Philosophical v. Actual Adoption of Community Policing

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Summary
The Change in the Organization
Analysis
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The article by Allison T. Chappell (2009) “The Philosophical Versus Actual Adoption of Community Policing” is devoted to a qualitative case study of the implementation of community policing (CP) in a medium-sized organization in Florida. It uses the attitudes of the officers to CP to define the success of the change and the barriers that prevent CP adoption. The present paper is devoted to the description and analysis of this organizational change. For the analysis, it employs the book by Robbins and Judge (2014) and four articles from reliable, peer-reviewed journals, which defines their credibility.

Summary

Chappell (2009) discusses the notion of CP and its common barriers, indicating that CP is “a new philosophy of policing” that promotes the cooperation of police officers with the community in the alleviation of the issues encountered by the latter (p. 6). The author insists that CP is a local phenomenon, which explains the need for this case study.

The Change in the Organization

The described case is concerned with a department that is located in a town in Florida, which is populated with about 100,000 people; during the study, the staff number amounted to 365 professionals (Chappell, 2009, p. 11). In 1990, CP was turned into a department-wide policy. The changes included a new mission statement; new practices (for example, various community involvement methods and meet-the-officer days); organizational transformations (decentralization to three districts); and improvements in some procedures (the adoption of a new problem-solving model). The primary issues that Chappell (2009) identified included the outdated performance evaluation system and nonexistent in-service CP training.

Resistance to the Change

The resistance to the change was cultural: more than half of the officers (51%) reported being skeptical concerning CP. They also indicated that skepticism was the prevalent attitude since the beginning.

Therefore, the resistance can be considered overt and immediate if the classification presented by Robbins and Judge (2014) is used, but it is also prolonged. The reasons include selective information processing and group inertia. Apart from that, the officers kept mentioning the lack of resources (manpower) and time. According to Morabito (2008), these issues are typical for medium and smaller agencies; in the case study, they could reduce the officers’ effectiveness and belief in CP, which lowered their motivation.

Addressing Resistance

The resistance, though recognized, was hardly addressed at all. Coercion and rewards methods (the performance evaluation) were used, but they were outdated. Similarly, a positive relationship-building approach was applied only by some of the supervisors. Chappell (2009) found that most of the mid-level management did not take CP seriously either. In general, the author concludes that the employees were likely to adopt the beliefs of their supervisors, and while some of the latter attempted to explain the need for CP, others did not consider the resistance to be an issue and encouraged it by their own behavior.

Overcoming Lack of Motivation

Chappell (2009) mentions the supervisors’ attempts at inspirational motivation (p. 20). Apart from that, the motivation methods included the coercion/reward of the outdated system of evaluation. Chappell (2009) points out that it could be the reason for the lack of the need to improve the service among the officers.

Analysis

Change Type

Chappell (2009) concludes that the organizational change might have taken place at the highest levels of management, but remained incomplete since the lower levels remain resistant and largely ignorant to the phenomenon of CP (p. 21). The cultural change did not occur. Chappell (2009) also suspects that the change remained rhetorical. Morabito (2008) points out that such formal adoption is unfortunately very typical for CP in the US and results in a lower effectiveness of CP practice (p. 565).

Leader Type

According to Chappell (2009), the type of leadership in the department was autocratic (pp. 6, 12). This kind of leadership used to prevail in the policing environment, but nowadays it is considered less effective than participatory and supportive styles (Yilmaz, 2013, p. 898; Vito, Suresh, & Richards, 2011, p. 674). From the point of view of cultural resistance, the leaders decided to take a laissez-faire stance, which is most ineffective, especially in the context of a non-finished change (Vito, Suresh, & Richards, 2011, p. 681).

According to Darroch and Mazerolle (2012), the lack of leadership is among the typical reasons for a change failure. Therefore, it can be suggested that the persistence of resistance is a result of the laissez-faire approach to leadership.

Motivation Type

The means of motivation included the adoption of new standards and the development of new requirements for policies and practices. Inspirational appeals were present but insufficient. Also, the employees who were successful at CP received recognition (Chappell, 2009, p. 12). However, the means of achieving the change were not always provided: the lack of training, clear goals, time, and manpower could not be beneficial for the transformation.

The Source of Power

The case study indicates that legitimate power was used, but it also implies that the use of coercive and reward power was insufficient because of the outdated performance evaluation methods. Also, it is apparent that the personal sources of power were present in the organization’s supervisors, but not every one of them used this power to promote CP (Robbins & Judge, 2014).

Conclusion

The change in the department did not have enough driving force to eliminate the resistance and did not direct sufficient effort to improve the situation. The management of the department was satisfied with the formal change and completely neglected the cultural issues. As a result, it cannot be said that CP adoption in the Department was successful, and much remains to be done.

References

Chappell, A. (2008). The philosophical versus actual adoption of community policing: A case study. Criminal Justice Review, 34(1), 5-28. Web.

Darroch, S. & Mazerolle, L. (2012). Intelligence-led policing: A comparative analysis of organizational factors influencing innovation uptake. Police Quarterly, 16(1), 3-37. Web.

Morabito, M. (2008). Understanding community policing as an innovation: Patterns of adoption. Crime & Delinquency, 56(4), 564-587. Web.

Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2014). Organizational behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Vito, G., Suresh, G., & Richards, G. (2011). Emphasizing the servant in public service: the opinions of police managers. Policing, 34(4), 674-686. Web.

Yilmaz, S. (2013). Tailoring model in reforming police organizations towards community policing. Journal Of Organizational Change Management, 26(5), 897-924. Web.

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