The paper describes how might reorganize the police department to move away from its current traditional organization, with only one police facility and its administration and rank-laden status.
The police organization needs to overhaul different occupations performed by its officers to enable it solve high crime rates within its jurisdiction. It needs to hire different experts who can come up with solutions that tackle crime effectively in the city. This will equip the police organization with competent officers capable of identifying situations that cause a rise in criminal incidents. The organization needs to utilize modern crime solving strategies to minimize criminal incidents in the city.
The organization needs to collaborate with members of Hispanic communities to understand law enforcement issues affecting them. It needs to identify ways through which Hispanic residents can share information with the police without being victimized. Senior police officers need to encourage city authorities to document all residents and their addresses, to enable easy identification of criminal suspects (Peak, 2010, p. 35).
The organization needs to differentiate its functions to adapt to the changing law enforcement environment. The organization has only 100 police officers who are expected to serve more than 150,000 residents. The ratio between the number of police officers and the number of residents they serve is very wide. More police officers should be hired to help the organization deal with law enforcement challenges in the city. The organization needs specialized officers who are well equipped to deal with different types of criminal incidents in the city. This will make it possible for the police organization to identify profiles of victims of crime and suspects (Peak, 2010, p. 37).
Specialized officers will be in a better position to identify specific locations in the city which have high crime rates. This will help them formulate effective strategies to reduce these incidents. The organization needs specialized officers to enable it deal with drug trafficking, money laundering, violent crimes and gangsterism.
The police organization also needs to spread its services to different locations to improve law enforcement in the city. It needs to have several substations, situated in different crime hotspots. This will improve the time taken to respond to emergency criminal alerts. The organization will be able to coordinate with its sub-units to deal with rampant criminal incidents decisively. This will improve the quality of service delivered by the police organization to city residents.
A single police facility is inadequate to serve the needs of 150,000 residents, who have different lifestyles. The organization needs to hire personnel who can perform both law enforcement and administrative jobs. This will help it utilize scarce resources more effectively, to reduce crime rates in its jurisdiction (Peak, 2010, p. 40). This will enable the department deploy police officers close to areas that have rampant criminal incidents.
The organization needs to institute effective measures to help it evaluate results obtained out of different crime prevention strategies. These measures will focus on areas that need improvement to ensure law enforcement practices used are responsive to residents’ needs. The organization needs to compile criminal incident reports to analyze law enforcement issues within the city. It also needs to focus on summer months when the city receives a lot of visitors, to understand if these visits contribute to high rates of crime (Peak, 2010, p. 43). Police officers need to partner with other local organizations to reduce the number of criminal incidents which happen in the city. The organization needs to institute several reforms to improve the quality of services it offers city residents.
Reference
Peak, K. J. (2010). Justice administration: Police, courts, and corrections management (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.