Policing: An International Journal: Volume 26 Issue 2

Institutional theory of police: a review of the state of the art

John P. Crank

One of the important developments in police theory and research is the recognition of the institutional contexts in which departments participate. A body of theory, organized…

Bending granite revisited: the command rank structure of American police organizations

William R. King

For 30 years, critics have noted a number of ailments caused by police rank structure. This paper adds to this literature by exploring the command rank structure of American…

Structural arrangements in large municipal police organizations: revisiting Wilson’s theory of local political culture

Kimberly D. Hassell, Jihong “Solomon” Zhao, Edward R. Maguire

For the past 35 years, Wilson’s theory of local political culture has influenced many students of policing and has greatly contributed to the erudition of American police…

Structural change in large police agencies during the 1990s

Edward R. Maguire, Yeunhee Shin, Jihong “Solomon” Zhao, Kimberly D. Hassell

According to community policing advocates, police agencies should implement a variety of important organizational changes. These changes are supposed to occur in a number of…

Measurement and association in the structure of municipal police organizations

Jeremy M. Wilson

Aside from a few groundbreaking studies, there has been little empirical exploration into the structure of American police organizations. Traditional organizational inquiries have…

Jordan v. The City of New London, police hiring and IQ: “When all the answers they don’t amount to much”

Tom “Tad” Hughes

In the recent case of Jordan v. The City of New London a police applicant was denied employment because he scored too well on the cognitive ability portion of his written…

Maybe there’s no such thing as a “good cop”: Organizational challenges in selecting quality officers

Beth A. Sanders

The qualities which make a good police officer are often difficult to identify. Traits such as intelligence, common sense, dependability, and honesty appear more frequently than…

A comparison of group‐administered and mail‐administered surveys of Alaskan village public safety officers

Darryl S. Wood

In order to maximize response rates, a survey of Alaskan village public safety officers was conducted using both group‐administration methods (n=32) and mail‐administration…

Police employee organizations

Colleen Kadleck

Police employee organizations and unions have been identified as obstacles to police management as well as to policy implementation. While much has been made of the behavior of…

Strange bedfellows: civil liability and aggressive policing

Kenneth J. Novak, Brad W. Smith, James Frank

Shaping and monitoring the behavior of street‐level officers has continued to be a difficult task for police managers, and this task may prove to be more difficult as modern…