mobilization. Third, the new coalition engages in communicative action that leads to shared identity and cultural framing and a foundation for handling exogenous global forces. Market policy changes in the fourth phase stimulate a transnational activist network and framing linkages. Dramatic supply disruptions in the fifth precipitate autonomous organizational approaches that require reframing, identity extension, and flexibility. This study argues that the Costa Rican case can be generalized to other labor‐environmental coalitions if such alliances create simple, open structures that agilely adapt to external opportunity structures and expand frames that encourage collaborative autonomy and dualistic collective definitions.     

Dokumentation Europa

Diese übersicht enth?lt eine Aufstellung wichtiger zwischen 6. Oktober und 10. Dezember 2009 von der Europ?ischen Kommission verabschiedeter Vorschl?ge für von Rat und Europ?ischem Parlament zu beschlie?ende Rechtsakte, sowie von Initiativen der Mitgliedstaaten und Entwürfen des Rates im Rahmen des Titels VI des Vertrages über die Europ?ische Union. Zus?tzlich wird auf rechtspolitisch interessante Texte der Europ?ischen Kommission wie zB Grünbücher oder Erfahrungsberichte hingewiesen. Damit soll dem Leser die M?glichkeit gegeben werden, in einem m?glichst frühen Stadium von neuen Entwicklungen im Gemeinschaftsrecht Kenntnis zu erhalten. Die übersicht enth?lt umgekehrt keine Angaben über vom Rat endgültig verabschiedete Texte. Als Fundstelle wird grunds?tzlich die Referenz des Kommissionsdokumentes angegeben (COM, SEC). Soweit nicht anders angegeben, handelt es sich um EG- (und nicht EAG-) Rechtsakte.     

THE BENEFITS AND RISKS OF CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATORS MAKING RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE COURT:

In their article, Tippins and Wittmann articulate a strong position against custody evaluators making specific custody recommendations to the court. This response will focus on my thoughts about their concepts and my belief that recommendations can be useful and appropriate some of the time, even though there may be significant problems with certain types of recommendations and problems with some evaluators.     

Using the state to change society: The example of ‘domestic violence’

North American research on the policing of ‘domestic violence’ has been very influential among policy makers in Great Britain. In particular, research which purports to verify the deterrence value of arrest has prompted the establishment of over thirty domestic violence units in London and similar initiatives elsewhere in Britain. The paper will outline the nature of the traditional police response to ‘family violence’ in London and the nature of the experimental innovations. Changes in police practice with regard to this type of violence will be put in the context of the organizational constraints and possibilities of policing. Finally, changing police responses to domestic violence will be evaluated in terms of the debate over the possibility of using the state or its organs to achieve social change.