This book lists proposals for municipal police organization based on department size. The current state of police organization and basic principles of organization and management derived from government, private industry, business, and military are discussed. Application of these principles are proposed to municipal police departments based upon their size according to the author's scheme of five classes of municipalities. Classes are based on total population and number of police-per-thousand population.

Although most large police organizations perform the same tasks, there is tremendous variation in how individual organizations are structured. To account for this variation, author Edward R. Maguire develops a new theory that attributes the formal structures of large municipal police agencies to the contexts in which they are embedded. This theory finds that the relevant features of an organization's context are its size, age, technology, and environment. Using a database representing nearly four hundred of the nation's largest municipal police agencies, Maguire develops empirical measures of police organizations and their contexts and then uses these measures in a series of structural equation models designed to test the theory. Ultimately, police organizations are shown to be like other types of organizations in many ways but are also shown to be unique in a number of respects.

measurement of effective policing is based on a quick response to crime that has already been committed, the value of crime prevention has become an afterthought in America's police departments." "The middle chapters outline these issues and identify the strategies to improve police community relationships and adjust the measurements for effective policing. The concluding chapters identify strategies designed to facilitate police department organizational change. Using terms from the discipline of economics, a "micro" strategy and a "macro" strategy are outlined. A new theory of policing concludes the book." "The book is intended primarily as a textbook for criminal justice students, but it will also prove useful to police departments, police academies, city managers, and elected officials responsible for police administration and community safety." --Book Jacket.

Positive and negative effects of civil service regulations on urban police systems is the focus of this research project conducted over approximately a 2-year period beginning in November 1976. Data from the study were collected from 42 randomly selected American cities, ranging in size from 50,000 to 750,000 persons. In each study site, current civil service laws and police union contracts were collected, interviews were conducted with the most knowledgeable municipal officials and organization representatives, and police departments provided information on programs and policies in a police departmental questionnaire. Supplemental data were provided by the Police Foundation, the National Planning Association, and the FBI. The absence of an overall civil service system which governs police personnel affairs in America is noted. Civil service commissions differ from city to city in the roles they play in police personnel administration and, as a result, in the impacts they have on local officials, on police departmental programs and practices, and on the general quality of local law enforcement. While some commissions pose significant constraints on the abilities of local officials to promote innovative police programs, others work to promote departmental innovation and more efficient criminal apprehension procedures. The study examines a number of issues, among them the statutory supports for local civil service commissions and the impact of community politics and police unionism on local police personnel administration. Proposals for civil service reforms in the urban police context should be tailored to local circumstances and to meaningful variations in civil service roles. Numerous charts, footnotes, a bibliography, and diagrams illustrate the text. Appendixes include content analysis checklists for police bargaining contracts and personnel systems, a police questionnaire, an interview schedule, and a letter to urban executives.