Respond to the following:
" In what ways is the police administrator exposed to liability? What can he/she do to reduce this liability exposure?
" What is necessary for positive organizational change to occur within a police agency?
Reply to the following response with *** 200 words minimum including citation(s) and at least one reference in APA format ***. (please make response as if having a conversation, respond directly to some of the statements in below post.This is not providing an analysis of the original post. Respectfully address it and even ask clarifying or additional questions.)
These responses are to be informative and contribute to advancing the knowledge of the topic.
1. In what ways is the police administrator exposed to liability? What can he / she do to reduce this liability exposure?
Liability is an inherent part of any job, especially one involving dealing with the public. For a typical line officer, liability comes from any misconduct you could be found guilty of committing. This can be clearly seen by the high dollar business involved in police liability insurance which sells protection to governments based on the assumption that law enforcement will incur liability in the normal course of its business (Rappaport, 2017). This includes everything from having a negative interaction with the public up to making a poor call during a life or death encounter. This liability is only further compounded at the level of a police administrator. The actions of all of the police officers under their command are potentially capable of resulting in liability that ultimately could become the responsibility of the administrator. Further, the police administrator is also encumbered by all of the liability a typical manager encounters, such as payroll issues or other administrative concerns. A police administrator can reduce their exposure to liability through a number of methods, first and foremost by documenting almost all of their official actions. This allows them to show a full record of the actions they have taken in their position, and gives them an avenue from which to contest claims of negligence or irresponsibility. Second, a police administrator can simply do their job well and to the best of their ability. This may seem like an obvious answer for how to avoid misconduct, however; to me it is less important than documenting actions taken. This is because in the world of accountability and law enforcement, if something was not documented, it is as though it never happened. Third, a police administrator can reduce their liability by ensuring their subordinates are fully trained regarding their jobs, and making sure they are up to date on the latest techniques and procedures. Finally, a police administrator can further reduce their risk by working within, or developing policies and procedures for their respective agency that they adhere to. By having a policy that has been approved by higher management or constituents beforehand, a police administrator can shield themselves from potential criticism as long as they can show either they or a subordinate acted within policy.
Rappaport, J. (2017). How Private Insurers Regulate Public Police. Harvard Law Review, 130(6), 1540-1614.
What is necessary for positive organizational change to occur within a police agency?
Change is generally regarded as extremely difficult within bureaucratic and government organizations. This is due to a variety of factors, including the cost to implement it, the practicality of implementing it, and the resistance from individuals to accept it. Within a police agency, change can often be perceived as negative because it deviates from norms, which many officers have become accustomed to over the course of their careers. Changing from those norms creates a situation where senior officers become equally veteran to fresh recruits, and can make those senior officers resistant to any situation where their hard won experience could become less valuable. Since the senior officers are often some of the biggest objectors to change, and also generally have influence over decision makers, change can be extremely difficult to implement. Worse still, if change is implemented, those senior officers may go out of their way to point out the flaws in a new policy or procedure to try to convince the agency's management to return to the old way of doing things to help preserve the environment they have grown accustomed to. In order for positive organizational change to be accepted, management must ensure that senior officers are on board with the new idea, or at least ask for their input. If management works with those senior officers to make life easier, they will be able to address real concerns that the most experienced officers can identify, as well as get them to buy into the idea of improving the station as a whole. Change should be shown as an idea that is a natural part of the organization, not something unnatural that should be viewed as a disruption to the routine (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002). Next, it is important to have a well thought out plan to implement any change within an organization. A botched roll out of a new procedure or poor training on new hardware could easily cause the agency to lose faith in the idea, and potentially prevent it from ever being properly implemented. The poor performance that would obviously follow such a new roll out would not only prevent that change from being effective, but also damage line officer's trust that management's new ideas in the future would be positive. This can lead to the old military saying that leaders frequently are plagued by the "good idea fairy," which indicates that management simply wants to change long established practices and procedures based on a bad idea that was originally conceived with good intentions. Positive long and lasting organizational change within a police agency needs to be properly planned, properly funded, have experienced officers' buy in, and be effectively implemented. It is also imperative that management understand that change is generally a gradual process, not one that occurs overnight (Volkoff, Strong & Elmes, 2007). Change is a process of continually refining variables within an organization that eventually can be implemented so long as the organization itself, through the previously mentioned techniques, is ready to accept.
Tsoukas, H., & Chia, R. (2002). On organizational becoming: Rethinking organizational change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567-582.
Volkoff, O., Strong, D. M., & Elmes, M. B. (2007). Technological embeddedness and organizational change. Organization Science, 18(5), 832-848.
2. Liability and exposure to today's police force can be accredited to many factors. Today's police force has seen many negative actions and connotations in the recent media. To groups like "Blue Lives Matter" and anti-police groups such as "Black Lives Matter" and many more vocal movements. The police have been targeted as a conglomerate of vigilantes in many instances that have the power to do whatever they please and hold no accountability to anyone. It's hard to say who's right and whose wrong in this outcry for social justice in the police departments as we watch the news media in the USA. We see instantly and often live acts of unkindness and brutality and we see acts of hateful provoking and many scenarios of lack of empathy. Police officers were once mentors and role models in the day of my young age and are now perceived as public enemy number one in many communities. I can't validate the crucial claims since I live thousands of miles away in a tranquil country that has as much crime in a year as an American inner city may have in a week. Now in charging administration agencies with the responsibility of these outcomes is a little far-fetched in which we can't blame all of the department's problems on administration. Administration can be held liable for some acts such as training plans and training plans for the officers. For example when an officer doesn't follow general protocol and operational procedures that are laid out this is an indicator of the officer lacking in training and guidance. Private insurance companies help with the liabilities and offer Insurance as a significant comprehensive program of reforming police departments (Rappaport, 2017).
Next question; In order for an entire agency to implement change one must start with the originations leadership. In the U.S. military we follow the orders of the officers appointed over us. This is a non-negotiation of ideals and support of the new vision and or concepts of the agency. In order to have permanent reform of the entire police organization this must be implemented from the top-down (Armacost, 2016). If I see that my commander is not supporting the leadership's new regulations for example we must work later each day until 5:00PM. However the commander leaves at the normal time about 30 minutes early each day; then I will start to do the same and undermine the new regulation. Being a leader is hard and often times unrewarding but in the end it's a responsibility and obligation to our subordinates to ensure we lead by example.
In conclusion, leaders must lead and police officers are community leaders. Sometimes life will give you a bad batch of lemons but you can still make lemonade. I think police officers are given a bad reputation in many scenarios and I think that there are some instances that validate the reputation. But I believe people have more compassion than hate and more sympathy than anger and we often just need to take off the badge, the uniform, the title and talk to people. Communication with no walls seems to resolve more issues than anger.
REFERENCES
Armacost, B. (2016, August 19). The Organizational Reasons Police Departments Don't Change. Harvard Business Review.
Rappaport, J. (2017). How Private Insurers Regulate Public Police. Harvard Law Review, 130(6), 1540-1614.
Please don't just rephrase their info, but respond to it. Remember to answer question at the end if there is one.