Police as problem solvers: how frontline workers can promote organizational and community change

"This book is about an innovative approach that lets members of progressive organizations function as applied scientists and problem solvers. This means that in such organizations work becomes more mindful. Decisions can be made based on inventories of information and analysis of data-couched tentatively, to be sure, subject to ratification through additional study. At the working level, planning and action can become linked, and the organization thereby becomes problem-oriented rather than crisis-reactive. It is ironic that this problem-oriented approach has evolved most explicitly and self-consciously in policing. We tend to think of police in terms of brawn rather than brains, and we may conceive of police officers as spending time wrestling with suspects and engaged in hot pursuits of fleeing felons. Police are perceived as the embodiment of blind reactivity, and yet an applied social-scientific focus on work has sprung up and taken root within the ranks of police. This book is addressed to those interested in the process of organizational change in settings in which a problem-oriented focus may be relevant. I am interested, therefore, in making the process of problem-oriented activity come alive and in conveying some sense of what such activity means to those who engage in its exercise"--Introd. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

1 The Advent of Problem-Oriented Policing -- The "End Product" of Policing -- Problems as Behavior Patterns -- Evolution of the Problem-Oriented Approach -- Timeliness of the Problem-Oriented Model -- Old Wine with New Label? -- From Native Wisdom to Problem Solving -- A Hypothetical Example -- Building on a Foundation -- 2 Police Officers as Applied Social Scientists -- The Newport News Experiment -- The Battle of New Briarfield -- Expanding the Process -- Applied Social Research -- Science and Experience -- Finding Researchable Problems -- 3 Participation and Work Enrichment -- The Human Relations School -- Climbing Maslow's Hierarchy -- Enriching Jobs -- The Work Reform Movement -- Who Does the Thinking and Planning? -- The Police Officer as a Problem Solver -- The Officer as "Intrapreneur" -- 4 Problems of Planned Change -- Problems and Obstacles -- Sources of Resistance -- Force Field Analysis as a Requisite for Change -- Garnering Community Support -- Harnessing Human Resources -- Supportive Concepts -- Evolving a Paradigm -- Strategies -- Toward an Epidemiological Science of Problem-Oriented Policing -- 5 The Oakland Project -- The Oakland Police Department -- From Research to Reform -- Inception of the Program -- 6 Defining a Problem: First-Generation Change Agents -- Evolving a Joint Frame of Reference -- Facing Larger Implications -- The Inadequacies of the Academic Approach -- Prelude to Action -- The Travails of Planning -- The Fruits of Labor -- Review of Aims -- Two Steps Forward -- A Happening -- A Rebirth of Anxiety -- An Identity Crisis -- Task Force Activity -- Diminishing Returns -- The Feel of Success -- The Group Has a Guest -- An Unsuccessful Exercise -- Intensive Work -- Stage Fright -- A Full Measure of Success -- A Profile of Morale -- 7 Addressing the Problem: Inventing the Peer Review Panel -- The Interview Experience -- Foundation Building -- Germination -- A Side Trip -- Defining the Mission -- Constructive Conflict -- Tooling Up -- The Opening Night -- The Man Who Came to Dinner -- A Command Appearance -- A Study in Complexity -- Back to the Drawing Board -- Running Out of Steam -- Accomplishment -- An Interlude of Alienation -- The Interviewer as Theorist -- An Activity Profile -- A General Comment -- A Concluding Note -- 8 Addressing the Problem: Designing Family Crisis Teams -- Preliminary Explorations -- Tooling Up -- Shaping a Group Mission -- A Data-Processing Session -- Foundation Building -- Forging Links with Other Agencies -- Loveless Labor -- Fertilization and Cross-Fertilization -- A Spontaneous Review Panel -- Process and Product -- A Tortuous Interlude: Part I -- A Tortuous Interlude: Part II -- The End of the Tunnel -- A Loose End -- Final Comment -- 9 Implementing a Solution: Family Crisis Management -- Caveats and Rejoinders -- Group Problem Solving -- Peacekeepers as a Happy Breed -- Consumer Reaction -- The Referral Agencies: A View from the Bridge -- The Police as Referral Agency -- 10 Implementing a Solution: The Peer Review Panel -- The Walls of Jericho -- Kill and Overkill -- The New Man -- The Change Sequence: A Retrospective View -- From Changee to Changer -- The Importance of Being Perfect -- The Belated Rehabilitation of Officer White -- More Convincing Documentation -- The Incidence of Conflicts -- Injuries to Officers and Citizens -- Complaints against the Police -- The Initiation of Interaction -- The Type of Arrest -- Individual Productivity and Violence -- The Peer Review Panel -- What Could We Conclude? -- But Was It Problem-Oriented Policing? -- 11 Community Problem-Oriented Policing -- Being One's Own Police Chief -- Autonomy in Problem-Oriented Policing -- Autonomy and Morale -- But What of Quality Control? -- Composite Strategies -- How Does It Work? -- Studying Problems -- Linking Backyards -- 12 A Problem-Oriented War on Drugs -- Toward a Problem-Oriented Process -- Levels of Causation and Intervention -- Barriers to Cumulating Knowledge -- A War on What? -- Formal Problem-Oriented Interventions -- Sequencing -- Choice of Problem-Oriented Interventions -- Choice of Targets -- The Political Context of Problem-Oriented Drug Policing -- Postscript -- References -- Author Index.