Policing Practices and Operations

Policing Practices and Operations
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Policing Practices and Operations
Relationship between traditional organizational structures of policing agencies
Each community organization has a range of policing organizations that strive to ensure safety is guaranteed, as a function of Law Enforcement. Such organizations as evident in the United States include local police, county and state police as well as federal or national policing agencies. Over time, these police organizations have evolved along with changes in technology, politics and community needs and requirements. In particular, the past century has witnessed shifts from traditional organizational structures to newer types of tactical and or operational stratagem approaches. Much of these changes are also because of shifts in public opinions, private sector novelties and other emergent challenges.
It is however important to note that traditional organizational structures of policing find their origin from prehistoric military organizations as well as 20th century management approaches of the private sector (Walker, & Katz, 2008). All through the 21st century, the modern police organization structures have been subject to a range of reforms that culminated into the adoption of democratic approaches in the management of policing agencies. This depicts a lot of incongruous contrast to traditional organizational structures wherein the police force was for the most part committed to serving the interests of the political class and not the public. Such is the case since policing involves a great deal of discretion exercise by officers considering that their work environment involves interactions with ordinary citizens in inconspicuous circumstances and or situations.
It was not until the dawning of recognition that was realized in the past few decades (since the 1970s) that actual police reforms in terms of democratic management fell into place. It was established that a military-style approach to policing was in fact unsuitable, still many attempts to realizing the mentioned democratic reforms prior to the 1990s proved to be unsuccessful. All the same, the adoption of the concept of community policing over the past two decades has brought about tremendous shifts from traditional policing (Walker, & Katz, 2008). Such has also encouraged desirable leadership, officers’ needs recognition and enhanced human relations within policing organizational structures. The overall result is an institutional structure characterized by exercise of professionalism and discretion. Evidently, shortcomings of the traditional approach including racial profiling, rampant corruption and control by the political class have been greatly minimized (Bohm & Haley, 2002).
Overall, attention has shifted to safeguarding the welfare of the larger community. The police force is conferred with the responsibility of enhancing value of their service to community by making sought-after changes in operation, organization and orientation of their activities in accordance with the mandate of separate agencies. Unlike in the past, they have at their disposal outstanding resources including data technology (information systems), well-equipped vehicles and communication gadgets among others. Nevertheless, politics still play a role in the administration of policing organizations, issues relating to human rights, racial, ethnic and religious discrimination still pose challenges to be tackled. As such, instigating police reforms remains an ongoing process (Mastrofski, 2007).
Communication patterns both within and outside the policing agency
Communication patterns within and outside the policing agency owe a lot to technology in today’s setting. Besides, changes and improvements in structure of policing organizations have lessened challenges associated with reporting and delegation. Overall, there have emerged trends of enhanced coordination and cooperation among policing agencies, but with clear guidelines of specific mandates assigned to specific units. This facilitates a smooth trajectory of communication patterns per se.
The mentioned aspect of Community policing implies establishment of clear communication lines within and outside police agencies regarding all issues of public safety that include but are not limited to curbing criminal activities (Mastrofski, 2007). The federal government of the United States has devised mechanisms of integrating functions of law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism within the country in addition to engaging in peacekeeping and other general service activities (Walker, & Katz, 2008). Furthermore, there has been witnessed increased coordination with private security organizations, which have demonstrated increased vitality and responsibility in facilitating security, investigations, intelligence gathering and emergencies (Gary & Biebel, 2005). For instance, private security con...