An Organisational and Task Analysis to Inform Police Physical Education and Defensive Tactics Training

<p><b>"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill”. Sun Tzu.</b></p> <p>In the preparation for front-line policing, the teaching of Physical Education and Defensive Tactics (PE and DT) should integrate a number of tactics and techniques, and focus on operationally relevant scenario training. This study used a mixed-method approach (comprising of interviews, observations, focus groups, and a questionnaire), and involved 350 police officers and staff in New Zealand. It sought to identify the critical PE and DT related tasks front-line officers complete, to allow for an evidence based approach to informing the design and development of the training curriculum. The study identified two major topics that it was commonly considered should be part of the PE and DT curriculum: (1) empty-hand techniques and appointments (equipment); and (2) ceremonial (military drill), physical conditioning, and crowd control training. A number of underpinning principles also emerged as being important: the need for self-awareness, confidence, contributing to team effectiveness, and expecting the unexpected. Officers identified situations involving non-compliant and violent people to be the most critical to be trained for, with a focus on easily transferred and effective restraint and self-defence techniques and tactics. Tasks that were judged easy to learn (such as pepper spraying dogs) were deemed to be the least critical tasks to include in the curriculum. Analysis of data related to difficulty, importance, and frequency responses by various officer demographics, showed that those policing in the most rural locations reported using force and communications on non-compliant people less often than other officers.</p>

An Organisational and Task Analysis to Inform Police Physical Education and Defensive Tactics Training

<p><b>"For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill”. Sun Tzu.</b></p> <p>In the preparation for front-line policing, the teaching of Physical Education and Defensive Tactics (PE and DT) should integrate a number of tactics and techniques, and focus on operationally relevant scenario training. This study used a mixed-method approach (comprising of interviews, observations, focus groups, and a questionnaire), and involved 350 police officers and staff in New Zealand. It sought to identify the critical PE and DT related tasks front-line officers complete, to allow for an evidence based approach to informing the design and development of the training curriculum. The study identified two major topics that it was commonly considered should be part of the PE and DT curriculum: (1) empty-hand techniques and appointments (equipment); and (2) ceremonial (military drill), physical conditioning, and crowd control training. A number of underpinning principles also emerged as being important: the need for self-awareness, confidence, contributing to team effectiveness, and expecting the unexpected. Officers identified situations involving non-compliant and violent people to be the most critical to be trained for, with a focus on easily transferred and effective restraint and self-defence techniques and tactics. Tasks that were judged easy to learn (such as pepper spraying dogs) were deemed to be the least critical tasks to include in the curriculum. Analysis of data related to difficulty, importance, and frequency responses by various officer demographics, showed that those policing in the most rural locations reported using force and communications on non-compliant people less often than other officers.</p>

Perceptions of police training needs in cyber-crime

A common observation in the literature on cyber-crime policing is the need for more training. However, there is little detail of who within the police organisation requires training and what type of training may be needed. Based on survey and interview data from three specialist cyber-crime units in Australia, this article identifies that ‘lack of training’ is likely to have distinct meanings for different groups within the police: (a) front-line officers, (b) higher management, (c) generalist investigators, and (d) specialist investigators and civilians in cyber-crime units. Each of these groups is likely to face unique training needs that undermines the overall effectiveness of police organisations to respond to cyber-crime. The article explores the perceived training requirements across each of these groups and some potential ways in which they can be addressed in an effort to stimulate further research in this area focusing on the differentiated internal needs of police organisations.

Conclusion

The Conclusion reflects on the key contributions of the book, revisiting some of the concepts and arguments presented in the Introduction. The section concludes by posing a number of questions on the implications of the findings presented for the academic field of policing and, more importantly, for social justice and democratic governance. I argue that migration policing is a privileged entry point to understanding the relationship between policing and society in a globalized, postcolonial world. The policing of immigration subverts—or rather unveils—the veneer of legality in the work of maintaining order. By foregrounding the non-rational, magic-like operation of state power, the book intended to unsettle rigid received epistemologies to theorizing policing in northern state bureaucracies. Ultimately, the morally and politically contested domain where front-line officers operate, the fragility, contingency, and provisionality of their authority, the fortuitous, capricious, and arbitrary nature of their decisions, the futility of the violence and harms they exert and the pains they endure, reveal also a frail, impotent, and inchoate state seeking to assert itself amid a fluid, murky, interconnected, and polarized world. The impetus to reassert the national by enforcing a bordered order reveals the exclusionary foundations of social democratic institutions and poses serious questions about the viability of these institutions and the modern nation-state to foster social justice. Equally, this juncture is an opportunity to think anew our political and economic institutions, take stock of global interdependence and its implications for livelihoods, and foster new forms of human conviviality.

The Plastic Police: Professional Identity, Authority, and Legitimacy

This chapter explores the history and professional culture of the operational arm of the immigration department, the Immigration Compliance and Enforcement teams (ICE). It examines this vernacular agency called upon to manage and control global mobility, and its ambivalent relationship with the police, attending to matters of authority and legitimacy, professional presentation and politics, morality and identity. It argues that while the police are recurrently referred as a comparator, the composition, institutional rules and practices, and the nature of the work of ICE set them apart. The chapter relies on first-hand accounts of long-term front-line officers to reconstruct and chart institutional changes to immigration enforcement in the UK. Their accounts offer insights into the mysterious world of immigration enforcement, its genesis, short turbulent history, and its fast-changing contours through the lens of those tasked with its making. The second part of the chapter explores what it is like to be an immigration officer: who are these people? Why have they chosen this career path? What are their aspirations and frustrations? What are their worldviews? How do they perceive themselves vis-à-vis their police colleagues? And what is it like to work in a highly controversial and sensitive area of public policy? Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to understand immigration enforcement, and its employees, through their own words and worlds.

Leadership approaches in law enforcement: A sergeant’s methods of achieving compliance with racial profiling policy from the front line

This research aims to fill a void in the extant policy implementation literature that has overlooked the leadership contribution of sergeants to the successful adoption of policy decisions by front-line police officers. Using a qualitative approach and a sociological institutionalism perspective, and focusing on the racial profiling policy of a large North American municipal police organization, 17 sergeants representing 17 divisions (precincts) were interviewed. This research does not aim to assess the efficacy of the selected policy but, rather, examines leadership and supervisory perspectives relating to implementation and compliance. The findings demonstrate the methods used by sergeants to influence and achieve the compliance of front-line police officers with the racial profiling policy. Methods include auditing, being present, training, encouraging, rewarding, and disciplining. To explain these methods, it is theorized that sergeants blend two leadership approaches to ensure front-line officers conform to the racial profiling policy: an authoritative leadership approach and a supportive leadership approach. This study emphasizes the leadership contributions of sergeants when attempting to implement perceived controversial or unpopular policy—in this case, racial profiling policy—in a police organization and contains implications for law enforcement leaders, oversight committees, policy writers, and all government legislators who oversee public safety and security.

A Qualitative Study on the US Forest Service’s Risk Management Assistance Efforts to Improve Wildfire Decision-Making

To support improved wildfire incident decision-making, in 2017 the US Forest Service (Forest Service) implemented risk-informed tools and processes, together known as Risk Management Assistance (RMA). The Forest Service is developing tools such as RMA to improve wildfire decision-making and implements these tools in complex organizational environments. We assessed the perceived value of RMA and factors that affected its use to inform the literature on decision support for fire management. We sought to answer two questions: (1) What was the perceived value of RMA for line officers who received it?; and (2) What factors affected how RMA was received and used during wildland fire events? We conducted a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with decision-makers to understand the contextualized and interrelated factors that affect wildfire decision-making and the uptake of a decision-support intervention such as RMA. We used a thematic coding process to analyze our data according to our questions. RMA increased line officers’ ability to communicate the rationale underlying their decisions more clearly and transparently to their colleagues and partners. Our interviewees generally said that RMA data analytics were valuable but did not lead to changes in their decisions. Line officer personality, pre-season exposure to RMA, local political dynamics and conditions, and decision biases affected the use of RMA. Our findings reveal the complexities of embracing risk management, not only in the context of US federal fire management, but also in other similar emergency management contexts. Attention will need to be paid to existing decision biases, integration of risk management approaches in the interagency context, and the importance of knowledge brokers to connect across internal organizational groups. Our findings contribute to the literature on managing change in public organizations, specifically in emergency decision-making contexts such as fire management.

Police Officers’ Knowledge of Gant

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Gant fundamentally altered the law governing police searches of vehicles incident to the arrest of a vehicle occupant. To date, there has been no empirical examination of Gant’s impact on line officers. The present study does so using data from a survey of police officers that assessed their ability to apply Gant. Although 93 percent of the officers had been taught Gant and 77 percent had received training within the twelve months prior to completing the survey, 67 percent incorrectly applied Belton, rather than Gant. Moreover, nearly half of the sample were missing constitutionally permissible opportunities to search the vehicle under either of Gant’s two prongs. Concerningly, officers who had received recent training on vehicle searches were significantly less likely to identify correct search protocols under Gant’s evidence prong. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Relationships in the Implementation of Conditional Cash Transfers: The Provision of Health in the Oportunidades-Prospera Programme in Puebla, Mexico

This article explores interactions between the front-line officers and recipients of Oportunidades-Prospera, a conditional cash transfer (CCT) in Mexico. Like other CCTs, Oportunidades-Prospera provided monetary transfers to families with the requirement of following certain conditions, including receiving preventive healthcare and workshops. This produced constant and compulsory physician-recipient interactions. This article examines these through observations of programme delivery and interviews with physicians at health centres of two localities of Puebla. The results show that officers’ strategies of implementation and attitudes towards recipients were influenced by the programme’s use of health services as conditionalities, promoting a relationship of authority and obedience. This, however, was exacerbated by the officer’s job position. Those with a permanent contract systematically fostered authoritarian interactions compared to officers with temporary contracts. Ultimately, this study reveals factors that influence officer-recipient relationships in CCTs and their centrality for programme delivery and for the success of social policies more broadly.

Recognition and change: embracing a mobile policing initiative

PurposeRadical notions of recognition at work have not been considered widely in respect of organizational change. This article examines the introduction of a change programme across two UK police departments, during which front-line officers were actively involved and consulted throughout its pilot phase. The purpose of this article is to consider the question of whether or not a perceived sense of recognition amongst officers contributed to the success of this initiative.Design/methodology/approachThe research utilizes qualitative data derived from individual interviews, focus groups and observations, gathered over one year, within two UK police departments. The data was analysed thematically. Reflection, and an ongoing discussion with officers, led to a theoretical exploration of recognition in order to explore the apparent success of the programme.FindingsRecognition, consisting of a sense of love, respect and esteem, appears to offer a notable impetus to the acceptance of a change programme within a traditionally change averse organization. Resistance to organizational change may be better addressed through a strategy that seeks to actively promote the claims to recognition of organizational members, particularly through the extension of a right to participate within the context of a supportive and protective culture of engagement.Originality/valueThe article utilizes the novel, but increasingly utilized, theory of recognition to analyse and explain positive employee involvement in a change programme within the police. An approach that helped to achieve change in a widely acknowledged change-resistant organization.