Class Project on San Diego Police Department

constabulary force incisions of different cities argon brooking a transition. practice of law force division and their operations, hierarchy design, and strategies are becoming increasingly quasi(prenominal) to that of former(a) commercial systems. natural law surgical incisions today operate with a smell of direction, a delegation that is broken down into aims and achievable tendencys that moldiness be met in order to rank the mission of the subdivision as a success. Therefore, it get out not be incorrect to compare practice of law segments to caper organizations carrying within the society About San Diego guard DepartmentThe guard department of San Diego is one of the most good police departments from across the country. The department is also amongst the pioneers in apparatusing strategies that be take hold won the country the edge in the drive against disgust. These strategies include implementation of an data engineering science al-Qaida and prog rams oftentimes(prenominal)(prenominal) as Comm building blocky Oriented Policing. The San Diego patrol Department has a efficacy of oer both-thousand-six-hundred military unit. This strength consists of officers that are sworn, as well as otherwise that are civilians.These personnel function conjointly towards accomplishing the mission of the police department. These personnel are push divided into eight divisions Field Operations, Special Operations, part Policing, Training and Development, Office of Administration, Personnel Services, Professional Responsibility, and Support Services. All these departments function under the assistant chief, except for the Personnel Services which functions under a civilian personnel director. (Decker, Cordner, Ward, 1999) The department has been a leader in onerous new strategies for implementing effective execrable justness routines.The department works virtually with the community and encourages the society to participate and coor dinate with the fight to make the metropolis free of detestation. The Community Oriented Policing and Problem Oriented Policing are two such programs that bring the community and the department together in the fight against offence. Further, the department has also implemented selective information Technology as a dodge for efficient crime reporting and monitoring The aforementioned strategies have yield promising results for the San Diego police force Department.The crime rate has considerably declined in the city and is continues to drop. The crime statistics of the year 1997 show that someer homicides, murders, violent crimes, airplane propeller crimes and burglaries have taken place that year as compared to 1978 (Decker, Cordner, Ward, 1999). However, this existing crime rates are whitewash quite exalted for the United States. The San Diego Police Department has therefore the responsibility to sustain the comparative low crime rates and try to lower these statistics eve n further.This locoweednot be achieved without efficient schema planning of departments picks. Following is a study and synopsis of the San Diego Police Department. The diverse aspects of the operations of the department are studied, analyzed, and based on these a dodge plan is make upd for sustainability in operation of the department. San Diego Police Departments Mission The department envisions cohesion of efforts of various entities in the society, aimed at improving the lives of the inhabitants of San Diego.The collaborative work is one of the most stresses attri simplyes of the police departments mission. This collaboration includes entities such as communities, government agencies, private groups and individuals (The metropolis of San Diego Web Site, 2002) that share the same vision as the San Diego Police Department, i. e. contend crime and improving the quality of life in San Diego. The attributes of the mission argumentation are the value that the San Diego Police Department tends to social function to accomplish its mission.These values are representative of the spirit, and are the basis of the policies of the police departments mission. San Diegos Web Site (2002) lists some of the core values of their police department, rating protection of human beings as one of the highest priority values. This is remarkable for any police department as the primary reason for system of peace, law and order systems is protection of human life. The value deserves to be at top priority as a lack of value suggests winning for granted the objective of the departments motif for existence.The implementation of ethical policing follows in the list of values. The reason for giving ethics a high importance is crucial for the acceptance of the police department by the heap it is established for. There are many issues surrounding execution of duties of the police force and officers, ethics being one of them. It is not fiction but a fact that a police subcultur e has established itself within the officers which sometimes provides for officers to carry out unethical practices or misuse of authority.The in the public eye(predicate) shows its tinge for such unethical practices implemented by law enforcers themselves. Therefore, the implementation of ethics in particular and mention of it that high in the mission arguing of the police department is strategicalally intended to ward off naughtily attention. Units in the San Diego Police Department The police department has been organized into several(prenominal) different units based on nature of function or crime. This helps organization of re book of factss as well as represents the image of a well-organized/equipped police department.The different units operating in SDPD are Air Support Unit, stocktaking SWAT, Background Investigations, Canine Unit, Child Abuse, Communications, Crime Analysis, Criminal Intelligence, Crisis Intervention, Data Systems, domestic help Violence Unit, Elder Abuse, Equal Employment Opportunities (EEO), Field Training military officer Administration (FTO), pecuniary Crimes, Gang Detail, Harbor Patrol, Homicide, Internal Affairs, Juvenile Administration, Laboratory, sanctioned Advisors, Metro Arson Strike Team (MAST), Media Relations, Mounted Enforcement Unit, Narcotics, Neighborhood Policing, Permits & Licensing ( debility Administration), Personnel, psychological Services, Records, Recruitment, Robbery, School Task Force, Sex Crimes, Special Investigations, SWAT/SRT (Special Response Team) and Vice Operations.The City of San Diego Web Site, 2003) Critical Success Factors of San Diegos Department of Police The success of the Police Department in accomplishing and maintaining the mission objective in the community evoke be contributes to various factor outs. Some of these factors can be outline to be critical for the success of department, without which the SDPD could not have cognise their mission objectives. These factors are sum med up and briefly outlined here as the critical success factors for SDPD. Well-defined schema The reason why San Diego Police Department has been recognized as one of the leading police departments in controlling crime is that the department has well-defined strategic objectives. The objectives are trustworthy for snaping the resources of the organization in an organized manner, towards attaining the mission objectives of the department.Setting up a well-defined scheme for a criminal justice unit is rather a new concept in criminal justice administration as usually these departments just focus resources in an impromptu manner towards the customary objective of reducing crime. However, the schema of the SDPD is different. The police department has laid down a definition of more than one goal and further strategically channelled their resources towards realizing these goals. An instance of such a strategy is the departments awareness about different approaches towards criminal justice, such as the problem-oriented policing strategy or integrating the community in the fight against crime in the neighborhood.Training of Human ResourceThe shift away from the conventional means of operations brings forth the remove to train the human resource of any organization to accustom it to the new strategy. Not entirely would a new strategy introduce new processes for conducting conventional operations, but it may also introduce new tools (such as Information Technology tools, including package and hardware) that are intended to enhance the aptitude of the human resource. San Diego Police Department faced the same circumstances where the introduction of a strategy enticed the need for human resource training. Eventually, the proper and trained use of strategies and tools led to efficient operations and increased productivity of the police department which was unprecedented.Besides the consideration of training with a changing randomness engineering science inf rastructure, officers at the police department have to undergo extensive training from the police academy before they can start performing their duties in SDPD. A focus of ethical grooming is also maintained during this course of training. This helps realize and implement the value of the San Diego police department to use ethical policing when serving the community. The officers undergo comprehensive training in the police academy which prepares them not only to serve and protect but to efficiently implement policing according to the strategy that is implemented at SDPD.Use of Information Technology The introduction of Information technology tools is one important development for crediting the success of the mission at SDPD. Conventional policing shows less use of high tech tool for attaining criminal justice objectives, but with the advancement in technology the role information technology tools play has become a crucial success factor of policing. San Diego Police Department has been one police departments that accredits it success to the use of Information technology tools, including software, hardware and processes. The department has segregated the use of Information technology in various units and systems.The New Technology Unit (NTU) is one such unit which is headed by a sergeant and staffed by patrol officers. distributively individual involved in the integration of technology in policing is soundly trained, committed and knowledgeable about the use of this technology. The information technology infrastructure is utilise for a range of operations. This includes activities from installation of software of laptop machines to the use of Automated Field Reporting (AFR) devices. (The City of San Diego Web Site, 2003 Decker, Cordner, Ward, 1999) Information Technology helps improve the efficiency of operations of the San Diego Police Department in various ways.For instance, the patrol officers can electronically transfer information from their remote lo cations to the aboriginal information system regarding criminal activity or general reports. Financial Situation Finances are the backbone of the any organization as refining the accede of the community comes at a cost which must be met. Finances help any organization buy and make use of resources towards a definite objective. Similarly San Diego Police Department has the primary objective of making the city a secure place by protect them and further improving their quality of life. In order to realize these (and many other) objectives for the mission of the police department, the department demand finances.Once finances have been obtained, which is further required is the proper and efficient worry of these finances in order to get the maximum out a limited finances. Budgeting is used by SDPD to plan its finances most effectively. The major(ip) part of the figure is used to cover personnel expenses. This shows the worth and its expected reliance on the human resource for the success of the mission of the department. Like any other organization, monetary benefits are used to keep the human resource motivated.When the major portion of the budgeted amount is spent on salaries, the remaining amount is still a hefty lot for the police department to plan enthronisation in information technology and other nfrastructure efforts aimed at improving the efficiency of SDPD. (The City of San Diego Web Site, 2003 Decker, Cordner, Ward, 1999) The primary sources for the finances made available to the San Diego Police Department are five, namely Property Tax, Sales Tax, Transient job Tax (TOT), Motor Vehicle License Fee (MVLF) and Franchise Fee. As the pecuniary resource of SDPD depends on the Citys General Fund, they are generally sensitive to political and economic stimuli coming from either local, state or national take aims. Organizational Design Strategy The organisational hierarchy is clearly listed at the San Diego Police Department Web Site (2003).The org anisational hierarchy shows the structure of the police department and the chain of command can be conveniently analyzed. An outline of the organizational chart reveals that the department is arrange in a way of a business organization with the headway of Police as the CEO, and the managers take places subvert in the hierarchy. So much so that the organizational chart is also labeled as San Diego Police Business Center. The organizational hierarchy is top down, merely possesses swimming attributes, which make communication between individuals working at the same level (horizontal communication) and also across departments. Vertical communication however is not friendly in the top-down hierarchy.Further analysis of the organizational chart of the San Diego Police Department reveals that the department intends to implement a central control over other departments / entities working lower in the hierarchy. This organizational design will be helpful in enforcing strict monitoring and accountability of entities lower in the hierarchy. Such an organizational design, therefore, is used to implement effective programs and reduce the relaxation/room for errors for entities as activities are reported to entities higher up in the hierarchy design. This is one strategy that is used to accomplish the mission of ethical policing at all levels within the department.It is safe to suggest that the organizational design of the San Diego Police Department compliments its ethical policing objective. Strategic broadcast for San Diego Police Department The aforementioned analysis has laid the foundation to devise a strategic plan for the San Diego police department for the coming years. The analysis of the departments mission, critical success factors, financial situation and organizational design strategy are the groundwork for a smart strategic plan for the department, which would otherwise not be feasible without these analyses. The following is a suggested strategic plan for the San Diego Police Department including justification for each strategy suggested. Strategic Design for SDPDThe analysis of the organizational design reveals a hierarchy with strict and inflexible structure. This organizational design might be eliminate for implementation of ethical policing and complimenting strict measures of control within the department, however the organizational design conflicts with an important aspect within any organization, i. e. communication. The design strategy hinders communications within different departments at different levels of the hierarchy. The design strategy suggests to the community that officers and entities placed lower in the hierarchy will be the interface for dealing with the department, whereas entities higher in the hierarchy depict not much interaction with the public.It is important to mention here the expectancy of the public to have transparent execution of services as it is the publics money which is the source for fundin g the police department. Therefore, what the San Diego Police Department needs is an organizational design that fosters communication with all the entities involved in policing, however one that also implements a strict control for implementing ethical policing without hindrance. This can be implemented with a new, lean organizational design. Contingent Strategy for SDPD As analyzed earlier, the financial strategy of the San Diego Police Department is tractable to economic and political fluctuations on the local, state or national level.This dexterity poses a threat to the sustainability of operations of the police department by exhibiting habituation on these factors. The department needs to device a financial management strategy to provide when in difficult times such as those that may not cause disruption of work. This means that an alternative source for generation of funds must be established or want out by the San Diego Police Department that can cater to the financial nee ds of the department when other currently implemented sources are not available. Conclusion The San Diego Police Department has implemented quite a few strategies to minimize crime in the city. Nevertheless SDPD must implement further strategic measures for sustainability of its mission of fighting crime.