Police and the challenge of the 21st century: managing change in police organisations

In a wide-ranging discussion of the trends in modern policing, the Director of the Canadian
Police College, Tonita Murray explores how traditional approaches to law enforcement have
waned in their effectiveness. Policing in the western world is changing from paramilitary
organisational structures to shortened chains of command and the focus of the
‘empowered' police officer has moved from law enforcer to that of a catalyst who brings
together the right people to solve a law enforcement problem.
By Tonita Murray Director, Canadian Police College, Rockcliffe, Ontario
Police the world over are thinking about the challenges they are likely to face in the 21st century.
Perhaps 100 years or even 1000 years ago, police or their equivalent engaged in similar exercises
to prepare for new problems and to improve their ability to carry out their responsibilities. Police
of the late 20th century, however, have advantages their predecessors lacked in attempting to
project the future.
They have access to unlimited information, the ability to share ideas and experiences globally,
higher levels of education and training, and a better understanding of what policing can
contribute towards the quality of life of a nation. But on the debit side is a world far more
complex than it was 100 or 1000 years ago. The demands on police are constant, compelling and
often competing, so it is not always clear how police skills and resources can best be deployed to
achieve the civility, order and security which society requires. If all their modern skills,
resources and good intentions are not to be stretched too thinly and rendered ineffectual, police
must be able to cut through the tangle of issues to focus on what is important. Study of the future
is therefore vital for police managers to identify those key trends that will demand their attention
so that they can achieve maximum advantage for minimum expenditure of effort and resources.
Obviously, merely identifying future challenges will not make police automatically more
effective. In fact, such discovery is the easy part of the process; it is the action taken to meet the
challenges that is difficult. To prepare themselves for such action, it is necessary for police to
take stock of their ability to meet what the future holds. Do they understand the policing
implications of the developing trends? Have they the appropriate organisational structure,
knowledge, skills and expertise, the education and training, the assessment and reward systems,
the equipment, the cooperative relationships and the right attitudes to be able to adapt to change?
Answers to such questions may lead police organisations to spend considerable time and
resources in remaking themselves in readiness for the future.
Together with stocktaking and organisational adjustments, it is also necessary to develop
strategies and plans to meet the identified challenges. To act before thinking through and plotting
a course of action is like embarking on a difficult journey without a map; there is the likelihood
of becoming lost or of not reaching the destination as quickly and economically as one would
like. Strategists are fond of saying “If you don't know where you're going, you won't
know when you've got there. ” One must therefore start by fixing on an objective or
ultimate destination, and plan how one can arrive there, what resources will be needed, and how
one can overcome the obstacles to success that one will likely meet on the way.
Once plans have been launched, the impetus must be kept up. They will never yield results if
those responsible for their success do not believe in them and are unwilling to give them the
sustained attention they require. It is also important to put mechanisms in place to monitor
progress so that if problems develop they are quickly discovered and remedied.
The energy that fuels the process for meeting future challenges is provided by good leadership.
Success requires an organisational head who is visionary, open-minded, of good judgement and
courageous enough to take calculated risks and make difficult decisions. But leadership qualities
are needed throughout a police organisation. Managers and supervisors must be able to inspire
everyone in the organisation with the desire to meet strategic goals, and operational police
officers must have the imagination and ability to persuade the people with whom they come into
contact of the value of everyone working in concert for the same social ends.
Many western police agencies are currently going through these stages of change to prepare for
the new century. There is a remarkable similarity in the strategies they are choosing. Police in
Europe, North America, Australia and elsewhere are relinquishing old styles of policing to adopt
the community policing approach as a means of meeting new challenges.
This paper discusses the seven stages of managing the change process police organisations are
undergoing to prepare for the 21st century. They are:
A. Identification of the future challenges for police organisations;
B. Organisational assessment and change to enable it to meet future challenges;
C. Development of strategies and plans to meet future challenges;
D. Implementation of the strategies and plans
E. Sustaining impetus, adapting and creating the learning organisation;
F. Providing dynamic leadership; and
G. Community policing.

The exercise of identifying challenges for the future usually results in an embarrassment of
riches, since there is usually no shortage of trends with a potential to have a marked impact on
policing.
A. Identifying the major policing challenges of the 21st century
The trends that are likely to become the challenges of the next century are found by regular and
intelligent study of what is occurring in society. At any one time, copious information is
available to the police on the strategies of governments, the fluctuations of the economy, changes
in social attitudes, birth and death rates or the movement of peoples. Analysis of such data allows
projections to be made of their likely development and influence on future crime rates, security,
order and other social factors. Such analysis of information is analogous to the gathering and
analysis of criminal intelligence, but it casts a far wider net with a view to planning
organisational and operational strategies rather than the identification of specific criminal
activity.
The analysis of long-term demographic trends can be particularly useful in forecasting the future.
As the economist, David Foot, has observed:
“Demography, the study of human populations, is the most powerful — and most
underutilised — tool we have to understand the past and to foretell the future.
Demographics affect every one of us as individuals, far more than most of us have ever
imagined. They also play a pivotal role in the economic and social life of our country.
“ . . . Demographics explain about two-thirds of everything. They tell us which products
will be in demand in five years, and they accurately predict school enrollments many years in
advance. They allow us to forecast which drugs will be in fashion ten years down the road, as
well as what sorts of crimes will be on the increase.
“. . . Anyone involved in planning for the future needs to understand demographics.
That's true whether you're planning your own personal future or that of a school system, a
hospital, a chain of restaurants, or a multinational corporation. It is simply not possible to do any
competent planning without a knowledge of demographics. . . ”1
Canada, among other western countries, provides an example of the importance of demographic
factors in policing. At the end of the Second World War there was an enormous increase in the
birth rate that lasted until the early 1980s, resulting in a large population bulge. The people born
during this period are referred to as “baby boomers. ” When the boomers reached
adolescence and their rebellious, crime-prone years, drug abuse, property and violent crime rose
very sharply to unprecedented heights. Governments were compelled to inject large sums of
money into the criminal justice system and to recruit many new police officers very quickly. This
in its turn created a bulge in the police population. Policing suddenly became a much more
visible and socially important activity. Academics became interested in studying and developing
theories about policing.
Internally, new training techniques and operational practices were developed during the period
and policing began to achieve a more professional status. However, there was less chance for
advancement and promotion because there were more officers competing for a limited number of
management positions. Eventually, police recruitment slowed as the birth rate slowed, boomers
matured and crime levelled off. Police populations began to age and the bulge has now reached
the retirement phase. While educated, well-trained young officers are taking their place, there has
been a great loss of policing experience and knowledge as large numbers of police officers retire.
The exercise of identifying challenges for the future usually results in an embarrassment of
riches, since there is usually no shortage of trends with a potential to have a marked impact on
policing. The problem is to decide on which trends to concentrate. If there is an attempt to
address them all at once, it is more than likely that effort and resources will be stretched too
thinly and no issue will be addressed conclusively. Even if there are a large number of serious
challenges therefore, the temptation to concentrate on more than two or three of the most
pressing should be resisted. Usually, however, it is evident what are the most urgent matters that
should be given priority. Choosing priorities does not mean that other issues do not receive some
attention, but that selected priorities receive more attention than other matters.
Geography, jurisdiction and other factors will also decide what trends will be significant to
police. What is important to a Canadian or Australian police agency may be of little significance
to the police of Abu Dhabi. Yet, despite differences, there are some trends that are likely to affect
police in all parts of the globe. These are the so-called “mega trends” that are
transforming human society just as radically as the agricultural and industrial revolutions did in
their time. Avoiding at least some of their effects is therefore unlikely. On balance, the trends
will probably improve our lives but they also have the potential to cause considerable upheaval
and social instability as we adjust to them. It is for these reasons that they present a challenge to
the strategic planning abilities of police managers.
Three of the most significant of these mega-trends are:
the continuing development and exploitation of information technology and Internet-
based communication and commerce;
globalisation; and
the expansion of human rights.
A brief examination of the ramifications of the three trends will demonstrate how they are likely
to affect policing all over the world in the 21st century.
1. Information technology
Photography, the telephone, automobiles, mobile radios, tape-recorders, fingerprint technology
and DNA profiling are a few of the technological innovations that have been introduced into
policing over the years to improve effectiveness. They have also influenced how police
organisations function, what elements of the police role received the most attention and how
police do their work.
Mainframe computer technology was introduced into policing 30 years ago. It allowed the
collection, storage and retrieval of large amounts of data and, as a consequence, comprehensive,
automated, police information systems became a reality. Mainframe technology also had a
profound influence on how police agencies functioned, although it was not well recognised at the
time. The huge machines had to be fed constantly and uniformly with data. This meant that
numerous forms had to be designed to capture the data and officers required to report the data by
completing the forms. Then people had to be hired to code and feed the data into the computers,
while others were made responsible for retrieving and distributing data in different combinations
to still others who used the results. In essence, mainframe computer technology did not replace
human beings, as many had feared, but created more employment, bureaucracy and, for the
police officer, more paper work. There was a temptation to capture as many data as possible,
even if they did not have immediate utility. In 1992, the Auditor General of Canada reported that
“on certain days [some operational RCMP officers] can spend up to 50 per cent of their
working hours writing reports, including both case-related and administrative reports. Members
put in a large amount of voluntary (unpaid) overtime writing reports, typically at the end of their
shifts. ”2
The trend in information technology during that period had and appreciable impact on police
work. Now the new networked computer technology linked to telecommunications systems has
even more potential to transform police work. Already it is replacing or enhancing mainframe
functions and has revolutionised some basic organisational functions and paper systems.
Ordering of police supplies, payment of bills and salaries and keeping of inventory can all be
done electronically in much shorter and faster processes and with fewer people. Operational
police can take laptop computers into their patrol cars and into investigative interviews. Some
police agencies are even exploring the integration of all justice information systems to obtain
more complete information on suspects. Hand-held computers are being used by the State Police
of Denmark and police in Sicily, 3and there will shortly be a pilot test in Canada for giving
police officers in the field access to procedural checklists.4
Internal electronic mail systems and the Internet are also giving police access to unlimited
information to help them perform their jobs better. Internal information systems are also more
accessible to the police officer. Some police training can also be automated and pursued
individually at times convenient to the officer and the organisation, thus reducing training costs
and eliminating the difficulty of taking a number of officers out of the field at the same time.
Many police Web sites and list serves on the Internet also enable officers to consult and share
information with colleagues all over the world.5 Thus, both formal and informal use of electronic
networks is improving the knowledge and skills of police officers. They can find the information
they need to resolve professional problems without the necessity of having to refer to a higher
authority. Consequently, there is less need for the same number of supervisory layers in an
organisation or the same number of policy and procedures manuals.
While networked technology increases the effectiveness of police officers, it also encourages the
growth of informal information sharing, promotes lateral as opposed to vertical communication,
reduces reliance on organisational guidelines and leads to a greater assertion of autonomy. Police
organisations may thus become more “atomised,” which is to say that the present
cohesion of police agencies, which is fostered by daily contact, cooperative work relationships
and routines, may be replaced by an organisation of virtually independent officers linked more
by electronic than physical contact. Such a development could transform traditional relationships
and practices in a police organisation and challenge police managers to find new ways of
ensuring accountability for conduct, performance and the achievement of organisational goals.
The likelihood is that police managers would have to change their management styles and
practices.
Information technology is also in widespread use in the population and among criminals. We are
still at the stage of talking about computer crime as if it were a different kind of offence but, as
society has become increasingly reliant on information technology, criminals have come to use
information technology in their activities almost as easily as they would use a telephone or an
automobile. Theft, fraud, morals offences, kidnapping, terrorism, extortion or blackmail all have
the potential to be carried out electronically and, in some cases are already on the Internet. It will
soon no longer be sufficient to train a few investigators in carrying out computer investigations.
All police officers will have to have some training in the recognition of offences committed by
computer and how electronic evidence can be obtained and preserved. Police work is likely to
become more electronically based and more complex the greater the extension of information
technology into business and everyday life.
2. Globalisation
Globalisation results from cooperation among nations on economic, trade, political and social
matters to encourage world stability. This activity, in turn, stimulates the growth of international
communication, business, travel and tourism. Shared interests then lead to a need to have
harmonised standards, regulations, practices and even laws. Very soon the economic, political
and social well-being of nations become intertwined. Then, events in one region, bloc or nation
have repercussions on others across the globe and create a need for even more cooperation.
Nations thus become habituated to consultation and joint action, which leads to more
international communications networks, more international trade, travel and tourism, and the
need for more international organisations.
Understandably, while nations are likely to cling to their sovereignty, the trend to globalisation is
coming to the point of being irreversible. Some nations prefer to be more involved than others,
but those that withdraw or hold back run the risk of cutting themselves off from the advantages
that association confers. As more and more international organisations are established to manage
global matters, we will in effect be creating world government. It is not likely to be monolithic
government but of a more pluralistic and compartmentalised nature. As issues and matters of
interest arise that have global implications, arrangements will be made to regulate and direct
them.
Globalisation will also have local effects, both good and bad. Decisions taken a world away,
perhaps on the price of oil or the closing of a branch plant of a multinational company, already
affect local economies. Migration of peoples is also an effect of globalisation. As countries
liberalise entry policies, people follow economic prosperity or are moved by their companies and
governments.
Given the scale and the nationalities involved, immigration can bring people of many different
races, cultures, religions, languages and experiences into a country. Abu Dhabi has about 124
nationalities in its borders, one in nine people in London is a foreign citizen,6 white domination
in the United States is expected to end in less than a century,7 and Canada is a declared
multicultural society. While heterogeneity creates social vibrancy and stimulates economies, it
can also result in tension and conflict between different cultures and value systems. The police,
as the most immediate representatives of government in the community, must become the social
arbitrators and resolve the difficulties with an even hand. In Canada, this has meant that they
must be trained to be knowledgeable and sensitive to cultural differences and police
organisations have gone to considerable lengths to recruit representatives from different minority
groups.
Globalisation offers the opportunity of new roles and responsibilities for the police. The United
Nations has already launched several policing missions in the world. Where conflict and disorder
have been of longstanding in a country, the infrastructure of public institutions that creates trust,
order and security in a society is often destroyed or completely missing. Without it, a fragile
peace often cannot be sustained. United Nations military action can stop the fighting but is not
the most appropriate means for building civil society. This is where civil police missions are
needed.
Given that police already have a continuing domestic responsibility that standing armies do not
have, no one country could deploy large numbers of police at anyone time. However, resources
from many different countries could be pooled to form multinational units. This could eventually
result in a need for harmonised international police standards and perhaps even joint training and
policies and procedures. In the long-term, such experiences could lead to changes in domestic
police practices and greater uniformity of policing across the globe, not just in United Nations
missions.
Police agencies around the world are already aware of the expansion of global crime. By virtue
of using global systems to advantage, it is usually clever, large-scale, organised crime which
expands internationally. Such crime is difficult to investigate even domestically. Despite
international conventions and treaties and the best of police cooperation, when the obstacles of
different legal systems, police practices and sovereignty are thrown into the equation, it becomes
difficult to bring offenders to justice or to recover lost assets. To overcome such obstacles in the
future, there is likely to be a movement towards creating international laws and regulations and
establishing international criminal courts for certain types of offences. International policing
units could also be formed, perhaps initially for single, short-term investigations but later to be
put on a permanent footing.
Both international and domestic terrorism can take advantage of global arrangements such as air
travel and the Internet. Terrorism is now assuming a new form. It is less motivated by ideology
and a desire to change the world as by fanatical theories and a desire to destroy the world.
Weapons of mass destruction such as biological and chemical agents can be easily manufactured
and introduced to spread maximum terror in a population.8 The police will not only have to
develop new strategies to prevent such terrorism but to investigate it and to deal with populations
affected by it. Again, well-established global policing arrangements could well be useful in such
situations. While globalisation thus has the ability to place great pressures on the police of all
nations, it could also provide unlimited scope for extending and professionalising the police
role.9
3. Human Rights
Globalisation and the increase of knowledge have also intensified the debate and campaign for
extending individual human rights. One element of the human rights movement is directed at the
elimination of torture, imprisonment without trial and other such injustices. But an important
element is the assertion of individual rights against collective rights. While strong arguments can
be made for and against both approaches and, in theory, the two can coexist without too much
contradiction, at least in the West individual rights are winning the battle. This may just be the
beginning of a global trend which continues well into the next century. Increased education and
knowledge, growing entrepreneurialism and self-confidence, and exposure through global
communication systems and trade to ideas from other cultures, engenders a greater sense of the
autonomous self and loosens the ties to tradition and collective values.
Increased human rights will lead to pressure on governments to provide fundamental guarantees
of equal access to education, work and equal wages for work of equal value for women, minority
groups and the disabled in a country. There will be demands for language rights, the freedom to
express any ideas or opinions, to practice any religion and to associate in whatever way
individuals wish. Given scrutiny by international agencies and rising migration, few countries
will be able to withstand the pressure and will probably have to introduce some protection for
human rights.
Because human rights will be incorporated into laws, the police will be expected to be their
guardians.10 They will have both to be governed by the laws themselves and to apply them
against offenders. This will place extraordinary demands on the police to be impartial and
sensitive to different cultures, even when they might be personally offended by a particular
value. Cross-cultural training, training in foreign languages, recruitment of police officers from
minority groups and giving a full range of policing responsibilities to women will become
common methods by which police ensure that individual rights are respected.
B. Organisational assessment and change to meet future challenges
Having identified the challenges, a police organisation must assess its ability to respond. It will
require the right structure, the right systems and the right people in the organisation to build the
strength necessary to meet new challenges. Many western police agencies have realised this fact
and currently are engaged in rethinking their roles, restructuring their organisations and changing
their cultures to adjust to the rapidly changing conditions that herald the new
millennium.11 Indeed, adaptation is becoming a way of life. Police organisations are no longer
the stable, hierarchical structures built to withstand change that they once were. Indeed, not
changing now means running the risk of becoming irrelevant or ineffective. This is a normal
response of institutions to abnormal situations. The British monarchy, the United Nations, and
the former Trucial States, have all made adaptations over the years in response to extraordinary
conditions.
1. Organisational structure
Most police organisations are paramilitary in style and therefore structured as command and
control organisations. In other words, they tend to be hierarchical and highly centralised
structures in which authority emanates from the top down. Despite having a range of functions,
they also tend to emphasise crime control as their primary focus. Such organisations are usually
of a conservative nature because they are structured to maintain the status quo both internally
and externally. They are perhaps at their most effective in extreme conditions, either where there
is little social change or where there is little social structure at all. As a result, they have been
invaluable historically in helping develop the degree of social stability and order that we enjoy
today. The organisational structure, however, is built on an industrial model of division of
labour, specialisation, standard products and responses, and management of a workforce trained
just to follow set procedures. Such structures no longer meetthe demands of a diverse and
complex society which requires more information, specific responses to specific problems, and a
knowledgeable workforce capable of solving problems. The futurist Alvin Tofler observes:
“What we see . . . is a burgeoning crisis at the very heart of bureaucracy. High-speed
change not only overwhelms its cubbyhole-and-channel structure, it attacks the very deepest
assumptions on which the system is based. This is the notion that it is possible to pre-specify
who in the company needs to know what. It is an assumption based on the idea that organisations
are essentially machines and that they operate in an orderly environment.
Today we are learning that organisations are not machine-like but human, and that in a turbulent
environment filled with revolutionary reversals, surprises, and competitive upsets, it is no longer
possible to specify in advance what everyone needs to know. ”12
The structure of a police organisation should then be appropriate to the style of policing needed
to meet the new challenges. In other words, the form of the organisation should follow its
function. Western police are following private sector models in “flattening” their
organisations and reducing the number of police officer ranks. The Australian Federal Police for
example reduced its rank structure to five levels and eventually abolished ranks altogether,
adopting the term “federal agent. ” The RCMP which currently has 10 ranks is
studying how some can be eliminated. The latter has declared an intention, where possible, to
have no more than two organisational layers between the working and the executive levels.
The effect of flattening the hierarchical structure is to devolve decision-making authority and
responsibility to the working level. This allows the principle of “empowerment” to
operate. Empowerment is the organisational principle of allowing those at the operational level
of an organisation, who know local conditions and needs, to make their own decisions about how
their work should be done to best effect.
Ultimately, a police structure should be one that supports the achievement of the operational
mandate of the organisation. Administrative and other support elements have an important role in
enabling a police organisation to function but, over time, they can become bloated and
counterproductive. Procedures that started out as ways to further the operational mandate of the
organisation frequently become ends in themselves and hurdles that have to be surmounted
before a necessary operation can take place. Organisational streamlining provides an opportunity
to bring units back to first principles and to trim their size.
The structure and organisation of operational units may also prevent the ability of the
organisation to respond to new challenges. They may be too compartmentalised to deal with
crime that does not always fit into tidy categories. Investigative units and resources may be too
centralised or too decentralised for the criminal problems they face. They may also be weighted
in favour of reaction rather than proaction and prevention, and organised to deal with problems
that are no longer as important as ones that are newly emerging. Ultimately, a community
policing approach may prove to be more useful for modern crime problems than the traditional
crime control approach. If a community policing model is chosen, it requires a flattened
organisation, empowered, multi tasked police officers and decentralisation.
2. Organisational systems
The most important system in any modern police organisation is perhaps its communication
system, because it promotes the flow of the information so vital to operational effectiveness. If
an organisation wishes to be able to adapt to new circumstances as they appear, it needs
information that travels in every direction in an organisation (up, down and laterally) so that
there is a clear and comprehensive picture of what is happening.
Where organisations are flattened and operational officers empowered to make some decisions,
information is particularly vital. Police managers need to know what is happening in the field
and what decisions are being made, to ensure accountability. Operational officers, in their turn,
need to know and understand the reasons for executive decisions. An open flow of information
promotes trust and good working relations, apart from enabling everyone to do their work better.
Communication is also the key for police managers to “market” new ideas and
strategies, even before they are introduced. Consulting early with those who will be affected and
taking their views into consideration is likely to lead to greater acceptance than introducing a
new approach as a given.
While computers are fast becoming the primary vehicle of communication, internal news
bulletins and magazines, videotapes for use at roll-call and special messages from the head of the
organisation should all form part of the communication system. Ultimately, however, there is no
substitute for face-to-face contact. Executives can hold meetings to inform operational personnel
of new directions and to answer questions, while supervisors have the opportunity to impart
information and answer questions on a routine basis.
3. Human resources systems
Police organisations are human-resource intensive, as the high proportion of police budgets
devoted to salaries usually shows.13 It is not surprising, therefore, that any organisational change
almost invariably has an impact on human resources and human resources management systems.
Indeed, trying to bring change to an organisation without changing human resource management
is virtually a recipe for failure. New approaches may require a different type of recruit, different
training, and almost certainly new performance evaluation, promotion and reward criteria, since
the values of an organisation and its particular orientation are often embedded in such systems.
To expect officers to change while still evaluating them on existing criteria undermines the
change effort.
The modern view sees police as information or “knowledge workers”; they use
knowledge for problem-solving and risk reduction, they impart knowledge and they produce
knowledge for the benefit of others.14 This is quite a different view from the traditional one of
the police, but is in keeping with new demands, with the tools such as computers and mobile
radios that police use and increasing professionalism. In the last thirty years the education and
training of police has improved to such a degree that it is now difficult to see policing in the
terms described by Richard Ericson as “. . . close to Weber's depiction of bureaucratic
‘dehumanised' labour. ”15
Some police agencies in Britain, Australia and Canada are attempting to change organisational
culture. The reduction in “top down” direction, increase in consultation with
members of a police agency, reduction in the number of ranks, less emphasis on drill and
discipline and more attention to ethics and problem-solving training are all attempts to change
organisational culture. Civilian specialists are being recruited to fill positions that do not require
police officer training or powers. Consequently, there are a growing number of civilian managers
and executives in police organisations. Police organisations are also dropping the description
“police force” and calling themselves “police services.” All of these
changes and more are intended to emphasise the intellectual content of the police role; to treat
police officers as thinking, judging and acting professionals and to eradicate the view of the
police officer as a mere agent carrying out the orders of superiors.
C. Development of strategies and plans
A starting point for strategic planning is to engage the members of an organisation in developing
a vision16 for the future of the organisation. Everyone is then aware of the new direction. The
vision is the guiding beacon, inspiration and framework for both planning and for the subsequent
change action. It is said that the Pepsi Cola Company had a very clear vision of its future
expressed in a few words: “Beat Coke.” Any plan or action that did not further this
aim would not be undertaken. Apart from the vision itself, the effect was to provide Pepsi with a
measuring stick of success. Choosing a successful practice of another organisation, or another
organisation itself, against which to plan and measure progress towards a goal has now become
an accepted practice called “bench marking.” Not only does bench marking
provide something measurable for which to strive, it also allows organisations to emulate each
other's best practices.
Theoretically, beating Coke could be achieved very effectively by illegal or unethical methods.
To make it clear that such practices are not permitted, many organisations engage during the
strategic planning process in articulating the values and beliefs of an organisation. For private
companies, ethical conduct is regarded as a good practice; in policing it is an imperative. Most
police organisations are guided by such values as honesty, integrity and service. Their visions or
missions are similarly altruistic: the 1990s vision of the New South Wales Police Service is
“by the end of the decade NSW will have the safest streets in Australia.” The
RCMP is committed “to preserve the peace, uphold the law, and provide quality service
in partnership with our communities.” Many visions or missions are similar to the one of
the Queensland Police Service:
“To serve the people in Queensland by protecting life and property, preserving peace and
safety, preventing crime and upholding the law in a manner which has regard for the public good
and the rights of the individual.”17
The most difficult part of strategising and planning is to think in different ways from before. We
are all creatures of tradition and habit. Generally, custom serves us well but it can be limiting
when it prevents us from seeking useful new ideas and approaches. Thomas Kuhn, a historian of
science, has shown how holding too tenaciously to a certain paradigm, or view of the world,
leads scientists to perpetuate scientific errors by rejecting new knowledge that contradicts
accepted truths.18 His observations have been adapted by organisational theorists to show how
change is managed much better in organisations that are able to break out of their particular
paradigm or way of thinking.19 Many of the principles elaborated in organisational theory can
be adapted to change police organisations.
Planning to achieve particular priorities is most effective if done by those who are familiar with
the subject matter of the priority, but they should be aided by planners and financial experts with
important knowledge to contribute. Others who can contribute particular expertise to the plan
may be called on as needed or retained on contract. It is also important that the planning be done
under the direction of a senior executive who is responsible for the success of the plan. This is
mainly to ensure that the project has a sufficiently high profile to be taken seriously by everyone
in the organisation.
It is also important in developing major plans that all those who have an interest in the results are
consulted and their views given due consideration. Such “stakeholders”will be
both internal and external to the organisation. In the external category, there will be other
agencies with an interest, people particularly affected by the proposed changes and members of
the community or public. For example, a new traffic strategy might include consultation and
cooperation with the Department of Highways, traffic engineers, vehicle manufacturers,
automobile clubs, health authorities, emergency room doctors, victims of traffic accidents,
insurance companies, teachers, and members of concerned citizens groups. The aim is to develop
comprehensive and joint plans with other groups so that the overall impact is more than the
police alone could provide. It also gains commitment for the plans before they are implemented.
In addition, the consultation is an early part of the marketing and communication strategy, which
should be sustained throughout.
D. Implementation of the strategies and plans
The next step in the process of meeting the challenge of the future is the most difficult of all: that
of putting the plans into action. Implementing plans is difficult because it means people must
actually change rather than just talk about it. Thus, plans are often defeated at this stage through
a failure of will or a lack of expertise. There are also other reasons. Peter Drucker, an
organisational theorist, believes that plans are difficult to get off the ground because of
‘paralysis by analysis'. So much time is spent in researching and refining plans that the
activity becomes an end in itself. Too much planning can therefore be as dangerous as no
planning at all.
The paralysis by over elaboration of planning is illustrated by the meticulousness of the writer
Malcolm Lowrey who rewrote his novel, Under the Volcano, 16 times because he never thought
it good enough. If his wife had not finally taken it away from him and sent it to a publisher, it
would never have become the masterpiece of English literature it is today. Information
technologists too realise the dangers of the law of diminishing returns: that trying to attain the
last 10 or 20 per cent of perfection may be more costly in terms of timeliness, money and effort
than the results merit.
Timeliness and utility are sometimes more important than perfection, so new software systems
that have not been finally perfected will be launched with a view to perfecting them in later
versions. Similarly, well-designed strategic plans do not have to cover every detail before they
are put into effect. In fact, given that such plans are usually long-term and that circumstances can
change during the time they are being implemented, they will probably require continual
adjustment. So an initially perfect plan may not be so a few months or a year later. Some
planners would argue that it is not the strategic plan itself that enables an organisation to position
itself for the future, but the strategic thinking that planning encourages.20
Resistance to change is another major reason why plans are not implemented. The sentiment is
an almost universal human trait. We subject proposals for change to minute scrutiny and
compare them unfavourably with existing practices that are familiar and comfortable and that we
are reluctant to relinquish. Frequently, we must be compelled to change or a great deal of effort
has to be expended to convince us that a change is necessary or advantageous. This is the reason
why managers talk about ‘marketing change', which is to say, explaining endlessly the
need for and the advantages of change and persuading and convincing employees to accept it.
Organisational inertia is as difficult to overcome as human resistance. This is why it is important
to make organisational change at the same time that new policing strategies are being developed
because an organisation structured to meet old goals and priorities will not be able to meet new
challenges. The RCMP learned this lesson the hard way. It consistently fell short of its strategic
goals before it realised that its existing organisational structure and processes prevented the
success of new approaches. Later still it realised that strategic planning meant deciding where to
focus resources. New objectives could not be achieved unless they were adequately financed. It
makes no sense to declare, for example, that computer fraud or traffic safety are priorities but to
continue to devote the resources they require to be successful to other activities.
E. Sustaining impetus, adapting and creating the learning organisation
Launching plans is only the first step in the process of bringing about organisational change.
There is still the likelihood that change, or sufficient change, will not take place. Plans require
prolonged and sustained effort to see them to a successful conclusion. This is where the value of
having an articulated vision becomes important because it continues to provide a clear direction,
even when an organisation has to modify its plans in the face of new circumstances. Moreover,
keeping the vision in sight also allows an organisation to become strategic in its thinking. It can
weigh the pros and cons of one action against another, make the necessary organisational
adaptations to absorb new challenges and still achieve its strategic objectives. This is the essence
of what is known as a “learning organisation” — one that is open to new
ideas, able to adapt to new circumstances without losing sight of its goals, and which has open-
minded employees that are also able to adapt. Such organisations are built to last.21
F. Providing dynamic leadership
While good management is necessary to ensure that objectives are met, that an organisation
functions well and that products and services are delivered, good management alone is often
insufficient to bring about change. This is because management is largely concerned with
maintaining organisational stability and the integrity of procedures and processes. Change is a
destabilising force because it involves risk, iconoclasm and a break with established patterns, the
very factors that management tries to avoid. Change is therefore best pursued by those who have
leadership rather than management skills. Leaders have an ability to inspire and think creatively.
They can impart a vision to their followers. They are self-motivated and have the courage to
make unpopular or risky decisions. They must also be endowed with clear-sightedness to ensure
that serious mistakes are not made, and have the interpersonal and communication skills to
persuade others to their cause.22
There is continual debate on whether leaders are born or made. There may be no final answer to
the question, but police organisations tend to assume that they can be made and have undertaken
development programs for promising employees. Those with potential are identified and given
the opportunities to develop their leadership potential. Police agencies, such as the New South
Wales Police Service, have an assessment program not only to identify those capable of
executive leadership, but to identify their weaknesses so that they can concentrate on
strengthening these during a maximum three-year development period.
Development of leaders entails not only formal training and education where necessary, but
exposure to a range of experience that can eventually be used in leading and managing a police
organisation. A range of policing experience is useful. Experience in a number of different
operational fields can give an invaluable understanding of an organisation, and its demands and
pressures. Time spent in the administrative and operational support areas can also be important,
while experience in the corporate area is essential, for future police leaders must understand how
a police organisation is governed, funded and directed.
Even with all this organisational knowledge and experience, however, future police leaders are
handicapped unless they have had experience outside of their own organisations. British police
chief constables cannot be appointed without having experienced command in another police
service, but it is still possible for police chiefs in most countries to be appointed from within their
own agency without any other outside experience. Such a narrow experience means they have
less knowledge of how others have dealt with challenges when they must make a difficult
decision.
Fortunately this practice is changing. Potential police leaders can now be seconded to other
organisations in the public and private sectors, or sent on study tours to learn how others respond
to challenges. Also, police chiefs are increasingly chosen from other police organisations. The
New South Wales Police Service has perhaps gone the furthest in appointing a commissioner
from a foreign country, while the United States and Canada advertise throughout their countries
for police chiefs. Also, in the United States and Canada, the number of women appointed to
positions of police chief and deputy police chief is growing. Recruiting from a wider pool of
candidates means greater likelihood of finding a chief executive to meet specific requirements.
More importantly, it means that having police chiefs with diverse backgrounds and experience
will help police organisations cope with the complex challenges of the future.
G. Community Policing
Community policing is a new style of service delivery now practised by western police
organisations. Some would argue that it is not new but a return to an earlier form of policing
usurped by the highly centralised crime control approach of the crime-ridden 1960s. While the
crime control model did much to improve and professionalise policing, it also removed police
from general interaction with the public, substituted technology for human involvement and
made the police purely reactive. They intervened only when there was an occurrence requiring a
police remedy. As a result, police lost touch with community contacts, grass-roots intelligence
was harder to obtain and there was less opportunity to nip policing problems in the bud. While in
some cases the public became dependent on the police and accepted little responsibility for their
own security, in some instances, police became unpopular because they were seen as solely law
enforcers and their service functions were largely unrecognised.
As its name implies, community policing marks a return to the community for the police. It
remedies some of the weaknesses of the crime control model in being more flexible, thus
allowing the police to respond to the new challenges with new, specifically-designed strategies.
For example, the presence of police officers on foot in areas inhabited by immigrants has done
much to dispel distrust and to encourage the inhabitants to seek police help when something goes
wrong. Bringing immigrants and police together to plan policing strategies for such
neighbourhoods, and having a police officer who is of the same race and speaks the same
language as the immigrant group, while not a panacea, has nevertheless contributed to breaking
down racial and cultural barriers and resulted in some degree of success in solving problems of
immigrant communities.
Community policing requires police to work with community or neighbourhood agencies and
ordinary people in building policing strategies for maintaining order and security. Frequently it
means police taking the initiative to start such endeavours, but it does not mean that the police
necessarily lead or even take a major role in them. The police officer is rather a community
catalyst who brings together the right people to solve a problem. This means that broader
solutions than mere law enforcement can be found. For example, in one RCMP sub-division, a
significant number of drug addicts were obtaining multiple drug prescriptions from unsuspecting
doctors and then selling the drugs to other addicts. The police informed the local branches of the
medical and pharmacists' societies. The societies jointly developed a system to identify offenders
and to avoid issuing duplicate prescriptions. The problem was eliminated as a result.23
Two American researchers of government policy describe community policing this way:
“The basic idea is to make public safety a community responsibility, rather than simply
the responsibility of the professionals — the police. It transforms the police officer from
an investigator and enforcer into a catalyst in a process of community self-help. Sometimes this
means police officers help neighbourhood members clear out vacant lots and rusting cars.
Sometimes it means they help organise marches in front of crack houses. Sometimes it means
they work with community leaders to keep neighbourhood children in school.

Because community policing depends on a networked rather than a
hierarchical system of operation, it is well supported by new information technology
[For example], the Tulsa police studied arrest trends, school dropout statistics, drug treatment
data, and the problems of the city's public housing developments. They concluded that teenagers
from one section of town were creating most of the city's drug problems, so they began to work
with the community to attack the problem at its roots. They organised the residents of one
apartment complex, and with their backing prosecuted and evicted residents who were dealing or
helping dealers. They created an anti-drug education program in the housing projects. They set
up job placement programs and mentoring initiatives for young men and women. They set up a
youth camp for teenagers. And they worked with the schools to develop an anti-truancy
program.”24
The emphasis in community policing is on problem-solving, or finding the causes of a policing
problem and concentrating on those, rather than merely reacting to the manifestations of a
problem. Some of the solutions are quite simple. For example, one police organisation played
classical music at night in a park where adolescents loitered and bothered older people. The
choice of music drove the teenagers elsewhere. In another simple case, the police had a public
telephone moved from a dark corner of a restaurant so that it could no longer be used for making
drug deals. In yet another case, a long standing and violent feud between next-door neighbours in
a low income housing project was terminated when a police officer arranged with the local
housing authority to move both families to better houses, each in a different area.
Community police officers require good interpersonal skills to resolve difficult situations without
confrontation and violence. However, it does not mean that police do not make arrests or do
investigations. Such activities still remain part of the range of solutions that police apply
according to the situation. The emphasis in community policing is on establishing orderly
communities and making people feel secure in their neighbourhoods. Moreover, police
accountability is not only rendered to the government as employer, but to the communities that
pay for police services through their taxes.
To have sufficient officers available to undertake foot patrols and to interact with the members of
a neighbourhood, modifications had to be made to the system for responding to calls for service.
The public had to be made aware that though the police would respond immediately to a serious
problem they could not expect the same rapid response for minor incidents. Systems were set up
for the public to report such occurrences at the police station within a given period or to provide
information over the phone. Case management systems based on the likelihood of resolving a
crime were introduced so that resources could be focused on those with the greatest likelihood of
success. In some instances, civilian community service officers, auxiliaries and volunteers were
recruited, and property protection left to private security agencies.
Community policing is thus becoming a specialised generalist function. In many ways it is
analogous to the role of the general medical practitioner or family doctor. The approach relies on
empowered, knowledgeable police officers with a set of professional skills. Community police
officers are required to be resourceful, to be able to identify the source of problems, to make use
of a network of contacts in the social agencies, to obtain necessary information to solve
problems, and to have the authority to make decisions. They have offices in high schools,
libraries, in shopping malls and on main streets of towns where they are accessible to the people
who need their help or want to share information. The running of these small community offices
is frequently left to volunteers (often retired police officers, doctors and other responsible
people), who can answer the telephone, take reports and answer questions while the officers
themselves are patrolling the streets, organising community self-help projects or investigating a
crime.
Because community policing depends on a networked rather than a hierarchical system of
operation, it is well supported by new information technology. Mobile telephones and portable
computers for accessing electronic information files, reporting occurrences and e-mail are all
ways of furthering community policing aims and operations.
Initially police officers were slow to adopt community policing but, once convinced, they
became its principal proponents. Only those who do not see how community policing and
criminal law enforcement are compatible continue to be sceptical, and their numbers are
diminishing. Nevertheless, there are those who see community policing, together with
community education and community health, as a neo-liberal strategy of governments to break
public dependency on governments and to compel communities to take responsibility for their
own security, education and health.25
If government withdrawal from responsibility for security is a trend of the future, then
community policing is a good approach to adopt. It is also likely to be useful for responding to
other future trends, since it allows police to act in a variety of ways, depending on the situation.
It also incorporates many of the new organisational and management principles developed to
meet a changing world. Most important of all, it is a style of policing which attracts idealistic,
intelligent police officers who are interested in a style of policing that allows them to use their
abilities rather than merely following a procedures manual. Ultimately, it will be the quality of
their officers that will decide how well police organisations meet the challenges of the 21st
century.
Conclusion
Despite copious information, perceptive analysis and careful preparation, the ability to project
and plan for the future remains an inexact science. While some visions of the future have been
remarkably prescient, others have been wide of the mark. Random events occur that could not
have been foreseen and have a ripple effect on other circumstances. Even where a projection
does prove to have been accurate, its character may be somewhat different from that expected;
rather as one might meet for the first time someone who conforms to a given description but
differs substantially from the mental image one may have formed from the description.
Despite the tentative nature of forecasting and preparation for the future, however, they are
necessary activities for helping an organisation avoid the adverse impact of outside
circumstances and gain maximum advantage from developing trends. Effective police agencies
understand that circumstances can evolve or transmute and are able to adapt so that they are
always in a position to manage the challenge of change.
In some respects, our preoccupation with the new century and the new millennium is merely
metaphor and rhetoric. It is not time that is bringing change but the evolution of our global
society. We are building faster and faster on earlier basic discoveries, so that we have little time
to absorb one change before another is upon us. We do not have the luxury of time to absorb a
new technique or a new approach before we must adopt another. For this reason we must be
constantly futuristic in our view, because anticipating change gives us a little more time to adjust
to it. If we wait until it is upon us, we find ourselves constantly in a reactive mode, and never in
control. Managing change in a police organisation is thus about thinking strategically and
planning for the short, the medium and the long-term. In police organisations in particular, it is
difficult to keep this perspective in view because present circumstances and the unexpected
constantly compete for attention. It is therefore an act of faith when a police agency devotes
resources to strategic planning and to questions about the new millennium. Nevertheless, those
who do will control their destinies and take policing further on its evolutionary voyage.
This article first appeared in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police ‘Gazette' and has been
reproduced in Platypus Magazine with the kind permission of the author and the RCMP.