1st Edition

The Future of Policing A Practical Guide for Police Managers and Leaders

    432 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    432 Pages
    by Routledge

    As communities continue to undergo rapid demographic shifts that modify their composition, culture, and collective values, police departments serving those communities must evolve accordingly in order to remain effective. The Future of Policing: A Practical Guide for Police Managers and Leaders provides concrete instruction to agencies on how to promote successful policing by proceeding on a course informed by future trends and emerging community forces.

    Explores critical variables necessary for decision-making

    Designed for typical police departments with common structures, problems, and opportunities, this book offers a unique juxtaposition of real-life examples, futures research, emergent trends, and management implications. Each chapter provides a discussion of the professional literature, current and projected trends, and situations faced by agency executives and leaders. Through this multidimensional and contemporaneous approach, the book explores community and political variables crucial to the decision-making process. It describes methods that managers can employ to explore the future and prepare their agencies for possible, probable, and preferable trends and opportunities.

    Provides specific, concrete examples

    Drawn from the authors’ research, as well as their own instructional and practical experience in the policing profession, this volume goes beyond esoteric, theoretical analysis and instead provides practical and well-grounded strategies for those who aspire to become police managers or current managers wishing to improve their proficiency. Using futures research and methodologies as the foundation for the text, this volume prepares practitioners to meet the challenges of policing and police management in the 21st century.

    Setting the Stage
    Challenges in Police Organizations
    Leadership, Management, Supervision, and Administration
    Problems with the Present Police Organizational Model
    An Analysis of Failure
    The Potential Benefits of Futures Studies for Policing
    Five Key Themes
    The Emergence of Futures Thinking Within and About
    American Policing
    The Organization of This Book
    Futures Thinking and Research
    The Acceleration of Change
    What Is Futures Studies?
    A Short History of Futures Research
    Futures Studies as a Leadership Tool
    Methods of Forecasting the Future
    Future Trends
    Technological Trends
    Demographic Trends
    Economic Trends
    Social and Community Trends
    Political Trends
    What Does All This Mean for Policing?
    Communities
    The Police and the Community
    The Evolving Nature of Community
    Communication Technology and Community
    Communication Technology and Policing
    Social Networking Tools and Social Engagement
    Policing Implications of Social Networking
    Involving Communities in Policing
    Trust, Transparency, and Leadership
    Challenges and Opportunities Created by the Changing
    Nature of Community
    Boundaries: Disappearing, Reemerging, and Merging
    Three Examples in High Relief
    Why Boundaries?
    Technologies and Policing
    Jurisdiction, Mandates, and Threats
    The Influence of Money
    Federal vs. Local Responsibilities
    Intelligence
    Militarization
    Transparency
    External Oversight and Influence
    The Future of Crime
    Economic Drivers
    Health Care
    Technology
    Immigration
    The Drug War
    A Problem of Identity
    Gang-Based Crime
    Other Trends in Crime and Policing
    Investigation
    Criminals
    Victims
    Citizen Resilience
    On the Beat
    Technology
    Future Law and Governance Considerations
    What Works in Policing? Evidence-Based Operations
    Predictive Policing
    Police Personnel: Culture, Hiring, and Development
    Cultural Forces
    Personnel
    Hiring
    Training
    Employee Development
    Discipline
    Organizational Solutions
    Mission, Vision, and Values
    Economic Realities in Policing
    Managing through Tough Times
    Employee Input
    Organizational Evaluation
    Policy Development and Accreditation
    Progressive Approaches to Employee Discipline
    Opportunities Emerging through Change
    Leadership and Care
    From Where Will Future Police Leaders Emerge?
    On The Horizon: The Police Organization of the Future
    A Brief Look Backward
    Structures and Processes
    Maximizing the Power of Generations
    Eligibility for Employment
    Creating a Preferred Culture
    The Nexus between Training and Education
    Purposive Career Development
    Radical Change
    Putting It All Together
    Revisiting the Book’s Themes
    Other Considerations for the Future
    Wild Cards
    Leveraging Culture
    The Role of Community
    Using the Leadership GPS to Navigate into the Future
    Practical Strategies
    Reconceptualizing Police Management and Leadership to
    Create Better Policing
    Appendix: Principles of the Wheaton Police Department

    Biography

    Michael E. Buerger, Joseph A. Schafer, Richard W. Mysers, Carl J. Jensen III, Bernhard H. Levin

    "This well-crafted book, replete with anecdotes, systematically addresses issues such as technology, hiring practices, training, budgets, labor relations, evolving communities, and post 9-11 trends that challenge today’s police departments. The reader will come away with a wealth of information from sections in the book called ‘Voices from the Field.’ These are the words of law enforcement professionals who have shared their experiences, which augment the authors’ own perspectives. … Written specifically for law enforcement executives and police officers striving for advancement, this book will also encourage those dedicated to promoting the police profession through the use of foresight to continue with their futurist ideology."
    —Dr. Brian L. Royster, Saint Peter’s University, in Security Management