Why Mission Matters- Journal Article

The Journal of

LAW

ENFORCEMENT

LEADERSHIP

AND

ETHICS

Volume 3 Number 1 September 2016

Editor–in-Chief

Richard N. Holden, PhD Institute for Law Enforcement Administration

Editor

Gregory Smith, MA Institute for Law Enforcement Administration

The Center for American and International Law

Editorial Board

Theron Bowman, PhD City of Arlington

Gary Cordner, PhD Johns Hopkins University and

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Bryant Cureton, PhD (Emer) Elmhurst College

Alejandro Del Carmen, PhD Tarleton State University

Stan Gilmour Thames Valley Police

Steven Hundersmarck, PhD Indiana Institute of Technology

John Jones, PhD Ottawa, Canada

Timothy J. Longo, Sr., JD (Ret) Charlottesville Police Department

Thomas E. Meloni, PhD Western Illinois University

Gorazd Mesko, PhD University of Maribor

Patricia Robinson, PhD (Ret) Fox Valley Technical College

Joseph Schafer, PhD Southern Illinois University

Rick Smith, PhD (Ret) Caruth Police Institute at Dallas

Kristin Spivey Grand Prairie Police Department

Darrel Stephens, MS Johns Hopkins University

Gary W. Sykes, PhD (Ret) Institute for Law Enforcement Administration

Editorial Assistant

Tracy Harris Institute for Law Enforcement Administration

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Copyright © 2016 by the Institute for Law Enforcement Administration

The Journal ofLaw Enforcement Leadership and Ethics


Notes from the EditorRichard N. Holden

Exchanging Ideas around the Family Table: Thoughts on How CJ and PA Can Benefit One Another and a Call to Action

Leadership in Police Regionalization: Why Mission Matters?

Negative Ethical Implications: Arkansas’s Minimum Requirementsfor Law Enforcemement

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15

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About the Journal

The purpose of the peer reviewed publication, The Journal of Law Enforcement Lead-

ership and Ethics, is to advance the thinking and practice of police leaders by providinga meaningful forum, incubator and resource clearinghouse for the best ideas andpractices in law enforcement leadership and ethics. In order to achieve this, we callfor papers chiefly from academics and practitioners in law enforcement.

We are also keenly aware that the law enforcement community does not exist in iso-lation from other significant professions that are natural allies in the context of thedaily work of policing: professions like corrections, public service, fire service andsecurity. Hence we seek exemplary thinking and practices from those professionsas well and will publish the very best of those efforts in special editions of the jour-nal.

When appropriate, we also will publish the proceedings of selected conferences,workshops, seminars and symposia that rise to the level of having utility value forthe men and women who labor in the fields mentioned above and who need effec-tive and innovative approaches to their work.

The publication will be issued as a collaborative effort from the Institute for LawEnforcement Administration and The Center for Law Enforcement Ethics whichare both housed at their parent organization, The Center for American and Inter-national Law in Plano, Texas.

The Journal of Law Enforcement Leadership and Ethics

Notes from the EditorRichard N. Holden, Editor-in-Chief

Sea Change: Law Enforcement in an Era ofDramatic Social Change

ABSTRACT

From the technological revolution and its attendant social media culture, to shiftingdemographics, American society is vastly different today than at the turn of the cen-tury, a mere sixteen years ago. Not since the sixties has law enforcement confrontedthe pace of change occurring today. Caught between a clash of ideologies and eco-nomic interests, the police are trying to maintain societal homeostasis in an envi-ronment increasingly hostile to the status quo. This paper looks at the implicationsof that conflict.

INTRODUCTION

Law enforcement in the 21st century is arguably better than it has ever been. Theeducation level for police officers is at the highest level in history as is training. Em-ployment screening, if not perfect, is better than it has been and is steadily improv-ing. Despite this, American police officers are increasingly on the defensive as theyare bombarded with a seemingly endless array of allegations of abuse of authorityand unjustified use of force.

The overwhelming focus on allegations of police misconduct often obscures the na-ture of police citizen contacts. In any given year there are approximately 40 millioncontacts between law enforcement and the public.1 Even though the vast percent-age of these contacts are routine and lacking significant levels of drama, public per-ception of the police is the lowest it has been in over 20 years. According to a Gallup

Notes from the Editor 3

1 Christine Eith and Matthew R. Durose (October, 2011). “Contacts between the police and public, 2008.” Special Report, USDepartment of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpp08.pdf

4 The Journal of Law Enforcement Leadership and Ethics

Poll, a fully 18% of the American public say they have little or no confidence in thepolice. Although Republicans’ and Independents’ confidence in the police showedlittle, if any, change, those identifying themselves as Democrats registered a 13 per-cent drop in confidence in the police; the largest drop among any group. Some ofthis drop may be attributed to the large number of racial and ethnic minorities thatidentify themselves as Democrat, but the data suggests that the drop is also amongwhite Democrats.2

Determining why this loss of public trust is occurring at a time when violent crimeis dropping and overall quality of police is high is a difficult task. The police-publicrelationship is often murky at best. Our society invests enormous amounts of au-thority and power in law enforcement. Perhaps because of that investment the pub-lic expects, or even demands, a high level of restraint from police officers; sometimeseven unreasonable levels of restraint.

These expectations, however, are not new. Why, therefore, the drop in public trust?An absolute answer to that question may be unknowable. We can, however, examinechanging social trends to obtain a better feel for the nature of American culture.The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of social change now occurring inthe United States and attempt to measure the unmeasurable; the effect that changeis having on the law enforcement role. To that end we will examine changing de-mographics, crime patterns, expanding access to firearms, changing opinions towardillicit drugs, and the impact of social media, and the expansion of federal oversightof local law enforcement.

DEMOGRAPHICS

Over the next 15 years, America will change dramatically. Parts of the country willlose population, as many Southern cities grow. The retiring Baby Boomers will alterthe age demographics of many communities, leaving some with larger burdens onsocial services and fewer workers to help fund them. Nearly every corner of thecountry will grow more diverse — from rural Wisconsin, where small minority pop-ulations could double in size, to metropolitan Houston, which could have more thanone million new Hispanic residents by 2030. These changes will be simultaneousand swift, and they will affect everything from how we use resources, to where webuild new communities, to how we educate our children.3

To understand the effects of changing demographics, it is first necessary to establisha baseline understanding of the situation in the United States as of 2015. Best es-timates—and they are just estimates—place the 2015 U.S. population at approxi-

2 Jeffrey M. Jones (June 19, 2015). “In U.S. public confidence in police lowest in 22 years.” Gallup.http://www.gallup.com/poll/183704/confidence-police-lowest-years.aspx3 Emily Badger (January 20, 2015) “4 maps that show how demographic change will touch every corner of the country” The Wash-

ington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/01/20/4-maps-that-show-how-demographic-change-will-touch-every-corner-of-the-country/

mately 300 million.4 Of these, a little less than 38 percent are ethnic minorities.The median age of Americans has risen from 33 to 37.6 years of age. Life expectancyfor men has risen from 72.1 to 74.6 years of age and for women 78.0 to 81.5 years ofage. Women outnumber men by a ratio of 104:100.

The number of married with children households has been declining steadily. From1980 to 1998, for example, these households dropped from 80.5 percent to 77.1 per-cent; a figure expected to rise continually, at varying rates, through 2015. This wasaccompanied by a rise in single parent households from 19.6 percent to 22.9 percent.Of the 7.3 million single parents in 1980, 6.3 million were women. This has beenexpected to rise through the present, but at a slower rate. Immigration accountedfor about 30 percent of population growth, a figure that is expected to remain con-stant. At the same time, the elderly was expected to rise from 13.9 per hundred in1960 to 22.3 per hundred in 2015.

Changing demographics are having a dramatic effect on the political environment.The 2016 election will feature the most diverse electorate in history. Nearly onethird of eligible voters will be Hispanic, Black, Asian, or some other ethnic minority.5

The impact of this diversity, however, remains to be seen. Historically Hispanicsand Asians have much lower voter turnout rates than white or black voters. If thischanges, the impact on state, local, and national elections will be dramatic. The realimpact, however, will come from women who will constitute fifty-two percent of el-igible voters; of which most will be single.6

If changing demographics was the only issue this would be little cause for concern.Demographics are always changing; with more or less change every decade. A moredisturbing trend, however, has emerged; the radicalization of politics within theU.S. This is due in part to generational and religious polarization. In the 2012 elec-tion, for example, 60% of voters ages 18-29 voted for President Obama while only40% of voters over 65 years of age voted for the incumbent president. This is not aminor difference of opinion, but rather a major rift. This was the first time in historythat any election produced such a dramatic rift across generations.7 But the shiftingsands of political preference do not stop there. The alliance between evangelicalChristians and political conservatism, vis-à-vis the Republican Party is well docu-mented. What is less discussed is the growing attraction of non-evangelical denom-inations to the more liberally viewed Democratic Party. This is especially true amongnon-Christian groups such as Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and other smallerdenominations. Moreover, agnostics and atheists are also trending democratic.

4 Boris Bohun-Chudnev, Ly Burnham, Glen Curtis, et al (October, 1991). Domestic Trends to the Year 2015: Forecast for the United

States. A Report Prepared under an Interagency Agreement by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress.https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/domestic_trends.pdf5 Jens Manuel Krogstad (February 3, 2016). “2016 Electorate will be most diverse in U.S. history.” Pew Research Center: FactTank. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/03/2016-electorate-will-be-the-most-diverse-in-u-s-history/6 Rebecca Traister (February 22, 2016). “The single American woman,” New Yorker Magazine. http://nymag.com/the-cut/2016/02/political-power-single-women-c-v-r.html# 7Paul Taylor (January 27, 2016). “The Demographic trends shaping American politics in 2016 and beyond.” Pew Research Cen-

ter: Fact Tank. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/27/the-demographic-trends-shaping-american-politics-in-2016-and-beyond/


Somewhat surprisingly, American Baptist Churches, Presbyterians, and theCatholics, while divided, lean more Democratic than Republican.8

These differences would normally be seen as normal were it not for the level of an-imosity expressed by both groups toward the others. As Paul Taylor observed:9

Many in each party now deny the other’s facts, disapprove of each other’s

lifestyles, avoid each other’s neighborhoods, impugn each other’s motives,

doubt each other’s patriotism, can’t stomach each other’s news sources, and

bring different value systems to such core social institutions as religion, mar-

riage and parenthood. It’s as if they belong not to rival parties but alien

tribes.

There is anger in the air. As Michael Kinsley said, “People hate ‘Washington’ because‘Washington’ has come to mean everything they hate. Washington is not the LincolnMemorial or the Smithsonian. It’s the bitterness of the debate, the ugliness of therhetoric, the stupidity of the political ads on television.”10

It is becoming obvious that presidential campaigns foment anger. It is natural forcandidates to attack each other and also to point out problems in the country. Afterall, who is going to vote for change if everything is going well? For example, lastMarch 53 percent of respondents to a national survey said things were going well orvery well. Then the campaigns heated up. By May, the same survey reported a sixpercent drop in people’s perceptions of the state of the nation.11 As the rhetoricbecomes more heated, the nation’s attitudes reflect those emotions. It makes nodifference that the anger is out of touch with reality. Between 2012 and 2015 surveysconsistently citing rising crime, racial tensions, and illegal immigration as major con-cerns, despite the fact that two of these, crime and illegal immigration have beenin steady and significant decline during this period and racial tensions are only anissue for some people.12

Caught in a toxic social environment stirred by the politics of hate and anger, thepolice can only try to maintain calm until the elections are over. As the most visiblearm of government, law enforcement is most likely to bear the brunt of public angerat government.

8 Michael Lipka (February 23, 2016). “U.S. religious groups sand their political leanings.”Pew Research Center: Fact Tank.http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/9 Paul Taylor.10 Michael Kinsley (February, 2015). “The anger games,” Vanity Fair. http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/02/how-to-fix-washington11 Nancy LeTourneau (September 10, 2015, 10:16AM). “Our politics of anger and victimization,” Washington Monthly, PoliticalAnimal. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_09/our_politics_of_anger_and_vict057522.php12 Francis Wilkinson (March 15, 2016). “Anger and fear dominate U.S. politics,” Chicago Tribune.http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-donald-trump-bernie-sanders-anger-fear-20160315-story.html


Law enforcement has a problem. This is not a new problem; it is similar to thatfaced by law enforcement in the 60’s and 70’s. Though not usually associated withpolitical parties, law enforcement is now linked, if not officially, at least ideologically to the Republican Party. Whether accurate are not, conservatives are becoming in-creasingly typecast as authoritarian in their response to social issues. This poses aproblem for law enforcement. Rather than being caught between two rival ideolog-ical factions, police are being dragged further to the right, thus alienating them froma large piece of the demographic pie. This shift, to some degree, may have a littleto do with the loss of respect coming from the Democratic side of the political spec-trum.

Crime

Law enforcement has been riding the wave of declining crime rates for well over adecade now. Touting COMPSTAT and Community-Oriented Policing initiatives,police chiefs and sheriffs across the country have happily taken credit of these sig-nificant reductions in crime.

But is crime actually dropping or simply changing? There are three factors in playthat may have a dramatic influence on crime as we move into the near future; cyber-crime, gun violence, and changing attitudes about drug control.

Cyber-Crime

According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), cyber-crimecosts the global economy $455 billion annually.13 The cost is much more than meredollars. This same study reported that as many as 150,000 people in Europe and200,000 people in the United States have lost their jobs due to financial problemscreated by cyber-crime.

There are three trends currently in play in the cyber-crime arena. These are inter-national cyber criminals, spear phishing, and advanced persistence attacks.14

Cyber-crime has gone international. Targeting corporations, international gangs—sometimes referred to as the cyber mafia—obtain and sell corporate data to the tuneof around $100 billion.

Spear phishing uses corporate social media sites as a conduit to data stored in com-pany computers. Such attacks may target company data bases or even employee e-mail accounts. There has been a large jump in the number of these types of attacksin the past year.

13 Staff (June 28, 2014). “Cyber crime causes $455 billion loss annually in global economy,” Business Vibes. http://www.busi-

ness2community.com/tech-gadgets/cyber-crime-causes-445-billion-loss-annually-global-economy-

0923809#tfBHdX4KftxK0Zce.9714 Staff (2016). “Three trends in cyber-crime,” Continuity e-Guide. http://www.disaster-resource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1611


Persistence attacks are those that steal, but do not damage the data being stolen.Thus, the crime can go undetected for a long period of time.

At the individual level there is a growing trend in identity theft, especially as it re-lates to tax fraud. Using nothing but a computer, tax forms and stolen social securitynumbers, individuals are filing false tax documents at an alarming rate. Apparentlythe crime was so simple a Florida woman with a sixth grade education defraudedthe government out of $3 million.15 There is an opinion among some law enforce-ment officials that street crime is down because former thugs have moved into theidentity theft and tax fraud business.

What this means for law enforcement is a dramatic shift from street crime to cyber-crime. It also means a dramatic shift from local to federal, and possibly, internationaljurisdiction. Local police are not now, nor will they ever be, equipped to respond tocriminal enterprise housed in cyber space. Like it or not, the era of local control mayhave to give way to the necessities of personal security.

Guns

The introduction of additional guns into the nation by way of open carry laws isgoing to affect law enforcement. It is still early and the statistics are a bit confusingat the moment. Homicides in general are down and have been declining steadilysince the late 90’s.16 This data is the source of confusion in analyzing the relation-ship between gun ownership and gun violence. Using only homicide data one coulddraw the conclusion that as gun ownership has increased gun violence has decreased.Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Gun violence is not limited to crime relatedevents, but includes accidents, suicides, and domestic confrontations.

Gun violence will continue to be an issue for law enforcement. As of August 26,2016 the United States has experienced the following statistics for 2016:17

• 36,284 incidents involving guns• 9,300 deaths• 19,372 injuries• 428 children (ages 0-11) killed or injured• 2,000 teenagers (12-17) killed or injured• 248 mass shootings• 207 officer involved incidents (officer shot or killed)• 1,197 officer involved incidents (suspect shot or killed)

15 Michael Kranisch (February 16, 2014). “IRS overwhelmed by identity theft fraud,” The Boston Globe. https://www.boston-globe.com/news/nation/2014/02/16/identity-theft-taxpayer-information-major-problem-for-irs/7SC0BarZMDvy07bbhDXwvN/story.html16 Alexia Cooper and Erica L. Smith (November, 2011). “Homicide rates in theUnited States, 1980-2008,” U.S. Departmentof Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 236018.http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf17 Staff (2016). “Gun Violence Archive.” http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/


• 1,492 home invasions• 1,123 defensive incidents• 1.398 accidental shootings

Thus far, open carry laws have had no measurable effect on criminal activity or lawenforcement. There is even some research that finds the number of people owningguns is down while the number of guns owned by gun enthusiasts is up.18 In fact,there is some evidence that population demographics is once again in play. It appearsthat gun ownership is highest in people over age 65; around 30 percent. For thoseunder age 35, the percentage of gun owners drops to 14 percent. Moreover, house-holds reporting at least one hunter fell from 32 to 13 percent.19 That means moreguns in fewer hands, with a decided trend away from gun ownership. The data isconfusing, to say the least.

Whatever the statistics mean, and that has yet to be determined, open carry lawswill have an impact on law enforcement and society in general. The most frighteningaspect of this movement is the amount of misinformation and mythology that per-meates the movement. Not surprisingly, the election and re-election of PresidentBarak Obama caused large spikes in gun ownership, followed by later spikes everytime Mr. Obama gave a speech decrying gun violence.20 Much of these spikes werebased on a very effective campaign by the National Rifle Association (NRA) to por-tray Mr. Obama as capable of outlawing guns, a somewhat dubious claim that wasnever-the-less believed by millions of people.

Two myths are also driving the open carry movement. The first is the Minutemanmyth, or the idea that individuals with privately owned guns would rise up and over-throw a corrupt government. This may have been true in 1776, but in the 21st cen-tury a handful of citizens, armed with handguns and deer rifles is not going to takeon the federal government, which has ready access to groups like SEAL Team 6, the101st Airborne Division, and the entire United States Marine Corps. It is local lawenforcement that has been and will continue to be the actual target for individualsand groups taking on the government.

The second myth is the hero to the rescue fantasy. This is the belief that a privatecitizen, armed and largely untrained will charge to the rescue and face down a masskiller or armed robber. While this does occur in private homes, from a police per-spective, the prospect of one or more private citizens wading into a gunfight in acrowd of innocent bystanders is too frightening to contemplate. When one considers

18 Tom W. Smith and Jaesok Sun (March 2015). “Trends in gun ownership in the United States, 1972-2014,” General SocialSurvey, Final Report. NORC at the University of Chicago.http://www.norc.org/PDFs/GSS%20Reports/GSS_Trends%20in%20Gun%20Ownership_US_1972-2014.pdf19 Bernie Horn (March 25, 2014). “Gun ownership is declining: So why is the gun lobby so powerful?,” Moyers and Company.http://billmoyers.com/2015/03/25/gun-ownership-declining-gun-lobby-powerful/20 Gregor Aisch and Josh Keller (February 3, 2016). “Gun sales soar after Obama calls for new restrictions,” New York Times.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/10/us/gun-sales-terrorism-obama-restrictions.html?_r=0


that between 1981 and 2009, twenty-six police officers were killed by fellow officerswho mistook them for criminals, the danger becomes all too obvious.21

More important than gun statistics is the cultural shift occurring. Gun ownership isincreasingly associated with politically conservative perspective. Once more the cul-tural shift between younger generations and their elders is striking.

Drugs

A number of states have legalized marijuana and more are certain to follow suit. Itis too early to determine the impact of such legislation. Sound research may requiredecades. Until then we are left with speculation and, as may be expected, such spec-ulation will be both positive and negative depending on individual opinions towardthe topic of legalization.

The marijuana genie has been let out of the bottle and there is no way to put it backin. What does this mean? Economically speaking the marijuana market is exploding.Revenue for 2016 is expected to hit $6.2 billion this year. As the market continuesto expand one estimate puts it at $21.8 billion by 2020.22

Beyond marijuana, there is a dramatic shift in thinking about illicit drugs in general.A recent white paper on illicit drugs and international security raised issues here-to-for unmentionable among governments, especially western democracies. Amongthe data cited were three unassailable facts:

• In spite of a decades-long ‘war on drugs’, the global drugtrade persists as a significant problem for international securitygiven its scale, the number of deaths related to trafficking and con-sumption it creates, and the organized crime and corruption itfuels.

• The international drug control system has been ineffec-tive in reducing the size of the market and in preventing the emer-gence of new drugs and drug routes that cause and shift instabilityaround the world.

• Current drug policies have been counter-productive,often causing more harm than the drugs themselves through cap-ital punishment for offences, widespread incarceration, discrimi-nation in law enforcement, violation of basic human rights inforced ‘treatment’ centres, and opportunity costs.23

21 Christopher Stone, Zachary Stone, et al (2011). “Reducing Inherent Danger” New York State Task Force of Police on PoliceShootings. http://www.hks.harvard.edu/criminaljustice-backup/publications/Police-on-Police_Shootings.pdf22 Will Yakowicz (2016). “Why legal marijuana could be a $6 billion industry in 2016,” Slate, Moneybox.http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/02/05/sales_of_legalized_cannabis_projected_to_hit_6_7_billion_in_2016.html23Benoit Gomis (February, 2014). “Illicit drugs and international security: towards UNGASS 2016,” Chatham House, Briefingpaper. London.https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/home/chatham/public_html/sites/default/files/0214Drugs_BP2.pdf


This report further demonstrates a willingness of leaders from across a large politicalspectrum to shift the focus on illicit drugs from a law enforcement issue to a publichealth issue. As this movements escalates, and there is no way of knowing whetheror not this will happen, police agencies may play an increasingly smaller role in drugenforcement. The impact this will have on crime will likely be a significant decrease.It will certainly lower the number of drug related arrests and prosecutions. The im-pact on street crime is unknown.

Social Media

Social media has become a Pandora’s Box for modern civilization. Seen initially as ameans for people to find and maintain social relationships it has evolved into a mis-information superconductor. With no checks and balances on validity or reliabilityof information, social media amplifies the worst aspects of conspiracy paranoia.

According to research, “Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are fertile groundfor misinformation. The researchers found that websites cultivate powerful echochambers that not only amplify falsehoods but also aggressively resist any attemptsto correct them.24 In fact, these researchers found, after studying over 50,000 postsattempting to debunk false information that the effort was worse than useless; itactually compounded the problem.

To understand the dynamics at play here it is first necessary to understand the flowof information and its inter-relationship with reputations. The forces at work withinthe social network arena are best understood within the framework of informationaland reputational cascades.

Informational and Reputational Cascades

An informational cascade is one of the most basic types of cascade. Simply stated,people form beliefs by observing the beliefs of others.25 Social networking presentsan astonishing amount of ideas for people to accept as legitimate. When ten or morepeople buy into the idea, the odds of a cascade forming approach 99 percent.26 Itmakes no difference whether the idea is true or false.

Where do these ideas come from? They come from just about anywhere and can beabout anything. Informational cascades are actually rational. No one has time to re-search every idea to which they are exposed. People trust others, especially peoplethey know. That brings us to another component of such cascades; the availabilityheuristic. There is an observable correlation between the availability of the infor-

24 Patrick Howell O’Neill (October 16, 2015). “Why it's impossible to debunk a social-media conspiracy theory.” The DailyDot. http://www.dailydot.com/politics/conspiracy-theories-social-media-facebook-debunking-research/25 Pierre Lemieux (Winter 2003-2004). “Following the Herd.” Regulation.http://leonidzhukov.net/hse/2014/socialnet26works/papers/Lemieux-following_the_herd.pdf26 P. Lemieux.


mation and the level of trust in the validity of that information. The cascade be-comes cyclical. According to Pierre Lemieux, “The availability of information influ-ences individual perceptions, which in turn adds more of the same to availableinformation.”27

An interesting phenomenon occurs as the cascade develops. When one person passesthe idea to another and the other person buys into that idea, the first person seesthe second person as both more intelligent and more likeable. Even more interest-ing, the first person begins to see him or herself as both more likeable and more in-telligent.28 As the cascade evolves, therefore, it becomes harder for late comers tothe idea to challenge its validity, which brings us to the reputational cascade. Thisis nothing more than the pressure exerted on an individual to be part of the group.29

Individuals will support an idea they know to be fallacious in order to be acceptedby the group, because perceptions of likeability and intelligence cuts both ways. Ifsomeone is seen as both more intelligent and likeable by supporting an idea, whatdoes that say about the person who opposes the idea? This is why, within any groupand with almost any topic, unbelievers pretend to believe.

The significance of this for law enforcement lies in the inability of the police to getahead of the cascade. In major crisis events law enforcement’s first concern is firstaid and scene integrity. Next is the investigation, which can take days, weeks, oreven months to determine with any accuracy what happened and who, if anyone, isresponsible. Bloggers, tweeters, and conspiracy theorists have no such limitations.Within an hour of any major--and sometimes minor—event, the internet is alightwith misinformation. Once this forms into a cascade, which requires a mere ten be-lievers, it becomes increasingly impossible to correct. Law enforcement is foreverchasing faulty information into the internet’s conspiracy labyrinth. There is no wayto win this battle.

Oversight

At the organizational level there has been a sustained pattern of federal interventionin local law enforcement. Most noticeable are direct interventions, called consentdecrees. In the past twenty years, sixteen local police departments have come underthe watchful eyes of federal monitors at enormous expense to local taxpayers. Theresults have been mixed.30 Modernization of equipment, training and policy hasbeen the good news. In only a few of the departments however did use of force in-cidents decrease; in most they either increased or stayed the same. At a cost ofaround $600 million, a number of departments suffered from serious morale issues.

27 Lemieux.28 Cass Sunstein (2014). Conspiracy Theories and Other dangerous Ideas. Simon & Schuster29 David Neil (2005). “Cascade effects in heterogeneous populations,” Rationality and Society, 7 (2) pp. 191-241. Sage Publications30 Kimbriell Kelly, Sarah Childress, and Steven Rich (November 13, 2015). “Forced reforms, mixed results,” The Washington

Post and Frontline. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/11/13/forced-reforms-mixed-results/


Collectively, the departments went through 52 police chief changes while strugglingto meet and maintain federal standards. Moreover, once released from the decree,the agency is under no requirement to continue the federally required reforms.31

At the individual officer level there has been a significant legal movement to protectpeople accused of crimes through expanded rules of discovery. The Brady decision,for example, is sending shock waves through law enforcement.32 Under Brady, ev-idence affecting the credibility of the police officer as a witness may be exculpatoryevidence and should be given to the defense during discovery.33 This decision af-fects federal criminal cases, but not state cases. Local police with what is termedBrady letters in their file, however, are excluded from testifying in Federal court. ABrady letter is placed in an officer’s personnel file when that officer has been foundto have been untruthful in an official capacity. Where before the Brady decision, theonly issue was truthfulness related to the current case, now it refers to any issue forwhich the officer has been found to be lying.

Some states have gone even further with laws more stringent than the federal rules.In Texas, for example, there is the Michael Morton Act. This bill became effectiveJanuary 1, 2014. Passed as a result of the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton forthe murder of his wife where it was discovered that the prosecution withheld evi-dence that would have freed him, this act has opened a wide array of prosecutionand investigative files to discovery well beyond the requirements of Brady.34

In essence, beyond the investigative file, anything in an officer’s personnel file isnow open to discovery. This has led to some potential problems. Unsubstantiatedwritten comments by supervisors could end up entered into court records, as wellas grades received in any police training class.

The impact of these new rules for discovery represents a significant issue for lawenforcement. It is further complicated by the frequent inability of police adminis-trators, due to civil service rules or union contracts, to terminate officers who lie.

CONCLUSION

There are many trends shaping social change. Not all of these can be discussed in asingle paper. Most notably, the impact of technology in terms of both cost and gov-ernment transparency, was absent. The focus here has been on changing demograph-ics with its growing fragmentation along age and gender lines, the toxic political

31 Kelly, Childress, and Rich.32 Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)33 Jeff Noble (March, 2016). “Police officer truthfulness and the Brady decision,” The Police Chief Magazine. http://www.po-licechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=118&issue_id=10200334 Randall Sims (July-August 2013). “The dawn of new discovery rules,” The Prosecutor. 43 (4). Texas District and County Attorney’s Association. http://www.tdcaa.com/journal/dawn-new-discovery-rules


environment with the amplification effects of social media, and the impact of in-creased techniques of federal oversight.

American culture is changing at an alarming rate. Law enforcement officers and ad-ministrators are attempting to keep up with the rate of change. Unfortunately, gov-ernment institutions are slow to react to a changing environment. Law enforcementis no exception. It remains to be seen what the future holds, but one thing is certain;tomorrow will not be like today. The sooner police leaders accept this fact, the betterprepared they will be to meet the demands of the future.


Exchanging Ideas around the Family Table:Thoughts on How CJ and PA Can Benefit

One Another and a Call to Action

Casey LaFrance, PhDAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Political ScienceWestern Illinois University

Thomas E. Meloni, PhDAssistant ProfessorSchool of Law Enforcement and Justice AdministrationWestern Illinois University

Kyle DavisM.A. CandidateDepartment of Political ScienceWestern Illinois University

Exchanging Ideas around the Family Table 15

INTRODUCTION

The relationship between the academic and practical fields of criminal justice andpublic administration is often difficult to articulate. This difficulty is exacerbatedby the fact that scholars from each field tend to occupy their own respective silos,resulting in missed opportunities for shared discovery and a common lexicon. Whileeach of the authors of this essay has a formal role in one of these two respective ac-ademic fields, we have each ventured past the porous boundaries of these fields inthe course of our formal training, scholarship, and teaching. As a result, we offer aunique collective vantage point on the most critical areas of disconnect betweenpublic administration and criminal justice. We will begin this essay with an exami-nation of these areas. Afterward, we will take turns highlighting areas wherein ourhome disciplines provide lessons for one another. We will conclude by discussingsome common challenges that vex contemporary public administration scholars andcriminal justice scholars and reiterating the need for cross-disciplinary communica-tion in pursuit of addressing these challenges.

Critical Areas of Disconnect: What PA can teach CJ

Any honest exploration of interdisciplinary discourse between PA and CJ must beginby examining competing perceptions of criminal justice, especially criminal justiceadministration, as a subfield of public administration or as a stand-alone academicenterprise. This debate mirrors competing views on public administration vis a vispolitical science. Broadly speaking, many would concede that PA is a broader tent,encompassing all agencies charged with implementing (and, in some cases, influ-encing) public policy. By extension, this would include law enforcement organiza-tions. Still, CJ scholars might rightfully argue that PA training is too broad toadequately prepare students and scholars to understand the specific questionswithin criminal justice, and arm them with the appropriate tools for careers in thisfield. While we may never reach unanimity on placement of CJ within or outside ofPA, even the slightest amount of time spent reading journals and books from eachdiscipline reveals that PA and CJ have grown apart over time.

For instance, LaFrance (2010) has argued that something as simple as the term “pro-fessionalism” is operationalized differently in PA and in CJ. His review of literatureshows that CJ often uses this term in a fashion which is synonymous with the phe-nomenon Romzek & Dubnick (1987) dub, “bureaucratic accountability,” or account-ability to rules/SOPs and orders from those at higher organizational ranks. On thecontrary, PA often uses the term “professionalism” to connote adherence to one'sprofessional standards and the legitimate use of expertise-based discretion in mak-ing decisions. Thus, scholars in each field could easily speak past one another whenusing the very same word! This example serves to showcase that PA and CJ havefailed to develop the requisite consensus needed for fruitful cross-disciplinary con-versations (Catron & Harmon, 1981).



Also, on the usage of the term “accountability,” another prohibitive linguistic chasmevinces itself. Criminal justice literature tends to use this term extensively, albeitnot exclusively, as a retroactive threat. Accountability, then, is typically viewed asa consideration when something goes wrong. PA, or at least some strains of PA,tends to add a complementary dimension to the use of this term. This second di-mension is found in the work of scholars whom are often called “bureaucratic apol-ogists.” A large number of these scholars (e.g., John Rohr, Charles Goodsell, GaryWamsley, James Wolf, etc.) worked together at Virginia Technical University. As aresult, the work of these scholars is often referred to as the “Blacksburg” School.While the Blacksburg School's contributions to understanding and normatively de-fending public administration are manifold, one portion of this contribution is help-ful to the discussion at hand. The “Blacksburg” notion of accountability focuses onthe joy and personal fulfillment public servants receive as they manage expectationsfrom multiple stakeholders (e.g., clientele, political overseers, etc.). Thus, account-ability is not seen as something to avoid or of which to be wary. Instead, accounta-bility is seen as making one's public service COUNT in the lives of those she serves.In this view, accountability is not a burden, but a badge of accomplishment that onewears as she steadily fulfills the obligations associated with the sacred trust she hasbeen fortunate enough to earn from the public. In social contract theory terms, thissacred trust is a manifestation of the individual sovereignty that each citizen givesto government in exchange for social order, protection, and a sense of communitybeyond oneself (Wamsley, 1990; Goodsell, 2003; Rohr, 1986). The ubiquity withwhich Community Oriented Policing Systems have arisen speaks to the viability ofthis conception of accountability in CJ circles and may well result in a vernacularshift on this contentious term (Baldi & LaFrance, 2013).

A third area wherein CJ can learn from PA is found in the nascent literature on “gov-ernance” in PA. The term “governance” has steadily begun to replace the term“government” in public administration literature as a descriptor of the actions,forms, and functions of service provision in the 21st Century. The use of this termis a concession that traditional Weberian hierarchies and the “vending machine”models of implementation are inadequate in providing public services or in describ-ing such provision (Kettl, 2008). Governance as a term calls attention to the fluiditywith which actors enter and exit policy systems, the fact that many services are pro-vided via proxy or contract with private sector or non-profit sector entities, and thefact that traditional (jurisdiction-based) schemes of operation are no longer viablefor problems that span boundaries. Such “wicked” problems, for which there areno easy answers require non-routine solutions borne out of a level of flexibility forwhich many top-down implementation systems are ill-equipped. Research showsevidence that many practicing police managers are well aware of the need to thinkbeyond jurisdictional and hierarchical approaches in areas such as development ofpursuit policies (LaFrance, 2014). However, CJ scholarship has yet to fully embracethe ideas associated with a governance approach. Some recent CJ scholarship thatcritically considers the variety, and interdependent nature, of “systems” in whichpolice officers and administrators operate (e.g., Wilson & Draine, 2006; Bradley,

2009) is focused on questions of governance, but seems to be unaware of public ad-ministration literature in this vein. This might well serve as another example of theimportance of standardizing common phrases between PA and CJ reroute to speak-ing the same overall language. This crucial step will serve not only to ensure thatscholars from each camp no longer speak past one another, it will also open up asymbiotic “trade route” for the free flow of research literature across disciplines.

Critical Areas of Disconnect: What CJ can teach PA

In the spirit of transparency and balance, an enhanced exchange between PA andCJ scholars is far from a zero sum game. In fact, CJ as a realm of scholarship andpractice has many lessons for public administration scholars and practitioners. Theapplication of theory into practice comes to light when one explores the applicationof both public administration and criminal justice theory in reality. The test tracksfor both sciences are the streets of America. From a small town to a large metropolis,the social contract (Wamsley, 1990; Goodsell, 2003; Rohr, 1986) between citizensand their government is most effectively put to the test in the arena of law enforce-ment. The local level of policing in a county, city, village, or town, is the most visiblerepresentation of government to the people. Local police officers are closest to thepeople as officers interact with individual citizens around the clock in an endlessvariety of circumstances. When there is no ready and easy resolution, people rou-tinely turn to their local police for assistance. Officers respond to thousands uponthousands of calls for service day and night, fully intent on providing service andprotection to whomever has called for assistance. Public policy is made at the pointof delivery, on the street, where the public servant actually delivers policy to thecitizen (Lipsky, 1980). For example, each day police officers respond to investigatetraffic accidents in every city and region of America. Officers inspect for injury, ren-der first-aid, summon the assistance of emergency medical service personnel, in-vestigate the cause(s) of the crash, determine if a crime has been committed, makean arrest, issue a traffic summons if a vehicle as involved, and complete a full reportof the crash for the parties involved to use in informing their automobile insurancecarriers. The officer investigating the crash is bringing to life the public policy spec-ified in the state traffic and criminal laws enacted as public policy by the respectivestate's legislature. The officer uses his or her discretion in choosing to make an ar-rest, issue or not issue a traffic summons dependent upon the evidence and factsinvolved. The citizen’s receipt of police services at the accident scene is in actualitythe point of policy being made for the individual citizens involved (Lipsky, 1980).Many public administrators do not consider their very important role in this process.

Moreover, criminal justice enjoys an enviable position in the public budgetingprocess due, in large part, to the powerful rhetoric police executives often use tojustify their appropriations requests. Coe & Wiesel (2001, p. 718) assert that policemanagers are effective in requesting funding because they incorporate the followingstrategies:


“Using crime and workload data judiciously; capitalizing on sensational crime inci-dents; effectively getting the message out; carefully mobilizing interest groups;strategic planning; playing the federal grants game; working closely with the chiefexecutive and elected officials; and involving all departmental staff levels in budg-eting.”

While public administrators in other fields may not wield the leverage that comesalong with a community's sense of immediate safety, many of these strategies havethe potential for persuading guardians of the purse strings to invest in other agen-cies. The large lesson at hand for broad-based public management is direct con-nection to all component stages of the public policy process and the ability todemonstrate the cyclical nature of this process. For instance, collecting and usingdata not only informs the planning process, but also provides a mechanism for eval-uating the relative success of public agencies' programmatic ventures. Capitalizingon events which are immediately salient to an agency's service community naturallycatalyzes the mobilization of interested or affected citizens and groups, and can as-sist with developing relationships with top managers and elected representatives.

Importantly, if the human relations approach to public management can be creditedwith only one central idea, it is the long-term value of democratizing decision-mak-ing throughout an agency. This, in turn, has the potential to encourage public ser-vants at all levels to share their front-line experiences in implementing policy andto contribute their ideas for developing future strategies and plans. Moreover, themany of the strategies that Coe & Wiesel (2001) cite are instrumental in lifting theveil and allowing members of the public a greater degree of transparency into theoperations of the government agencies that they not only fund, but in a deepersense, own (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2002). Transparency enables citizens to be bet-ter informed: not just about what their government is doing, but more importantly,why their government is doing certain things. This information might ultimatelyserve to legitimate the actions of a government agency in the eyes of citizens andyield higher public approval of public servants' decisions and actions. The UnitedStates is a nation born out of distrust and disgust for bureaucrats. A quick readingof the Declaration of Independence showcases the degree to which Colonial Amer-icans were angered by perceived bureaucratic malfeasance and ignorance (e.g., “Hehas erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of his officers toharass our people and eat out their substance...”). However, a deeper reading mightreveal that much of this anger was (and continues to be) rooted in the perceptionthat public agencies do not feel obligated to represent those in their respective serv-ice communities. Public administrators outside of criminal justice fields might beinspired to remedy this perception by borrowing from Coe & Wiesel's (2001) strate-gies. These administrators might also consider the widespread use and acceptanceof community-based policing systems that many criminal justice agencies have im-plemented since the 1980s. While we typically associate the duties to “serve andprotect” with law enforcement officials, all public administrators should considerthese duties as fundamental to fulfilling their statutory or constitutional responsi-


bilities in the course of executing public policy. After all, the Food and Drug Ad-ministration is charged with protecting us from harmful medicines and the EPA istasked with protecting us from environmental degradation. More pointedly, pro-tection via the establishment of order and the rule of law is supposed to be the pay-off for exiting the state of nature and giving up absolute freedom and individualsovereignty to government. The duty to serve in the course of protecting speaks tothe need for more accessible and responsive public administration. In short, citizensought to have a voice in what sorts of service and protection they feel is just or nec-essary.

Finally, public administrators and criminal justice managers might share a sense offrustration when it comes to measuring performance or effectiveness. All of thedeaths prevented by police action or the action of the FDA, for instance, will neverbe known. We might be able to speculate, but it is almost impossible to know whichterrible tragedies, chronic illnesses, and other wholly negative outcomes wereavoided as a result of bureaucratic intervention. This shared reality should serve tohelp criminal justice practitioners to develop a reciprocal empathy for one anotherand a shared desire for each to communicate about this less frequently discussedfacet of effectiveness.

Shared Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century

Epistemology and Research Approaches

One of the more troublesome concerns shared by each of these disciplines manifestsitself in opposing normative views regarding the appropriate ratio and balance oftheory and praxis from those inside and outside of each respective discipline. Atone end of the spectrum, public administration and criminal justice scholars mustconfront the “so what?” question that practicing public and law enforcement man-agers rightfully ask when exposed to research output. Practitioners do not oftenenjoy the opportunity to deeply consider hypothesized or theoretical relationshipsbetween variables that academic faculty members are readily afforded. Instead, theworld of practical public management often moves at jaw-dropping pace, forcingmanagers to consider panoply of pressing problems simultaneously and develop vi-able solutions and plans of action. Consequently, practicing public managers arelooking for readily applicable research findings which point them toward better prac-tices.

In the short term, the absence of such scholarship breeds skepticism from those inpractice. Longer periods of dissatisfaction may lead to outright contempt for aca-demic work in each field, creating a larger gap between the work of university facultymembers and those on the front lines of public service provision. In turn, this maydiminish practitioners' collective desire to participate in empirical research projectsand, ironically, reinforce perceptions regarding the limited utility of academic workin practical settings.


At the other end of this theory/praxis continuum, scholars in PA and CJ are accusedof lacking the ability to build legitimate theoretical infrastructure for their respectiveresearch areas. In this view, a sharp focus on pragmatic guidance comes at the ex-pense of creating paradigm-based science. Scholars in PA and CJ face mockery forhaphazardly and conveniently applying post-hoc theories borrowed from other dis-ciplines (e.g., sociology, economics, etc.) as a thin veneer for “best practices” man-uals. Some compare our research output to faddish pop management essays andbooks one would expect to find at a regional airport's newsstand. The perceivedpaucity of adequate theoretical foundation, in the minds of our academic critics,relegates each of our disciplines to the status of “junk science.” Moreover, due tothe ubiquity of former practitioners taking up academic posts in our departments(despite their respective degrees and academic accomplishments), critics have beenknown to opine that PA and CJ courses might be better housed at trade or technicalschools instead of colleges and universities until we engage in some deeper level ofepistemological soul-searching.

In essence, scholars in each of these disciplines find themselves pulled in competingdirections and may understandably question which way to move forward with theirwork. In their respective attempts to make sense of this quandary, some scholarshave gravitated toward “best practices” or “how-to” veins of scholarship gleanedlargely from case studies and more qualitative modes of inquiry while others have“teched up” their arguments through the use of sophisticated statistical method-ologies. These divergent responses to the theory/praxis conundrum have createdintra-disciplinary friction within PA and CJ over which toolkit is superior.

An added area of friction surfaces when one realizes that the “4 e's” (equity, effi-ciency, economy, and effectiveness) compete for attention in the ivory tower and inthe world of practice. Often, these values oppose one another. Take, for instance,efficiency (getting the most bang for one's buck) versus effectiveness (ensuring pro-grammatic success or quality). Typically, quality outcomes require more resourceinvestment at the front end of a service provision system. Moreover, effectivenessin outcomes might take much longer to observe than efficiency in procedures. Thelarge, looming specter of economy (do we have the money?) is especially salient topublic administrators in the present, where the 2008 economic crash has suppliedwhat seems to be an interminable hangover, especially for state and local govern-ments. Without adequate financial and human resources, any plan is doomed to failno matter how efficient, effective or equitable it may seem. Finally, CJ and PA haveopened their collective eyes to questions of equity (fairness or justice) in serviceprovision after decades of feigning ignorance or actively encouraging inequitableservice provision.

Representative Bureaucracy

Another area in which common efforts might be fruitful is found in the need for amore representative workforce in the fields of public administration and criminal


justice. As our nation's demographic makeup continues to shift, PA and CJ scholarsand practitioners should combine efforts to recruit, train, and manage employeeswhose backgrounds more closely approximate the changing characteristics of theirservice populations. This need is not borne out of a mere desire to “appear” diverse.Instead, it is the true necessity for diversification is found in the ability of thosefrom different racial groups, women, and members of the LGBT community to bet-ter empathize with, and advocate for, those who share common experiences. Whilethe need for more representative bureaucracies is not a novel idea (Krislov spelledout its need in 1974), the immediacy with which this notion must be embraced ismore pressing now than ever. Recent national attention to accusations of biased-based policing, reinforced by the March 3, 2015, publication of the Department ofJustice's report on such activity in Ferguson, Missouri, has reinvigorated calls fromthose inside and outside of our respective fields for meaningful action in pursuit ofequitable representation.

Representative Bureaucracy, Trust, and Efficacy

Representative bureaucracy can also serve as a catalyst for more frequent citizenparticipation in government decision-making. Research shows that members of his-torically underrepresented and oppressed groups are much more apt to feel a senseof efficacy in their interactions with government officials when members of theirrespective groups are in significant positions of power in government (Bobo &Gilliam, 1990; Verba, Schlozman, Brady, Nye, 1997). This efficacy and the relatedbelief that one's voice will be considered in government decision-making might en-hance the image of public servants and ameliorate mistrust or skepticism to somedegree. More importantly, greater community participation is likely to improve di-alog between citizens and public administrators, ultimately helping to dispel someof the more common miscommunications. Moreover, this outcome might bolsterthe sense of legitimacy that bureaucratic agencies need in order to request resourcesand be granted authority from political overseers (Heclo, 1978). In support of thisnotion, John Rohr (1981) argues that the bureaucracy was intended by the framersof our nation's Constitution to be the most representative branch of governmentdue to the fact that citizens are much more likely to interact with public adminis-trators on a daily basis than elected officials. After all, even at the local level, eachelected official is tasked with fulfilling the desires of very large constituencies. Thislimits the ability each elected official has to actually get to know those who putthem into office as individuals. Conversely, the police officers responsible for mon-itoring morning school traffic often wave and may even have a few seconds to chat.

Escaping Ethnocentrism by Looking Beyond the United States

On a related note, both of our disciplines can appear to be myopic in cultural andgeographical focus areas. Since much of the work of American CJ and PA scholarsfocuses solely on research questions within the United States, it might be fair tosay that our work has a strong streak of ethnocentrism. This might preclude US


scholars from deeper conversations and more meaningful exchanges with scholarsfrom other nations, leading to another sort of disconnect. While this suggestion isnot intended to provoke a debate about American exceptionalism, and there areplenty of things we do differently (some better, some not) from other nations, op-portunities for observing disparate scholarly and practical approaches abound.

The Challenges of 21st Century Governance

The thunderous arrival of the information age has shown that PA and CJ are con-fronting a phenomenon never before seen in human history: the diffusion of policyjurisdiction and responsibility across levels of government and geographic locations.Traditional hierarchical models of operation are proving insufficient in addressingthe types of problems the 21st Century has wrought. Governance through formaland informal networks of systems is the new reality for practitioners, and scholarsare working feverishly to keep up with the concomitant changes. Uniting researchin each of our disciplines is not only normatively desirable, but absolutely necessaryif we hope to understand, describe, and explain public management in this era.

At the very least, bridging scholarship and practice in each of our disciplines is likelyto cause us to reconsider the embedded competition for resources that has causedmutual mistrust and territoriality to emerge as our disciplines have grown andevolved. By pitting us against one another, our funding sources have been able tododge tough questions regarding resource allocation and overall strategic planningin the academy and in the public sector writ large. Police agencies, for the timebeing, have enjoyed a degree of “sacred cow” status. Nevertheless, there is reasonto believe that even they will face the budget axe eventually.

Here, the need for combined efforts in crafting honest, but effective public relationsmessaging should be relatively easy to see. One potential avenue for enhancing thepublic image of public agencies, including law enforcement agencies, is throughmeaningful and timely citizen participation initiatives as discussed above. Addi-tionally, we might also work to showcase the amazing reliability of public serviceprovision, helping citizens to realize that their negative perceptions of police andother public agencies stems from ravenous media feeding frenzies when agency em-ployees make mistakes or engage in unseemly conduct (Goodsell, 2015).

CONCLUSION

Along with these shared challenges come shared opportunities that can best be re-alized through effective planning procedures and rigorous training curricula. At themacro level, more democratic and heterarchical mission- driven goal creation isneeded, requiring input from top managers and rank and file officials. At the every-day level, scenario-based training and value-oriented training is necessary to main-tain progress toward fulfilling these goals. This, too, presents an opportunity for


cross-disciplinary communication to develop. Scholars and practicing public andlaw enforcement managers can offer a variety of benefits to one another, culminatingin the kinds of new models of leadership required by the realities of the 21st Cen-tury (Kettl, 2008). Frequent meetings, site and classroom visits, and hybrid (prac-tical and academic) journals can play a vital role in fostering trust between allinvolved parties and inspire the sort of curiosity needed for continued excellencein public service. The time has come for everyone to recognize that it is not onlypossible, but imperative that we begin having conversations around our family table.

REFERENCES

Baldi, G., & LaFrance, C. (2012). Lessons from the United States sheriff on the electoral selection of police commissioners in England and Wales. Policing, pas048.

Bobo, L., & Gilliam, F. D. (1990). Race, sociopolitical participation, and black empowerment. American

Political Science Review, 84(02), 377-393. Bradley, K. J. C. B. (2009). The Bradley Report: Lord Bradley's review of people with mental health problems or

learning disabilities in the criminal justice system. London: Department of Health. Catron, B. L., & Harmon, M. M. (1981). Action theory in practice: toward theory without conspiracy.

Public Administration Review, 535-541. Coe, C. K., & Wiesel, D. L. (2001). Police budgeting: Winning strategies. Public Administration Review,

61(6), 718-727. Denhardt, J. V., & Denhardt, R. B. (2007). The new public service: Serving, not steering. ME Sharpe. Goodsell, C. T. (2003). The case for bureaucracy: A public administration polemic. SAGE. Heclo, H. (1978). Issue networks and the executive establishment. Public administration: Concepts and cases,

413. Jefferson, T (1776). Declaration of Independence.

Kettl, D. F. (2008). The next government of the United States: Why our institutions fail us and how to fix them. WWNorton & Company.

Krislov, S. (1974). Representative Bureaucracy. Prentice Hall.LaFrance, T. C. (2010). Professional vs Bureaucratic Accountability in Local Law Enforcement Manage-

ment Decisionmaking. In Law Enforcement Executive Forum (Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 145-165). LaFrance, C. (2014). Pursuing an Answer: Bureaucratic and Legal Accountability in Local Law Enforce-

ment Pursuit Policies. Ralph Bunche Journal of Public Affairs, 3(1), 4Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. New York,

Russel Sage Foundation. Rohr, J. A. (1986). To run a constitution: The legitimacy of the administrative state. University Press of Kansas. Wamsley, G. L. (1990). Refounding public administration. Sage Publications, Inc. Romzek, B. S., & Dubnick, M. J. (1987). Accountability in the public sector: Lessons from the Challenger

tragedy. Public Administration Review, 227-238. Verba, S., Burns, N., & Schlozman, K. L. (1997). Knowing and caring about politics: Gender and political

engagement. The Journal of Politics, 59(04), 1051-1072. Wamsley, G. L. (1990). Refounding public administration. Sage Publications, Inc. Wilson, A.B. & Draine, J. (2006). Collaborations between criminal justice and mental health systems for

prisoner reentry. Psychiatric Services.


Leadership in Police Regionalization:Why Mission Matters?

Patrick J. Hughes PhDSt. Louis University

Dr. Patrick Hughes has a Ph.D. in Leadership from Alvernia University (2013) inReading, Pennsylvania. He also holds a M.S. in Organizational Development andLeadership from Shippensburg University (2006), and a B.S in Psychology fromKutztown University (1995). He is the Department Chair /Assistant Professor inOrganizational Studies at St. Louis University. He was a former a police officer forseveral years and remains a police academy instructor. He is the 2013 Alvernia Uni-versity’s Dr. Nan Hamberger Founding Dean’s Award winner. In addition, Hugheswas named as one of the 2012 Central Pennsylvania Business Journals 40 UnderForty, and he is a recipient of the 2008 Todd A Milano Faculty Excellence Award.Hughes teaches courses, such as, leadership theory, organizational behavior, leadingorganizational change. His areas of interest in research are organizational develop-ment, leadership, organizational change, and ethics as applied to the public sector.

He can be reached at [email protected].

Matthew D. Harris PhDUniversity of Maryland University College

Dr. Matthew D. Harris has a PhD. in Business Administration from NorthcentralUniversity (2012) in Prescott, AZ. He also holds a Master of Public Administration(MPA) with an emphasis in Inspection and Oversight from John Jay College of Crim-inal Justice (2002) and a B.S. in both Criminal Justice and Public Administrationfrom Kutztown University (1995). He is an Assistant Special Agent in Charge withthe Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the United States Postal Service (USPS)and has held leadership positions in several law enforcement organizations. Harristeaches courses in public policy, government, criminal law and criminal justice. Hisareas of research interest include government oversight, public sector leadership,and organizational change.

He can be reached at matthew.harris@[email protected]

Leadership in Police Regionalization: Why Mission Matters? 25


ABSTRACT

Municipal centralization of police power has been on a steady decline as regional-ization of police has led to the consolidation of smaller municipal departments intoa larger regional presence. Still, the need for strong police leadership has not wa-vered, but has become more important as regionalized departments serve a largerconstituency and employ more officers than municipal police agencies. The currentclimate calls for strong, innovative and creative leadership of which transformationalleadership can be most effective where leadership is necessary to meet the chal-lenges of an ever-changing landscape. Those departments seeking to regionalizewould be best served to explore transformational leaders who are positioned to meettoday’s challenges associated with mobilizing a culturally diverse workforce in a tran-sitional environment.

Keywordstransformational leadership, police regionalization, mission statement


INTRODUCTION

Regionalization of police departments is a growing trend, as smaller police depart-ments continue to face difficult economic conditions and increased technologicalneeds. Policy makers and politicians are seeing the growing benefits of regionaliza-tion which may be defined as two or more local independent police departmentscombining into one newly formed police agency. While the concept is growing na-tionally due to tight economic conditions, in Pennsylvania due to the growth, thePennsylvania Department of Community Development has published guides on theprocess of regionalizing. In Pennsylvania, there are 34 regionalized police depart-ments and over 100 nationwide (Hughes, 2013). As departments begin to regional-ize, the regionalization of police appears to transform agencies physically andculturally, and ultimately affects the organizations’ missions (Hughes, 2013). Policeadministrators are also recognizing the value and appropriateness of the shared-power approach, a trend away from the more traditional style of policing (More, Vito& Nash, 2012). Selection processes of choosing vacant police administrator roleshave incorporated more concepts from leadership theories (Hughes, 2013). Selec-tion criteria should include the applicants’ vision for the agency and how the appli-cant will stimulate employee participation and each applicant’s plan for transformingthe status quo and moving the department into the 21st century (Hughes, 2013).Will the regional police chief employ a transactional leadership style, where leadersfail to integrate subordinates and employees are not involved in the decision-makingprocess? There is very little to no interaction between the leaders and workers, andfear from the threat of punishment is the chief motivator (Miller & Sarver, 2013).Or will the regional leader embody the traits of a transformational leader who has avision, charisma and ability to have subordinates follow their lead (Bass, 1990)?

PURPOSE OF STUDY

Through mission statement analysis, transformational regionalized agencies fromprevious research are examined. Results of the author’s previous study is applied:the majority of regionalized police agencies in PA and those seeking to regional-ize, employ a transformational leadership culture. Using qualitative content analy-sis, parallels between the mission statements of regional and non-regionaldepartments seeking to regionalize within one county in Pennsylvania are ex-plored. Through examination of each department’s available mission statement,the analysis explored if departments are promoting a transformational leadershipculture. A word cloud tool was utilized to determine if mission statements re-flected a transformational or transactional leadership culture. A chi-square analy-sis was then performed utilizing the high frequency words within each missionstatement group. Because the study focused around the organizational change ofpolice regionalization, the theoretical framework for this research is the transfor-mational and transactional leadership theory of Bass and Avolio (1993).


CURRENT STUDY

Between July 2014 and January 2015, the researchers gathered (electronically viathe internet and researcher direct request) mission statements for 19 of the 34 re-gionalized and 12 of the 17 non-regionalized police agencies within the state. Forthose agencies where mission statements were not publicly available on departmentwebsites, the researchers contacted the department to obtain a copy. Once ob-tained, a mission statement content analysis was performed. A web-based wordcount tool named Wordle was used on both groups to determine if their missionstatements reflected a transformational or transactional leadership culture. Applyingthe operational definition of transformational and transactional leadership, the analy-sis determined if each group’s mission statement promotes a transformational ortransactional leadership culture. A chi-square analysis was then performed utilizingthe high frequency words within each mission statement group.

Research Questions

Using the data gathered, this study seeks to address the following questions:

1. To what extent do the mission statements of PA regional police departmentsfound to be transformational leadership cultures reflect the mission statements ofmultiple agencies seeking to regionalize within one PA county?

2. What variance, if any, exists between the mission statements of regionalized po-lice departments vs. those seeking to regionalize in one county?

Regionalization and Mergers

Contemporary policing continues to adhere to a para-militaristic style design ofpolicing. However, regionalization, a fairly new concept, is growing due in part toan increased need to pool economic and technical resources. The term regional po-lice are defined using the terminology from the 2006 Center for Rural PennsylvaniaSurvey of Small town Police Departments (Pennsylvania Department of Communityand Economic Development, Governor's Center for Local Government Services.(2011). A regional police department “is where two or more municipalities cometogether to form a single police department that has jurisdiction over each of themunicipalities” (p. 2). A similar term, consolidation infers departments remain in-tact, but share certain law enforcement functions. While the traditional policingmodel still appears to be prevalent across the country, Hughes (2013) noted thatregional policing is progressing as a new innovative police style. Historically, smalltowns and municipalities across the United States created their own police depart-ments. Power was centralized in the position of the chief, answering to the mayoror to township administrators. However, in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the rise of re-gionalization became widespread primarily in the northeastern part of the country;

Leadership in Police Regionalizaton: Why Mission Matters? 29

due in part to the large number of local governments found there, and the growingoperational police costs; a trend even more prevalent today. In 2013, the Police Ex-ecutive Research Forum noted that most police agencies experienced significantbudget cuts in 2012, and expected additional cuts in subsequent years. These stateand local budget cuts are noted to be the impetus for continued regionalization.Despite the regionalization trend, studies on regionalization are limited. Availablestudies focus particularly on the area of cost effectiveness (Hass, 2007; Lithopoulos& Rigakos, 2005). Others assess the impact the quality and efficiency of policeservices (Krimmel, 1997; Lithopoulos & Rigakos, 2005; Simper & Weyman-Jones,2007; Southwick, 2005; Wilson and Grammich, 2012; Wilson, Weiss, & Grammich,2012). Chermack et al. (2014) noted much of the research on regionalization isdecades old, is not peer-reviewed, and focuses on regionalized policing in Canada,not the U.S.

The call for regionalization continues to rise not only in the northeast, but in all re-gions of the U.S. Nationwide, police agencies have had a difficulty maintainingstaffing and operational levels (Wilson, Weiss, & Grammich 2012). Some munici-palities have chosen to regionalize, while others have explored contracting policeservices with larger departments. Still, many departments are resisting the culturalshift, but succumb after the economic impediments are determined to be insur-mountable. Despite the trend, and identified cost savings (consolidation of policein Salt Lake County, Utah, saved the five regionalized cities 3.2 million dollars in2013), many governmental entities reject regionalizing police forces on claims of fi-nancial unfeasibility (Gillette, 2001).

Obstacles to regionalization can be found in studies by Christman (2010) and Schell(2010) who noted police agencies in Pennsylvania were resistant to the change.Miller (2006) explained “The single biggest obstacle towards advancing the conceptof regionalizing police services may be the coordination of wages, benefits, and work-ing conditions (p.2).” Tully (2002) explained by listing costs to taxpayers, loss oflocal control, and complacency for the status quo (p. 1) as other reasons not to re-gionalize police agencies. Still, much of the concern with regionalization is not onlya resistance to cultural change and complacency but also the uncertainty of the fi-nancial and human capital impact change will have on the organization (Tully, 2002;Stahl, 2004). Concerns over the possible downsizing of full time employees, bene-fits and retirement structure and concern over who will control the governing orcommand structure are impediments to regionalization (IACP, 2003). Opponents’note that the math does not add up, and those departments that have regionalizedare not seeing the savings they were promised (Wolverton, 2012). Citizens risk los-ing control of their neighborhood law enforcement to a sheriff who has little vestedinterest in community policing, and losing local control and oversight of police isnot always regarded as progress (Fantino, 2011). Still it is becoming increasinglydifficult for local agencies to sustain themselves during fiscally challenging times.


In small rural areas, and economically challenged municipalities, regionalization isan attractive option. While the literature and research of U.S. regionalization is scant,regionalization in Canada has proven to be a success. Fantino (2011) explainedwhile the economic rationale for regionalization is tangible, the need to integratecommunication systems and employ enhanced information sharing in a post 9-11world favors regionalization. These concerns and increased terror threats challengethe smaller stand-alone police departments who may be ill equipped to handle 21stcentury law enforcement challenges.

Leadership Styles

Transformational: Transformational leadership changes and transforms people(Northhouse, 2012). It is the preferred leadership style amongst municipal policeagencies (Hughes, 2013). Transformational leaders teach followers how to becomeleaders and to become active players in the change movement (Northhouse, 2012).Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy (2006) state transformational leadership is that “whichserves to change the status quo by appealing to the followers’ values and their senseof higher purpose” (p. 408). Transformational leaders subscribe to inclusive deci-sion-making practices which “can foster greater rank and file commitment to orga-nizational initiates” (Steinheider & Wuestwald, 2008, p. 145). It is concerned withemotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals (Northouse 2012). Trans-formational leaders inspire others by connecting with them emotionally and use thisemotional leverage to serve as a mentor giving the subordinate a feeling of individualconsideration. (Bass, et.al). According to Miller and Sarver (2014), these leaders“should exude confidence, be committed to the organization, trustworthy, open tochange, persuasive, and optimistic, and able to lead change effectively” (p. 127).Leaders, who embrace the status quo, neglect to be conduits of change, and fail toempower subordinates offer a contrasting leadership style.

Transactional: Transactional leaders are more concerned with advancing their per-sonal agenda, motivating subordinates through their own self-interests enrichmentof rank and file is not considered (Avolio & Bass, 2004). Status within the organi-zation often correlates to the acceptance or rejection of the leader’s agenda. Thefollower is rewarded or punished based upon their contribution toward the leader’sgoal (Antonakis et al., 2003). Transactional leaders use punishments as motivation,and do not implement change within the organization or their subordinates. Bothtransactional leaders and followers are non-committal to organizational change(Miller & Sarver, 2014). Deluga & Souza (1991) studied the effects of transforma-tional and transactional leadership on police officers and found behavior employingcommon good over individual goals was more associated with transformational lead-ership (p. 402). Moreover, rational influencing activity was encouraged through useof transformational leadership (p.54).

Studies comparing private sector and public sector use of transactional vs. transfor-mational leadership note little variance on the effectiveness between private and

public organizations (when measuring whether an organization employs a transfor-mational or transactional style) (Miller et al., (2009); Parry & Proctor-Thomson,2003). However, transactional leadership appears to dominate most law enforcementorganizations (Hughes 2013). Transactional leaders do not empower employees tobecome leaders of change, but to seek pre-established goals (Avolio & Bass, 2004;Caless, 2011). Literature exploring police leadership suggests a transformationalleader and organizational culture that fosters this style of leadership work best withorganizations making change (Hughes, 2013). Officers note their preferred leader-ship style is transformational (Hughes, 2013). Despite this preference, there appearsto be a lack of police leaders who exhibit this transformational style (Hughes, 2013).Within the law enforcement environment, transformational leadership appears to“encourage more rational influencing activity than transactional leadership” (Delugaand Souza, 1991, p.54). While transformational leaders “teach followers how to be-come leaders in their own right and incite them to play active roles in the changemovement” (Hughes, Ginnett, & Curphy, 2006, p. 408).

Why a study of police leadership?

Police leadership can vary depending on geography, demographics, and politics. How-ever, the leadership style employed often mirrors the personality, demeanor and struc-ture of the organization studied. Traditionally, police have employed a militaristicleadership style (Hughes, 2013). Evidence of transformational leadership in policeagencies, is uncommon and most agencies exhibit a transactional style.

As the study of police leadership has evolved emphasis has been placed on leader ofthe agency. Today’s leaders are expected to be strong officers, administrators, budgetanalysts, and politically savvy while maintaining a transformational leadership style.Many leaders strive to be transformational leaders, but research shows commonalityin the transactional style (Avolio and Bass, 2004). Today’s leaders can’t afford to em-brace a transactional policing where their personal agenda is prioritized over the needsof the organization. Those who often fail do so because they neglect to calculate theimportance of cultural barriers to change. Transactional leaders don’t see the big pic-ture, but operate in a myopic world where their agenda is bigger than the organization.While this approach may lead to individual accolades and success, culturally the or-ganization is harmed.

Studies on police leadership are varied; many focusing on the community orientedpolicing style that dominated the 1990’s. Community policing focuses on giving thecommunity and leaders a sense of ownership; involving both in decision-making(Hughes, 2013). The community policing concept is to foster a greater commitmentfrom all parties involved (Wexler, Wycoff, & Fischer, 2007). Others have also appliedleadership studies to policing. Steinheider & Wuestwald (2008) studied police agen-cies in which officers share leadership. They found that when leadership is shared,greater rank and file commitment to organizations initiatives is often met (Steinhei-der et al., 2008). Krimmel & Lindenmuth (2001) explored police leadership in Penn-



sylvania, and looked at indicators of leadership styles of police chiefs. As the needsof communities have changed, police work has changed. Pagon (2003) explains that‘‘different times call for different people. Not only has police work changed, so havethe public and the communities into which it is separated” (p. 167). Now, police lead-ers are expected to be at the forefront of organizational change. Marks & Fleming(2004) explain that in order for the organizational change to occur, police leaders mustspearhead the change and be leaders in the change agent movement. The researchparallels Densten (2003), who advocated the exploration of transformational leader-ship within police organizations and Dobby et. al’s (2004), who found that subordi-nates whose leaders used a transformational style found that the subordinates showedincreased job satisfaction.

Today transformational style policing can be seen in the work of William Bratton, for-mer and again current police chief of New York City Police Department (NYPD).When Bratton was first appointed commissioner of the NYPD in 1994, Brattonchanged the culture of the NYPD which led to lower crimes rates. Bratton decen-tralized decision making and empowered middle management to make key law en-forcement decisions. He hired a private firm to perform a cultural diagnostic reviewto determine the obstacles that were cultural impediments to change (Nagy &Podolny, 2008). Moreover, he demanded the resignation of senior leaders who he feltcould not employ his vison of cultural change from top to bottom within the NYPD.What Bratton built in NYC is widely seen as the script for transformational leadershipin major police departments throughout the U.S.

Mission Statements

Mission statements are enduring statements of purpose that distinguish one organi-zation from other similar enterprise (David & David, 2003). They encompass thepurpose of the organization and define organizational philosophy. Most public andprivate organizations possess a mission statement to inform the public and stakehold-ers of the purpose of the organization. There is a connection between mission state-ments, commitment, and leadership (Hughes, 2013). In a transformationalorganization, the mission statement would be created through a process that may in-corporate all employees (Hughes, 2013). In a transactional organization, only thoseat the top of the organization would be involved in the mission creation, and then ad-vise all others of what was developed. Law enforcement agencies are no different.The Bureau of Justice Statistics (2008) reports there are over 30,000 state and locallaw enforcement agencies in the U.S, not including federal and tribal police numbers.While research is unavailable regarding the number of agencies using mission state-ments each of the 29 regional police agencies in the study offered their mission state-ments for analysis. Based on a finding from the author’s previous study (Hughes,2013), several regional police agencies within Pennsylvania, have not established amission statement.

Analysis of mission statements within law enforcement organizations often exposesthe leadership style of the organization. Due to the events of September 11, 2001,agencies mission statements now frequently reference terrorism or homeland secu-rity, and the emergence of the need for strong leaders can be found in many missionstatements. As law enforcement trends change quickly, mission statements mustbe revisited frequently to ensure their organizational and cultural consistency(Hughes, 2013). Police mission statements that fail to incorporate leadership con-cepts should be revised.

Prior Research

The author’s previous study examined regional police agencies within Pennsylvania,and the perceptions that officers in each of those agencies had toward the charac-teristics of an individual agency’s leadership culture. Through an OrganizationalDescriptive Questionnaire (ODQ), the work sought to determine if municipal of-ficers in regional municipal police departments in Pennsylvania perceive their ownorganizational culture as transformational or transactional. Using qualitative missionstatement analysis, the author sought to find if the mission statements of Pennsyl-vania regional police departments reflected the observed leadership style for thedepartment (transformational or transactional)? The study revealed that regional-ized departments in Pennsylvania promoted a transformational culture. The studyalso found little variance in the mission statements between regionalized and non-regionalized departments.

RESULTS

Analysis of Mission Statements

The analysis is considered the content of mission statements, as posted on websitesfor the participating agencies, or obtained from departments when not posted ontheir website. The purpose of performing such an analysis was to identify if themission statements of the two groups (transformational or transactional) of agenciesreflected their perceived leadership culture. The analysis further sought to identifythemes that emerged from these mission statements based upon their leadershipclassification given in this study. The analysis has two parts: a word cloud wordcount, followed by a chi-square analysis informed by the word count. This analysisaddressed (R1). To what extent do the mission statements of PA regional policedepartments found to be transformational leadership cultures reflect the missionstatements of multiple agencies seeking to regionalize within one PA county.

To compare the mission statements between already regionalized agencies to theseventeen departments considering regionalization, 31 statements in total were col-lected and analyzed. It is important to note, this current research utilized the mis-sion statements of regionalized police departments from a previous study completed


by Hughes (2013). In that 2013 study, the researcher identified 19 mission state-ments of regionalized agencies that reflected a transformational leadership culture.For purposes of this study, 12 statements were obtained from the 17 agencies seek-ing to regionalize within Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. The statements weregathered by the researchers from departmental websites, or if not available there,were sent electronically to the researchers from the department upon request. Ofthe five missing mission statements of the non-regionalized agencies, four depart-ments actually had no mission statement, and one simply never responded to theresearcher’s request.

Once departments were assigned a coded leadership classification (regionalized ver-sus non-regionalized), all the transformational regional departments had their state-ments copied into one document. The same procedure was completed for thedepartments classified as non-regional. Since the overall sample size of departmentswas not large, the researcher did a simple word count using a computer programknown as Wordle. The main purpose of this analysis was to investigate if certainthemes emerged from the grouped statements that may coincide with the defini-tional components of transformational leadership culture used in this study. Wordleprovides a conceptualized word cloud with the most frequent word being the largestin the picture, the second largest, etc. The word clouds are property of the re-searcher and do not violate copyright as per the Wordle website. All common wordssuch as police, regional, and departmental names were deleted prior to analysis.Other common words such as a, and, as, the, is, etc. were also deleted prior to analy-sis. Since the regionalized departments mission statements had already been foundto reflect that of a transformational leadership culture, the same words were usedwhen analyzing the non- regional departments’ statements. The words that wereused were community, members, provide, service, and citizens. Figure 1 shows theresults from the perceived transformational, regionalized departments. There were19 departmental statements that were analyzed. Figure 1 represents the resultsfrom the regionalized agencies.


Figure 1: Regionalized departments mission statements


Figure 2: Non-Regionalized departments mission statements

Throughout this study, transactional leadership culture was defined as “focusing oneverything in terms of explicit and implicit contractual relationships. Further, be-cause employees working in this type of culture do not identify with the missionand vision of the organization, commitment is often short term, existing to the ex-tent of rewards provided by the organization” (Bass & Avolio , 1993, Parry & Proc-tor-Thompson, 2001, p. 113). Unlike transformational leaders, transactional leadersdo not foster strong organizational commitment toward the mission of the organi-zation. Transactional leadership has been traditionally the style of leaders found

Throughout this study, transformational leadership culture was defined as “encour-aging and supports innovation and open discussion of issues and ideas so that chal-lenges become opportunities, rather than threats. Transformational leadersconsistently espouse organizational goals and purposes that all employees take upas important components of the organization’s vision” (Parry & Proctor-Thompson,2001, p. 113). Achua (2013) further states, “effective transformational leaders havethe effect of influencing followers to shift from a focus on self-interest to a focus oncollective interests” (p. 332). This collective interest equates to community. Com-munity is the largest word in the cloud in Figure 2. One of the four “I’s’ Bass andAvolio coined is “individual considerations.” The word member is also one of thelargest words in the cloud in Figure 1. Individual consideration is a model that fos-ters development of followers or members. Another large word is service as in serv-ice to others. This is associated more with servant leadership, however, bothtransformational and servant leadership have a moral component. Both styles ofleadership place the needs of the followers before their own.

Figure 2 contains the mission statement results for the departments classified asnon- regionalized.

within law enforcement agencies. The leadership of an organization directly affectsthe culture and its adherence to the organizational mission. “A police department’schief executive and his or her management team are expected to provide organiza-tional direction and performance oversight in order to achieve the department’smission in an effective efficient manner” (More et al, 2012, p. 37). As stated earlier,rules, regulations, and policies play a large role in defining the culture and mission.More et al (2012) state that within police agencies, the management level is a “con-tinuous process that includes all activities…. and attainment of objectives by theapplication of organizational resources” (p. 39). As the word cloud shows in Figure2, community is the largest word with other large words being members, provide,service, and citizens. It is apparent that those non-regionalized agencies also havemission statements that reflect that of a transformational leadership culture. Eventhough these agencies have not yet structurally made changes, the ‘participative,encouraging, supportive leadership style’ exists.

In addition to the word cloud analysis, the observed data from the word clouds wasanalyzed in a chi-square to verify if the identified words were occurring other thanby chance.

(R2): What variance, if any, exists between the mission statements of regionalizedpolice departments vs. those seeking to regionalize in one county. The chi-squareis a non-parametric technique “used when the research has nominal or ordinal data,and when your sample is too small to meet assumptions set forth by parametric tech-niques” (Pallant, 2005, p. 286). Table 1 shows the results of the chi-square utilizingthe most frequent words found from the word cloud analysis. The analysis also ac-counted for the unequal ratio of 19 transformational regionalized statements versus12 non-regionalized statements. Since the observations were not equal betweengroups, an unequal ratio was taken into account during analysis. This is also notedat the bottom of Table 1. In a chi-square analysis, there must be at least 5 or moreobservations per word to find any significance. The parameter was met to run thisanalysis as shown in Table 1. Significance is the probability that the results are dueto the predictor variable (transformational regionalized /non-regionalized) and notmerely occurring by chance. A decision was made to analyze word counts across thetwo major categories, transformational regionalized and non-regionalized, becausethe purpose was to compare across agencies. Because the clouds produce frequen-cies of word counts, the researcher decided to perform a chi-square test.

A chi-square goodness of fit test was calculated comparing the frequency of the oc-currence of each word identified in the word cloud analysis. Pallant (2005) states,“the chi-square goodness of fit explores the proportion of cases that fall into thevarious categories (regionalized/non-regionalized) of a single variable (currentagency structure), and compares these with hypothesized values (observed vs. ex-



pected)” (p. 287). The researcher wanted further investigation explaining whether the words in Table 1 differed in frequency from the mission statements of already transformational, regionalized agencies (regional) and the agencies seeking to re-gionalize (non-regionalized). Based upon the results in Table 1, the difference be-tween the observed and expected frequency of each word is significant.

Table 1.

Chi-Square Frequencies on Mission Statement Words

Regionalized Non-regionalized

Words from statements observed expected observed expected χ2 p

Community 16 15.696 11 10.983 0.9041 1.000Provide 16 14.826 4 10.166 0.8992 1.000Members 11 11.270 8 7.728 0.6339 1.000Service 18 17.199 11 11.793 0.7632 1.000Citizens 4 10.675 9 7.320 0.4206 1.000

Note. n=31 statements in total with 19 from the transformational group accounting for (0.612) 61.2%. 12were from the non-regionalized group accounting for (0.387) 38.7%. This unequal ratio was accountedfor during calculation. *p <.05 level meaning this did not happen by chance.

As shown in Table 1, when comparing the most frequent words in both regional andnon-regional agencies that reflect that of a transformational leadership culture, theyare not significantly different. Through both the word cloud and chi-square analysis,it is apparent that the mission statements of the departments seeking to regionalizedo, in fact, reflect those of regional police departments that have been previouslyfound to be transformational leadership cultures. Further, based on the results thisnot is merely by chance.

The following section provides further discussion and possible implications of thisstudy. Throughout the next section, areas of future research identified by this studyare also discussed.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

During the decade, the traditional police model of having departments in most mu-nicipalities is fading. While still prevalent, the old model is falling victim to mergers,shared resources and regionalization. As the trend continues, the importance ofstrong leadership will be scrutinized.

Organizational literature suggests when organizations elect to change culturally andadapt to environmental and societal concerns, transformational leadership has shownto be the most successful when doing so (Ford et al., 1999; Hughes, 2013). Deci-sion-making within the organization is a collaborative effort, and contrary to the topdown style seen in transactional departments. Officers employed in departmentswith transformational leadership styles relay a greater sense of belonging and com-


mitment to the department (Hughes, 2013). When officers have a greater stake inthe direction and decisions within the organization, it may strengthen their com-mitment to the mission and develop leadership skills.

Mission statements have shown to be good organizational indicators of the leader-ship style employed within the department, and provide a connection between lead-ership, structure, and organizational commitment. Regionalized police agencies,whose officers develop a strong organizational commitment to the mission of theorganization, exhibit traits of a transformational leadership culture. Based on thefindings from the author’s previous study, Pennsylvania regional agencies have trans-formed not only physically, but also culturally, removing traditional bureaucratic hur-dles that have long plagued public sector organizations. Their success could becomea model from which all of those within law enforcement may benefit. Decision mak-ers should also strongly consider building a transformational leadership culture dur-ing the regionalization process. Employing this strategy will allow for change that

is sustainable, and controls for the divisiveness and power struggle among merging departments. Further, transformational leadership is proven to work when organiza-tions undergo change that affects organizational culture and is controversial.

Future Research

As the regionalized concept grows, there is an emerging need for scholarship intothe regionalization model and its potential effect on leadership. For consideration,due to the lack of research on police regionalization, the authors suggest explorationof the impact regionalization has on police leadership in states looking to regionalize.Research may also consider examining leadership and the impact it has had longi-tudinally on regionalized agencies. While the focus here has been on departmentscurrently regionalized and those seeking to regionalize, there have been establishedregional departments that have disbanded. Future research should explore leader-ship failures that may have affected the disbanding of such agencies. The re-searchers of this study understand this information may be difficult to gather. Last,this current study only focused on a group of non-regionalized agencies within oneparticular county. It is suggested here that future studies take a larger random sam-ple from various non-regionalized agencies throughout the state.


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Negative Ethical Implications: Arkansas’s MinimumRequirements for Law Enforcement Officers

G. Brian LuetschwagerAmerican Public University

ABSTRACT

This study will examine the current minimum requirements needed to become alaw enforcement officer in the State of Arkansas. Throughout the course of thisstudy, investigation will be made into how the current requirements have come tobe, and if any original underlying reasons still present an objective justification topreserve these current standards. Ethical issues related to these current standardswill also be addressed. This study will also examine training and educational re-quirements for law enforcement professionals on a national level, while also com-paring these standards to similar career fields. Through the use of data collectedfrom previous studies, interviews with subject matter experts and current informa-tion available through the State of Arkansas, this study will objectively uncover thedisparity between the current requirement level for law enforcement officers andthe perceived need to enhance this level. Recommendations will also be made onhow to accomplish this goal.

KeywordsArkansas law enforcement, minimum law enforcement requirements

Negative Ethical Implications: Arkansas’s Minimum Requirements 41


Introduction

Modern law enforcement officers are called upon, and expected, to have the knowl-edge of how to fix problems and handle emergencies that may have been years inthe making. In addition to this, the United States has recognized hundreds of dif-ferent special interest groups ranging from mental or behavioral health, persons withdisabilities, religious and cultural sects as having the same rights as every other per-son. Law enforcement officers are the front line workers who are expected to dealwith these people every day and be readily prepared to be knowledgeable of allthese different groups. This includes knowing how to properly interact with thesegroups, having a solid knowledge of current criminal laws, a working knowledge oflaws governing other disciplines such as medicine or education, and have more tac-tical knowledge than most general infantry units in military branches. In the Stateof Arkansas, officers are expected to do all of this with very little training. Beingexpected to know so much while at the same time being vested with the authorityto legally strip away constitutional rights of citizens is a dangerous combination.

The Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training(CLEST) has set forth the minimum requirements to be a law enforcement officerin Arkansas as being: a U.S. citizen, at least twenty-one (21) years of age, possessinga high school diploma or GED, and attending a basic law enforcement training classwithin the first 12 months of employment (Arkansas Commission on Law Enforce-ment Standards & Training, 2015). The requirements of a basic law enforcementtraining class is not actually specified by CLEST, but checking with the Law En-forcement Training Academy (LETA), as part of the Black River Technical College(BRTC one of three authorized police training academies in Arkansas), the 2016-Aclass is listed to last thirteen (13) weeks and is comprised of five-hundred seventy-seven (577) training hours (Bassham, 2015).

Thirteen weeks of training sometime within the first year of a law enforcement of-ficer’s career is currently all that State of Arkansas deems necessary to protect thelives and liberties of its citizens. Throughout the course of this paper, the readerwill see that Arkansas is actually better off than some states when comparing lawenforcement officers’ minimum requirements; however, this author’s personal ex-perience in Arkansas law enforcement has shown that this minimum requirementis not enough. So much damage can be done in that first year of a rookie officer’scareer, in both criminal and ethical violations. The main question to keep in mindthrough this paper is, “Could this low standard be the heart of ethical and legal vi-olations made by law enforcement officers?”


Literature Review

Throughout the course of this paper previous studies from around the United Stateswill be used as reference points to current training requirements for law enforce-ment officers. Personal interviews with veteran police officers and Arkansas Statecertified police instructors will be used to bring to light an element of current needsrelating to the training and/or education requirements of new officers. We will ex-amine a brief history covering why current training requirements are so low, if cur-rent standards have risen at all since the conception of Arkansas CLEST, and thecurrent need for minimum qualification standards to be raised. In addition to simplepolice training, the benefits of higher education versus the cons of narrowing thejob applicant pool will also be examined as a possible solution to ethical violationsmade by current law enforcement officers.

Ethical concerns related to low minimum officer requirements

With the best interests in mind for the State of Arkansas and its residents, the pri-mary concern of low educational and training standards for law enforcement officersin the state should be the quality of service each officer is giving the citizens. Withthe multitude of jobs law enforcement officers in local, county, and state level po-sitions are expected to do, the chances of under-educated officers missing importantmarks climbs higher. Worse yet, the chances of less virtuous people entering thecareer field are raised by setting standards equivalent to that of trade workers. Thevery first level of blame when allowing people who would use the authority grantedto law enforcement officers to abuse the rights of others would no doubt fall ontothe policy makers of the state especially if the incident could have been avoidedhad stiffer hiring guidelines been in place. Investing time and effort into someonewho has the authority to legally violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitutionis not a matter to take lightly.

While the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in City of Canton, Ohio v. Harris, that cities canbe held liable when it is demonstrated that failure to provide training is a factor thatresulted in the violation of a citizen’s constitutional rights, there has certainly beenno decrease in what appears to be a new trend in claims of excessive force and/ornegligence on part of law enforcement officers (Wyatt-Nichol & Franks, 2009).While City of Canton, Ohio v. Harris relates to civil damages arising from the lack oftraining given to officers, what about the ethical concerns related to such a problem?The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) has addressed the issuethat officers need some basic ethics training. But what good does a few hours oftraining in ethics actually do (Wyatt-Nichol & Franks, 2009)?

With educational hiring standards so low, the question must be asked, “Are the peo-ple we are hiring to be police officers, who only meet minimum qualifications, ca-pable of wielding the power they are given?” Granted, while someone not beingcapable is vastly different than someone without the desire to attain higher educa-tion, is the career field of law enforcement the proving grounds to be used whenweeding people out through a trial and error process involving real people? Whilethere is most certainly a clinical on-the-job section of a surgeon’s training, there is


also a heavy foundation of educational experience already laid before that surgeonis allowed to pick up a scalpel. Reason would demand that the equivalent prelimi-nary career coursework apply to someone who is given a gun and charged with theauthority to cost people their money, freedom, and life.

By its very nature, law enforcement is a very social career field. The importance ofhaving complex thinking skills in order to deal with diverse populations. Officerswill meet people from various socio-economic levels, cultural backgrounds, racial-ethnic, and educational backgrounds. How these people are intertwined as citizens,the diverse needs of each group, and applying laws equally and fairly is not a taskthat anyone can handle. Officers need adequate training when examining not onlythese groups but simply understanding and interpreting laws correctly and fairly.Critical thinking skills are one such training tool that can help tremendously. A cen-tral intellectual goal of postsecondary education is to improve critical thinking skills,so that a student may come to realize an academic self-concept (Loes, Pascarella,& Umbach, 2012). This self-realization of academia is also important when fosteringa sense of virtue in a person. A person with a sense of self-worth and realization ofhow others relate to them would be, in this author’s personal experience, less likelyto violate another human on an ethical level. So the question must be asked, “Doesstate policy fall short when addressing ethical concerns, and the very needs, relatedto the minimum requirements for law enforcement officers?”

Why minimum standards are so low

To best answer this question, subject matter experts were contacted and inter-viewed to shed light on the path which has led to the current standard of trainingin Arkansas. First, Shane Meyer, a current Sergeant of Detectives for an Arkansassheriff ’s office was contacted. Sgt. Meyer has twenty-three years of law enforcementexperience in Arkansas and has held the positions of: jailer, sheriff ’s deputy, Arkansasstate trooper, detective, and chief of police for the City of Ash Flat, Arkansas. Whenspeaking with Sgt. Meyer, I learned that when he attended basic police academy in1993, the course was only eight (8) weeks long and consisted of three-hundredtwenty (320) hours of training. The other minimum standards were the same thenas they are now; with the exception that at the time an officer could actually workup to eighteen (18) months before attending a basic police academy class. Sgt.Meyer lent his experience as a chief of police for a small department to help answerthe question why someone entrusted with so much power could go so long withoutany formal training on how to wield such power. From Sgt. Meyer:

Pay was so low, and towns could not afford to hire a person for a job and then send them away to police academy while paying them that whole time.Instead, they (city administrators) only wanted to hire people who had already been to the police academy. At the time, we only had three full-timeofficers and three part-time officers, so sending someone to the academy would leave us with hardly anyone to work. Working for the state police


was the same. They (state police) didn’t start sending new troopers through troop school first until around 1996, and then it stayed that way ever since. (Personal communication, November 14, 2015)

From the interview with Sgt. Meyer, three things can be seen: 1) through some ap-parent need, minimum training through the police academy has been raised, 2) anunderlying reason why there is a grace period to send newly hired officers to the po-lice academy would appear to be financially related, and 3) another reason for thegrace period also seems to come for manpower shortages (S. Meyer, personal com-munication, November 14, 2015).

In addition to Sgt. Meyer, LETA Instructor Darren Plaster was also interviewed inreference to current Arkansas requirements for police officers. After a career oftwenty-two years, Instructor Plaster currently teaches basic police training coursesfor the LETA and he is also an adjunct professor for the BRTC. Instructor Plasterholds a B.S. degree in Psychology from the University of Central Arkansas and anM.C.J. from Boston University.

Similar to Sgt. Meyer’s past, Instructor Plaster also attended basic police academyin 1993, and the training hours were the same. According to Instructor Plaster, outof the five-hundred seventy-seven (577) hours that makes up a basic police academyclass, at the LETA, five (5) hours are devoted to ethics training. For a new officer,with no experience, this makes up the core of their ethics training; however, In-structor Plaster did stress that ethical issues and decision making are reinforcedthroughout the entire thirteen (13) week academy. Helping to shed even morelight on the grace period, new officers have to attend the academy, Instructor Plaster(personal communication, November 14, 2015) recalled, “It (grace period) has al-ways been there. It was used by agencies to see if a new hire would work out orquit, before investing time and money to send them to the police academy.” WhileInstructor Plaster’s professional opinion is that the grace period should be removed,he believes that will never happen because of the formerly mentioned reason. Aninteresting opinion of Instructor Plaster’s is that pertaining to higher education pro-ducing applicants with higher ethical standards. From Instructor Plaster (personalcommunication, November 14, 2015), “Ethics are taught and formed long beforegoing to college. The exposure to new ideals and values can either help or hurt aperson’s ethical system.” When dealing with adults, Instructor Plaster was of theopinion that by the time a person reaches the age of twenty-one (21), that personalready has a strong foundation of their own individual ethical belief system. Inclosing remarks from Instructor Plaster, he felt nothing but good can come fromhigher education and, while maybe not a general higher education degree wouldbest suit the needs of law enforcement, a technical certificate or terminal degreewould be an excellent foundation or requirement for a newly hired officer (D. Plas-ter, personal communication, November 4, 2015).


Since 1993, there has been some obvious reform in the State of Arkansas that hasnearly doubled the length of the basic police academy; while at the same time thisneed has shortened the grace period from eighteen (18) months to twelve (12)months for newly hired officers to attend the academy. If there is a growing needfor more training, in less time, then it would seem that the reason for keeping thegrace period is built upon a utilitarian belief that the ends justifies the means. Inthis case the, “ends,” would refer to the money saved by government organizationsand the, “means,” refers to the sacrificing of quality service given to citizens andthe dangers of not training officers. The problem with utilitarianism is that thissystem indiscriminately decides who will burden and who will benefit from a situ-ation; however, this system’s only mission is to maximize benefits while ignoringpotential costs (Freiman, 2013).

Law enforcement training in relation to other comparable professions

When examining other career fields it is interesting to see how many specializedprofessions are very similar to law enforcement. Other fields, such as nursing, re-quire so much real-life, hands-on; field training that cannot be learned from readinga book. Yet, in the case of nursing, books and lectures from experienced profession-als lay the groundwork for a student to be successful in a field clinical. Many otherprofessional careers in the medical field are the same way. Most jobs require a spe-cific degree before being able to test for a certification. Most of the time these de-grees are terminal, or the degrees are stepped in the form of an associates then abachelors, with each degree still focusing only in that specific field. This is the casefor professions such as: paramedics, nurses, radiation technicians, surgical assistants,and a host of other medical related fields. This model could be easily applied toArkansas law enforcement.

Currently, law enforcement in general is not looked at so much as a profession, butas a trade or craft (McClellan & Gustafson, 2012). Even when comparing law en-forcement to other trade jobs, it is easy to find a disparity in the level of requiredtraining hours. From a previous study, the mean minimum number of training hoursrequired to become a law enforcement officer in the United States is five-hundredseventy-six and one-half (576.5) (McClellan & Gustafson, 2012). On a nationalscale, this puts Arkansas right in the middle, with LETA’s basic course of five-hun-dred and seventy-seven (577) hours. Looking at another trade in this study, themean minimum training requirement for cosmetologists is one-thousand four-hun-dred and five (1,405) hours of training (McClellan & Gustafson, 2012). This meansthat cosmetologists are training 2.4 times longer than law enforcement officers inour country. It is interesting to note that if students of various trade crafts attendtrade schools accredited through institutions of higher education, they normallygraduate with a technical certificate and a large amount of credit hours towards aspecialized degree. This method is currently being used by the LETA at BRTC.


Looking at other career fields, especially those that require specialized training sim-ilar to law enforcement’s police academy requirement, most careers require a personto have a high school diploma before they are even eligible to begin training. Thishas not always been the case with law enforcement. In 1967, a committee wasformed to examine the needs of modern law enforcement. The President’s Com-mission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, of 1967, found thathigher education standards were called for in law enforcement. Most standards thendid not even require a high school diploma or GED to enter law enforcement (Mc-Clellan & Gustafson, 2012). What needs to be taken away from the commission’sfindings is that nearly fifty years ago there was an obvious need for change. Havethe job requirements of modern law enforcement not evolved past standards sethalf a century before?

In 2005, the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standardsand Training (IADLEST) published a report on minimum regulatory standards forstate and municipal law enforcement officers in the United States. Out of the forty-five (45) states that took place in the survey, forty-two (42) responded (includingArkansas) that only a high school diploma or GED was required for appointment toduty. Of the other three (3), Ohio reported that no minimum education require-ment existed, while Minnesota and Wisconsin reported that an associate degree isrequired (McClellan & Gustafson, 2012). From these numbers it is obvious thatthe United States is considerably uniform from state to state on the low educationalrequirements to become a law enforcement officer. The most surprising part is thatthese numbers remain low, even after fifty years of recommended change by countryleaders.

Low standards for administrators

Another important truism to grasp, in a pseudo-militaristic organization, is that newemployees are the future’s administrators. When examining the negative ethicalimplications of hiring, what some could argue as, underqualified personal the puzzleis not complete without pondering how the public will suffer once these underqual-ified personal are promoted to positions as overseers and policy writers. While thereis no standard set for educational requirements in Arkansas for any law enforcementadministrator, larger municipalities and state organizations have governing groups,such as city councils, that set standards for certain positions; however, smaller lawenforcement agencies generally have no special requirement to hold an upper man-agement position. Focusing on the state’s lack of uniformity for law enforcementadministrators at local and state levels would easily require a separate study; insteadthis section will focus on elected sheriffs.

Throughout the course of research for this study, an overwhelmingly large loop holehas been found regarding persons elected to the position of sheriff in Arkansas.Arkansas CLEST states that any person appointed to a full-time law enforcementposition is required to be twenty-one (21) years of age and attend basic police acad-


emy within a maximum of twelve (12) months after appointment (Arkansas Com-mission on Law Enforcement Standards & Training, 2015). Even with this regula-tion set by CLEST, a sheriff could be elected without any prior training, education,or experience in any related field, and after being elected, would not be required toattend a basic police academy training course. The basis for this loop hole is foundin Arkansas Code 7-1-101. This law defines who is a qualified elector to hold a pub-licly elected office in Arkansas. From Arkansas Code Annotated 7-1-101(33), “Qual-ified elector means a person who holds the qualifications of an elector and who isregistered pursuant to Arkansas Constitution, Amendment 51 (LexisNexis, 2015).”Looking at Amendment 51 of the Arkansas Constitution, a person must be 1) eight-een (18) years of age, 2) a United States citizen, 3) an eligible and registered voter,4) not convicted of a felony or pardoned from a felony charge, and 5) not an, “Idiotor insane person,” (Arkansas State Legislature, 2015). Even though CLEST doesallow those elected to a sheriff ’s position to attend a basic police training course,nothing in Arkansas law requires a person elected to the chief law enforcement po-sition of a county to have any training, education, or other qualifying experience tohold the position (Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards & Train-ing, 2015). This means that a person could, in fact, wield authority over citizensand other law enforcement officers alike, while requiring nothing more than beingeighteen and eligible to vote. Imagine the possibilities of civil and criminal liabilitiesattached to such a scenario.

CONCLUSION

Based on this study, conclusions can be drawn that the negative ethical, civil, andlegal consequences hang by a thread because of current Arkansas law enforcementtraining standards. Compared with other professions law enforcement has alreadyfallen far behind, and when comparing Arkansas to the rest of the nation, in regardsto law enforcement training, the state is ranked in the middle of a slow moving pack.The best news is that the infrastructure to make Arkansas a front runner is alreadyin place.

Recommendations from this study first suggest that the utilitarian reasoning behindallowing a lay person to forego formal training for up to a year has outlived its in-tended purpose. Modern policy makers and criminal justice officials can no longerlive behind the ideal of the, “Ends justifies the means.” Simple mistakes made byofficers have already pushed this country to another breaking point with race rela-tions and law enforcement. There is no excuse for a person to be given power andweapons without first being formally trained how to wield each. The second rec-ommendation would be to use training that already exists in the state as a perquisitequalification for hiring or promotions. Currently, the Criminal Justice Institute(CJI) of Little Rock, Arkansas, has partnered with the University of Arkansas to pro-vided college credit training classes to law enforcement officers. CJI currently offersAssociate of Applied Science degrees in both Crime Scene Investigation and Law


Enforcement Administration (University of Arkansas System Criminal Justice In-stitute, 2015). In addition to CJI, numerous other higher education institutionsacross Arkansas offer terminal degrees in law enforcement related fields. Even ifrequiring a degree for an entry level position is not feasible to some administrators,requiring applicants for specialized positions, such as criminal investigators andupper management positions, to first obtain higher education is not unreasonable(Hilal, Densley, & Zhao, 2013).

In closing, the minimum education requirement for Arkansas law enforcement of-ficers needs to be revisited. Proof can be found of ethical violations committedevery month in the minutes of each CLEST meeting. Former federal cases filedagainst high level law enforcement administrators throughout the state should standas a testament to the need to raise qualifications for upper management and electedlaw enforcement positions. Last, at minimum, the disparity between the trainingrequirements to paint someone’s toe nails compared to a profession with job dutiesincluding the possibility of taking someone’s life needs to be considered before thenext group of officers attends a basic police training course.

REFERENCES

Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards & Training. (2015, November 15). Office of Law

Enforcement Standards. Retrieved from 12-9-207 Unopposed candidates for county sheriff: http://www.clest.org/oles/Documents/12-9-207.pdf


Enforcement Standards. Retrieved from 1002 Minimum standards for employment or appoint-ment or continued employment: http://www.clest.org/oles/Documents/1002.pdf


Enforcement Standards. Retrieved from 1002 Minimum standards for employment or appoint-ment or continued employment: http://www.clest.org/oles/Documents/1002.pdf

Arkansas State Legislature. (2015, November 15). Arkansas State Legislature. Retrieved from Constitutionof 1874: http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/Summary/ArkansasConstitution1874.pdf

Bassham, J. (2015, November 14). Black River Technical College. Retrieved from BRTC LETA Basic Class16-A: http://www.blackrivertech.org/%20/brtc-leta-basic-class-16-a

Freiman, C. (2013). Utilitarianism and public justification. Journal of Social Philosophy, 250-269.Hilal, S., Densley, J., & Zhao, R. (2013). Cops in college: police officers' perceptions on formal educaiton.

Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 461-477.LexisNexis. (2015, November 15). LexisNexis. Retrieved from Arkansas Code Annotated 7-1-101:

http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/arcode/Loes, C., Pascarella, E., & Umbach, P. (2012). Effects of diversity experiences on critical thinking skill:

who benefits? Journal of Higher Education, 1-25.McClellan, S. E., & Gustafson, B. G. (2012). Communicating law enforcement professionalization: social

construction of standards. Policing, 104-123.University of Arkansas System Criminal Justice Institute. (2015, November 15). Criminal Justice Institute.

Retrieved from Higher education degree program: http://www.cji.edu/programs/higher-education-degree-program/

Wyatt-Nichol, H., & Franks, G. (2009). Ethics training in law enforcement agencies. Public Integrity, 39-50.

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The Journal of

Law Enforcement Leadership and Ethics


Notes from the Editor

Richard N. Holden

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