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The purpose of this paper is to define a systematic management structure that helps police practitioners institutionalize performance management and analysis in more rational‐technical ways.

The design is based on Gold's “complete participant” field researcher method.

The findings suggest a performance management model is more rational than the traditional command‐control model and may increase consistency in police management by systematically collecting and reporting on streams of data to measure performance instead of relying on rote compliance.

The model is limited because it does not account for important intangible qualities of performance (e.g. attitude, initiative, judgment); in the hands of autocratic managers it can be oppressive and cause more problems than it solves; it may constrain officer discretion; it has not been advanced as a learning instrument; and performance indicators are subject to measurement error.

Most police agencies are already capturing the necessary data elements to implement a performance management model. Police executives and policymakers can use this model to definitively measure how well police agencies and individual programs are performing.

The paper represents an opportunity for police practitioners to embrace a new management process intended to improve performance and accountability. The framework is a universal management process that can be applied to any size police agency or any police program.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that police research has reached a level of acceptance such that executive management has an ethical obligation to their communities to use evidence-based practices.

Using an Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) framework the authors apply an ethical-based decision-making model to policing decisions. EBM does not allow physicians to ignore research when giving guidance to patients. The authors compare the two professional approaches to decision making and argue policing has reached a level of research that if ignored, just like medicine, should be considered unethical. Police interventions can potentially be harmful. Rather than do no harm, the authors argue that police managers should implement practices that are the least harmful based on the current research.

The authors found policing has a substantial amount of research showing what works, what does not, and what looks promising to allow police executives to make decisions based on evidence rather than tradition, culture, or best practice. There is a deep enough fund of knowledge to enable law enforcement leadership to evaluate policies on how well the policies and procedures they enforce prevent crime with a minimum of harm to the communities they are sworn to protect and serve.

Policing has yet to view community interventions as potentially harmful. Realigning police ethics from a lying, cheating, stealing, lens to a “doing the least harm” lens can alter the practitioner’s view of why evidence-based policing is important. Viewing executive decision from an evidence-based ethical platform is the future of evaluating police executive decisions.

Change is a feature of the liberal democracies. Despite its ubiquitous nature, however, one key factor in these democracies, the police, has been noted for its conservatism. This bastion of traditionalism, this upholder of the law of the land, has changed little in structure or purpose over the first half of this century but it has not been the case during the latter half. Change now appears to be manifesting itself in new organisational structures and forms; modifications to role and focus; and, in accommodating revised views on the need for agencies whose composition reflects gender equity and minority representation, as authorities struggle to satisfy the array of demands on contemporary police services. This paper speculates as to what may have prompted change to the police, examines what it considers to be some of the main areas of change, and then postulates the consequences for police and policing.

Analyzes the impact of collective bargaining on the supplemental compensation of employees in large police departments across the nation. Suggests that collective bargaining does make a difference in terms of economic benefits; hazardous duty pay, differential shift pay and educational incentive pay are all more likely to be present when the collective bargaining process is available, and merit pay (a more likely management prerogative policy) is less likely to be present. The correlation between collective bargaining and personnel policy varies greatly, however, when controls for fiscal capacity, organizational size, and region are added to the analysis. Geographic region turns out to constitute an important contextual variable deserving primary attention in future analyses of police personnel policies and practices.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize detectives in police investigations as knowledge workers.

The paper is based on a literature review covering knowledge organizations, police organizations, police investigations, and detectives as knowledge workers.

The paper finds that the changing role of the detective as a resource influences investigation performance in solving complex and organized crime.

This exploratory research provides no final conclusions.

Leadership in police investigations needs to focus on knowledge management among detectives rather than information collection in each criminal case.

Until this paper, the secretive nature of the detective world has been unexplored by manpower researchers.

The Second International Police Executive Symposium (Oñati, May, 1995) was organized on the theme of “Challenges of policing democracies: a world perspective.” It was attended by police leaders, academics and justice professionals from 13 countries. Among them there were six emerging democracies, four established democracies, and three mixed democracies. The objectives of the symposium were established as follows: (1) to appreciate at first hand what the police in emerging democracies regarded as challenges in operating in the newly democratic political environment (the established democracies and the mixed democracies were invited to present their contemporary experiences of the “Challenges of policing democracies”); (2) to explore the similarities and the differences of the challenges, if any, from one category of democratic societies to another; and (3) to discuss the responses and the remedies adopted by various countries at different levels of democratic achievement.

Employs the semiotic method to explore community policing reform and its use of language as a form of social control. Uses postmodern theoretical and methodological filters to clarify the discussion. Sees community policing more as a realignment of police institution’s language and symbols to better fit changes in society.

John Berger, in his well‐known book ‘A Fortunate Man’, drew an idealistic portrait of a country general practitioner whose high commitment to his vocation and a life of dedicated service to his patients and the community had brought self‐fulfillment and contentment of the highest order. Much of this, it was implied, was due to the traditional role of the GP in society, the implicitly rewarding nature of the helping relationship, the positive bond that grows between a family practitioner and his patients, and the status and rewards that the individual doctor could be assured of as part of his role. It would be interesting to speculate how many of the UK's GPs could recognise themselves in this portrait.

The personalities, style and job demands of top ranking police officers have never before been seriously analysed. Here, by using a management development survey, key personality characteristics and the management and interpersonal styles of top ranking officers are identified. The views of chief officers are discussed, together with an examination of the necessary qualities required. Ways in which senior officers can improve their performance through management training and development and how this can assist their professional growth and development, are emphasised.

There is a proven linkage amongst the theories, practice, and literatures of entrepreneurship, management, and leadership. Accordingly, this chapter explores these linkages in policing and criminal contexts. Traditionally, the police have adopted a combination of heroic, bureaucratic, and autocratic approaches to leadership although individual police leaders do utilise a wide variety of appropriate leadership styles including charismatic and Laissez–Faire leadership. Great Man theory also influences police leadership styles and actions. Other novel appropriate leadership styles such as ‘humble’ and ‘agile’ leadership are also considered because of their potential fit with entrepreneurial policing philosophy and practice. Police leadership is immersed in the Military model of policing discussed in Chapter 2 and this includes its semiotics and symbolism. There is an inherent and ongoing tension between two very different competing leadership styles namely the ‘Commander Model’ versus the ‘Executive Model’. Both are relevant in different circumstances.