Police departments worldwide play a crucial role in the maintenance of law and order. It is therefore hard to imagine a world without a police force. The police face challenges in playing this enormous task of law enforcement and as a result, most have introduced internal controls within their departments.
Internal control factors include self-regulation, community policing, and internal restructuring amongst other measures. Unfortunately, they have not been successful in either reducing the rate of crime or improving the image of the police force. This includes coming up with internal systems of operations. As Maguire (2003) notes, “police administrators may not be entirely free to design their organization as they deem fit.”
There are internal, political, and external factors that face police departments as they try to restructure their organizations. The police force is differentiated into various levels with semi-autonomous bodies. There are specialized agencies within the police force that have their own rules and regulations. This presents a challenging task in the introduction of internal controls as each body feels that it has sufficient structures to be independent without necessarily ascribing (Travis, 2008). FBI, CIA, and metropolitan police have differentiated structures focused on meeting their goals.
In close connection to this is the level of centralization. Decision-making in highly centralized departments is often difficult as all departments may demand to play a role (Maguire, 2003). There has been influencing by the government on police operations and this has weakened the independence of the department in its attempts at internal controls. Directives from various arms of government have often had a negative impact. This has been compounded by the fact that there are many departments that oversee the functions of the police in most countries. In the United States, for instance, the police are under both the office of the president through the federal government and the relevant security agency.
The media is also another influencing factor to internal controls. In recent times there has been close scrutiny of police actions by the media. Unfortunately, the media has tended to focus more on the negative rather than positive happenings and this has served to create a negative opinion by the wider public about the police force. This unique ability of media to focus public attention selectively on a certain issue and not others has proved to be a weakness in attaining internal controls. The media has consequently heightened expectations from the police force to unrealistic levels.
There has been the introduction of ethical codes of conduct and regulations which police officers must adhere to. Upon joining the police force, a recruit in the United States signs a declaration binding him to the police force codes of conduct. The introduction of ethics in the police force has at times been detrimental in the sense that the codes of conduct are in conflict with constitution of the land. As such, punitive measures that are provided for are not enough deterrent.
As Dr Martin Luther King once said,” the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me” and police departments contribute a lot in ensuring that there is a semblance of order in the world. Attempts by the police to self regulate and come up with internal controls should be promoted by ensuring that obstacles such as over centralization and government interference are eliminated or minimized.
References
Maguire, E. (2003). Organizational Structure in American Police Agencies. Albany: Suny Press.
Travis, L., Langworthy, R. (2008). Policing in America: A Balance of Forces, 4/E. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.