King, William R. (2014). "Organizational failure and the disbanding of local police agencies." Crime & Delinquency, 60(5), 667-692.
The author applies organizational theory to a consideration of the disbanding of 31 local police agencies during the 1990s in Ohio. King looks at structural contingency theory which examines how organizational structure influences efficiency . He also takes stock of the work of institutional theorists and the tendency of organizations to secure symbolic resources (e.g., legitimacy) from external constituents. For King, it is important to clearly consider how organizations respond to their environment.
King found through various research avenues that there were 31 police organizations that disbanded between January 1990 and December 1999. He also sought out 43 comparison locations in order to make certain quantiative determinations. The paper is a summary of the research and King's findings in this instance.
When a police service is disbanded it is typically due to matters of funding or a lack of sanctioning by an appropriate authority. Budget constraints are a common cause of police department disbanding and this may also be tied to a serious decrease in population. Clearly, funding for public safety in most jurisdictions is closely tied to the tax base provided by residents or businesses. When either, or both, of these decline, there is a shortfall in funding for public safety services.
King notes that small police agencies are particularly prone to these challenges. Larger urban centres are more equipped to deal with such challenges due to their size and the capacity to be more flexible in responding to financial crises. He notes:
When faced with a crisis in its institutional environment, agencies will often attempt to symbolically cope with the demands of sovereigns. Large police agencies can employ symbolic responses such as reshuffling personnel, implementing a new training program, lauching an investigation, removing a police chief, or creating a specialized unit. Larger organizations can more readily engage in these symbolic changes because they have the slack resources to create a new unit and the dark corners in which to hide controversial personnel. Large organziations are protected by their size, for size is synonymous with success. (p. 686)
This is an immediately relevant article in a Canadian context. We have seen the dramatic impact of financial constraints appear across the country and many jurisdictions are struggling with their capacity to sustain very expensive police services. Because anywhere from 80 to 90% of the costs of a modern police service are devoted to police salaries, wages and benefits, it is sensible to consider how disbandment might be an option. Of course, public safety needs must continue to be addressed and, therefore, it is often viewed as feasible to explore other options for the delivery of police services.
There has been more than a decade of debate, discussion and deliberation over the process of municipal police costings in Ontario. With major changes to the Police Services Act in that Province in the 1990s it became necessary for smaller jurisdictions to pay for what had been termed "free" OPP policing. Accordingly, many jurisdictions had to make a determination as to the option for policing they would elect to pursue. Several smaller police services were viewed as being "dysfunctional" under these new legislative arrangements and competition ensued between an existing municipal police department and the OPP through their municipal contracting branch.
King notes that there are some emotional, deeply political and community-oriented elements mixed into these local police department disbandments. Certainly, when a different approach to police service delivery is introduced, there may be significant changes in officer behaviour, different accountability mechanisms in place, as well as, new styles and types of policing provided to the community. Several communities that have adopted an RCMP contract for the provision of policing services have seen the magnitude of such changes. This is also the case for several jurisdictions in Ontario which have opted for OPP municipal policing.
King's observation about the "slack resources" that exist in larger police agencies is one that should be of interest to policy-makers and police governing authorities. It was certainly my own experience, working in several large police organizations, that difficult personnel could be "parked" in various out-of-the-way places as their files were dealt with in some manner. Often challenging officers would be hidden in the training department where they would not have any opportunities for operational misadventure. However, it is difficult to quantify the damage the presence of such officers might do in the training realm, especially when they are exposed to new recruits. Also, I can recall having sidelined officers assigned to work in the policy and planning unit with equally questionable judgment as to their value in such a role.
Police executives have become remarkably adept at creating a kind of black box within their budget envelope to allow them to deal with some of the environmental, budgetary and other challenges which King speaks about in his article. The tactic of rolling out a new training or awareness program is common in police organizations across Canada. This is a conditioned response to many organizational crises in policing when a commission of inquiry or an inquest makes recommendations about potential improvements in a police department's delivery of service. There is often no real research as to the absolute need for this training. Nor is their really any careful design of the training to ensure that will address measurable behavioural outcomes. And the tactic of calling in another police department to conduct an investigation is a stop-gap measure that is applied again and again in many jurisdictions. This, of course, speaks to the viability or legitimacy of 'police investigating police' which has been the subject of increasing study in Canada, and elsewhere.
It would be useful to conduct some research in a Canadian context on those police services which have been disbanded for a variety of reasons to see if the causes and consequences mirror the research that King has conducted in Ohio. What has the process of organizational "death" meant in communities which have lost their local police service? What has been happened in areas like Paris (Ontario), Haldimand-Norfolk (Ontario), Nepean (Ontario), of other areas where the local police were replaced by a contract with a larger police service, or changed through amalgamation?
We have a tendency to think of public organizations as being permanent fixtures. They do, however, have a life cycle that is not entirely dissimilar to that of human beings. They come into being at certain points and may pass away when their purpose is completed, or, they no longer serve a viable public purpose.
King cites a couple of articles that are worth pointing to in this context:
- Sutton, R.I. (1987). The process of organizational death: disbanding and reconnecting. Administrative Science Quarterly, 32(4), 542-569.
- Weed, F.J. (1991). Organizational mortality in the anti-drunk-driving movement: failure among local MADD chapters. Social Forces, 69(1), 851-868.
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