strategic department goals.
Chapter 2: Suppose you have been asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the police department in a medium-sized community. Where would you begin? How would you proceed? What effectiveness approach would you prefer?
When evaluating the effectiveness of the police department in a medium-sized community, I will first have to look at what their policies, procedures, mission, strategy, and goals are in order to proper evaluate them. Once I get a good understanding of what their goals are, I can start my evaluation from there. I will evaluate how they are implementing their ideas, productivity, innovation and change to ensure that their goals are being accomplished. I will also evaluate the behavior of the employees, leaders, and managers to ensure that they are using the appropriate leadership skills necessary to help their employees achieve success, grow, and train them properly. According to Johnson (2011), “It is important for supervisors within police agencies to be able to control the low visibility discretionary decisions of their officers. While citizens expect the managers of their law enforcement agencies to be able to control officer behavior, can they?” (pg. 294). Evaluating the police department’s strategy is important to ensure it is the most effective strategy to reach their goals. That is how to start the evaluation process to ensure that their goals are being achieved.
The effectiveness approach I will use to proceed with my evaluation is the resource-based approach. The other three approaches (goal based, internal process, and strategic constituents) can be effective to use as well, but the resource-based approach is the best choice for the police department. Military, and police departments have similar jobs, and that is why resources are very important. The only difference is that police are locally related to problems whereas the military can be locally (National Guard), or worldwide (Active Duty, and Reserve). In order to ensure that the police department are reaching their goals, their organization have to ensure that have an abundance of resources to attain their goals. According to Daft (2016), “From a resource-based perspective, organizational effectiveness is defined as the ability of the organization, in either absolute or relative terms, to obtain scarce and valued resources and successfully integrate and manage them” (pg. 71). Having the right resources gives them the advantage they need to ensure that their goals are being reached, and the strategy is appropriate.
Resources for a police department include escalation of force tools, police scanners, communication devices, automobiles, ammunition, etc. Without these types of resources, makes it almost impossible for police to do their jobs, and protect the citizens of this country. Their funding come from the government, and there are times that they cannot give the police departments the necessary resources for them to do their job. They have to wait, and see if they can be funded while other organizations have numerous ways to get the necessary resources that they need. Every organizations needs the appropriate resources to function, but they can find new resources if they do not have access to others. In a police department, their options are very small to choose from. The police department stakeholders are the government and citizens of this country. The government’s job is to ensure that the police department are doing their job as the law states, with the proper resources to increase productivity and reach sustainable goals. That is how I would evaluate the police department of a medium-based community to ensure they are achieving success based off resources available, and their mission, vision, and strategic department goals.