Police as problem solvers : how frontline workers can promote organizational and community change / Hans Toch and J. Douglas Grant.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Toch, Hans, author.

Contributor:

Grant, James Douglas, 1917-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Police.

Problem solving.

Police social work.

Police--United States.

United States.

Problem Solving.

Medical Subjects:

Police.

Problem Solving.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

Second edition.

Other Title:

APA PsycBOOKS.

Place of Publication:

Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, [2005]

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

"This book is about an innovative approach that lets members of progressive organizations function as applied scientists and problem solvers. This means that in such organizations work becomes more mindful. Decisions can be made based on inventories of information and analysis of data-couched tentatively, to be sure, subject to ratification through additional study. At the working level, planning and action can become linked, and the organization thereby becomes problem-oriented rather than crisis-reactive. It is ironic that this problem-oriented approach has evolved most explicitly and self-consciously in policing. We tend to think of police in terms of brawn rather than brains, and we may conceive of police officers as spending time wrestling with suspects and engaged in hot pursuits of fleeing felons. Police are perceived as the embodiment of blind reactivity, and yet an applied social-scientific focus on work has sprung up and taken root within the ranks of police. This book is addressed to those interested in the process of organizational change in settings in which a problem-oriented focus may be relevant. I am interested, therefore, in making the process of problem-oriented activity come alive and in conveying some sense of what such activity means to those who engage in its exercise"--Introd. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

Contents:

The idea of problem-oriented policing

Policing in the United States before the advent of the problem-oriented approach

Pioneering efforts

Organizational change issues

The Oakland project

Defining a problem : first-generation change agents

Addressing the problem : inventing the peer review panel

Documenting the solution

A decentralized problem-oriented activity

Top-down problem solving : the Compstat paradigm

Community policing and problem-oriented policing

Commitment and community in problem-oriented interventions

Extending the approach to interagency problem solving.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-342) and index.

Electronic reproduction. Washington, D.C. : American Psychological Association, 2006. Available via World Wide Web. Access limited by licensing agreement. s2006 dcunns.

ISBN:

1591471508

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.