Is the Quasi-Military Approach to Policing the Best Approach
During the 1950s, professionalism was the watchword of the day. Officers were encouraged to function and behave in a strict, legalistic fashion. As police departments moved forward in the shift toward reform and away from corruption of the political era, the personality of the individual beat officer was no longer emphasized, and officers became cogs in the larger police organization. Officer-level attitudes and values during the reform era were significantly influenced by the shift to professionalism.
The Encyclopedia of Police Science, Vol. 1, Jack R. Greene (editor)
Professionalism leads to efficiency, but it can come at the cost of creativity. This is the basic dilemma faced by the organizational philosophy of the police force. The patrol officer may be just a cog in the machine, but it is indeed a mighty machine that he belongs to. And a considerable portion of that might can be attributed to the quasi-military structure of the police department. A quasi-military organization can be defined as an organization similar to the military along structures of strict authority and reporting relations.
Police departments in America and throughout the world are typically based on a strictly hierarchical and military model of organization. By its very nature the task of policing bears much similarity to a nations military force while the military seeks to protect the country from external enemies, the police is fighting the internal enemy in the form of criminal and socially disruptive elements of the society. The police is engaged in a war too, the constant war against crime. The police too places a great emphasis on continual tactical training and preparedness just in the way military does. Both these lines of occupation involve considerable risk to life and limb, and demand readiness for violent physical encounters. It is only natural then that the police have long adopted a quasi-military style of operation and organization. The U.S. police are technically a civil organization but because of the nature of the work involved the police departments need to be quasi-military organizations.
However, in the increasingly complex world of today there is a plenty of need and scope for the exercise of discretionary skills like problem-solving and decision-making on the part of the lower-cadre officers who are the ones that most directly and extensively come into contact with the everyday world of crime. They would often need the freedom to act on their own initiative at the spur of the moment, taking important decisions on their own accord. But in the quasi-military structure of the police such freedom could be lacking in some significant measure. The constraints on individual initiative, flexibility and creativity could curtail the efficiency of the quasi-military police department, according to some experts in this field. The long-persisting quasi-military type of organization in the police departments is criticized on various grounds and is seen as being antiquated and out of tune with the ethos of the twenty-first century.
In support of the traditional quasi-military type of organization though, I would like to cite an irrefutable historical fact. During the twentieth century, the Second World War marked the real transition into the modern age. The war years themselves witnessed an intense outburst of collective effort and creative endeavor that paved way for incredible levels of innovativeness and productivity on both Allied (the US and the UK) and Axis sides (Germany and Japan) in their desperate bid to win the war. Yet all this creativity was happening within a rigorously militaristic framework. (Japan as a whole was in fact a quasi-military culture, and Germany of that epoch came close). This fact demolishes the notion that a military-style organization is inherently detrimental to creativity. One of the main arguments against the traditional quasi-military approach to managing police organizations is that it does not foster a creative approach to problem-solving and even tends to quash creative ideas and individual initiative when they emerge spontaneously as in solving crimes. Such an observation may have some truth to it, but there is no intrinsic necessity for creativity to be sidelined in a military-style organization.
In fact, the US military is one of the foremost cutting-edge research organizations in the world (thanks largely to the enormous funds at its disposal) and is constantly on the lookout for innovations. So much so that in the not too distant future a soldier-less battlefield where only remotely operated machines engage the enemy forces in a science fiction type scenario is envisaged by the military. Therefore one cannot dismiss the efficacy of a quasi-military approach to policing by claiming that a rigid structure of organization simply does not allow scope for creativity or technological progress. Both creativity and efficiency can co-exist within a quasi-military framework, in principle, though in practice there could be several avoidable snags that could obstruct both of these, thereby hampering progress.
The bureaucratic form of organization evolved around the mid-nineteenth century at the height of the industrial revolution in order to promote efficiency at work place. The German sociologist Max Weber studied bureaucracy and delineated most of its advantages. The military organization is the epitome of bureaucratic structure. During the 40s and 50s the police organization in the US also adopted the principles of scientific management propounded by Frederick Taylor that sought to mechanize the work place employing a hierarchical framework with a view to maximize productivity and efficiency. Back then this was in tune with the times. In the subsequent decades, though, it began to be gradually felt that the bureaucratic model of heavily vertical and rigid structure was becoming outmoded and unsuitable to the times of tremendous progress and innovation both of which greatly depend on the individual initiative. The bureaucratic model was perceived to be oppressively mechanistic, and even dehumanizing. Hence, in the 80s and 90s a number of commercial enterprises began to experiment with less hierarchical and more flexible forms of organization with a participatory style of management and have seen considerable success as a consequence. In the police organizations too there has been some experimentation with alternative models such as community policing, albeit rather sparingly so far. Particularly, in the 1980s police departments in some parts of America have tried to relax the rigidness of their organization albeit with unsatisfactory results. As such, they had to move back to the old structures. By and large the traditional hierarchical, military model of policing endures.
There are some very valid reasons for this and it is not just because of inertia and resistance to change. Nonetheless one can still ask the question It may be that the quasi-military model has demonstrated some considerable advantages which overweigh the negative aspects, it may be that some degree of creativity and individual initiative can be allowed within the scope of this model too, but what is the need to retain it if alternative models can be evolved that can allow for more efficiency and creativity Maybe we should reexamine the alternatives in a more systematic manner than had been done in the past in order to arrive at proper conclusions. Certainly there is always room for change and evolution in any sphere of human activity, however we should also reconsider the basic rationale of quasi-military model of policing so as to better understand the reasons for its persistence.
To begin with, however, the point needs to be clarified that a quasi-military pattern of police organization does not in any way suggest the paramilitary police forces employed by autocratic regimes and police states to crush the liberties of their citizens, and even in democracies during emergencies. The term quasi-military simply refers to a hierarchical and highly disciplined style of organization and need not imply oppression of any kind imposed either on the police officers themselves or on the citizens, although it is used in such contexts sometimes in the literature. The quasi-military aspect is perfectly compatible with a thriving democracy such as the US or the UK. The term quasi-military is a rather broad term with many shades of connotation and varying degrees of emphasis on the quasi aspect and the military aspect. The police cannot be anything but some form of military, given the nature of its work, but what is being debated is how much of quasiness and how much of militariness would make for an ideal balance in a country such as the United States.
The outward features that readily make a layman associate police with the military are the elaborate uniforms, guns, the titles of rank such as officer, sergeant and lieutenant, and the disciplined mannerisms such as saluting a higher-cadre officer. Beneath this outward structure, what makes the police closely resemble the military is the authoritarian chain of command, where orders flow from top to bottom and have to be dutifully implemented, and all that goes with such an authoritarian style. The actual chain of command in the police bureaucracy goes usually on the following lines Chief Assistant chief Major Captain Lieutenant Sergeant Officer.
Because of the quasi-military nature of police operations, the primary method of organization is by formation of rank, notes Stevens. This chain of command is generally seen as the hallmark of the quasi-military structure of the police organization. But there is nothing particularly unique about it. Most organizations are based on some form of hierarchy, with command-level personnel, middle-level management, lower-level management and line personnel. Perhaps what makes the police organization considered as military-styled is the more rigid adherence to the hierarchy and not the hierarchy itself.
However, where the police come closest to the military is at the very heart of the matter and the spirit of the things both the police officer and the army officer consider themselves as soldiers and warriors in service of their country. General Pattons adage Duty, honor, country can be applied to both a sincere policeman and the military official. It is in fact this noble trait of placing the country and welfare of people above and beyond oneself that is the mark of a true soldier.
As remarked in the passage quoted at the beginning of this essay, the policeman may be just a cog in a huge machine, but that is just one way of seeing it. Deep down, a solider would have to efface his personal identity so that his existence can be integrated into a higher cause. That is precisely the reason why a police officer during an encounter or a soldier in the battlefield does not terribly hesitate to sacrifice life and limb in the line of duty as incredible as it may seem to a layperson. After all an outside observer with a healthy ego may think no job is of more value than life itself. But then to a thoroughbred soldier, his job is not just a job, it is a calling from a higher realm, just as it is for a devout monk. Therefore a soldier does not mind being a cog in the machine if that is the best way he can serve his country. The uniforms, the discipline, the training, all have their own highly practical uses, but beyond that they aim at toughening up the soldiers mental outlook so that his individuality is subdued and he becomes something of an impersonal force. Critics see this as dehumanizing, and it could be so under certain circumstances, but in other circumstances it also could also be ennobling.
The impulse that drives a soldier at heart is in fact very similar to the one that drives a true artist or a scientist. For an artist, at some point, his art becomes much greater than his life or person, and for a scientist the truth becomes all. The self becomes insignificant and the meaning of being is found in a higher purpose of life. Instead of dehumanizing a person, this transcendence of self is what makes us truly human, otherwise we remain merely animal, primarily concerned with our own wellbeing all the time or at the most that of our near and dear ones. Albert Einstein (1935) said, The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self. Taken in the right spirit, this is what the military training and milieu aims at imparting. The whole outward military structure, order, paraphernalia and regalia are deep down targeted at inculcating the military philosophy and values, which are somewhat spiritual in their essence. Herein lies the deeper relevance of a quasi-military approach to policing. It is needed, beyond all the other more easily identifiable uses and purposes, to train the soldier inside a policeman, to bring the warrior out of him. If a scientist is a soldier for the Truth and the artist a soldier for Beauty, the policeman is a soldier for the Good. Truth, Beauty, Good these are eternal values.
The true policeman never hesitates to risk his life if need be in fighting the bad elements of the society. And that is the reason why the policeman has become an archetype of hero and one of the most commonly used protagonist in Hollywood movies. Children especially love policemen, and a great number of young boys dream of becoming police officers when they grow up (whether they stick to their original ambition is a different matter). True policemen, their stories and sacrifices, in Hollywood and real life, tend to inspire with a great zeal to fight evil, and the police officer has become a symbol of good in the perpetual fight between good and evil.
Such glorifying of the police officer and his job, despite the element of truth in it, is of course rather simplistic and idealistic. In real life, police are also often associated with corruption, incompetence, brutality, arrogance and such negative aspects, and this is the case not infrequently even in the films. Unfortunately such a view is not unwarranted. But it would be nave to suppose that the solution to this lies in changing the military-styled structure of the police department into a more civilian-type structure. Things could only become much worse then. Changes to the system are needed, but the system as a whole need not be changed, because the police is tied up with the military deep down in the very spirit of things and the nature of the job.
The quasi-military approach is the best approach to policing because it can provide both freedom and responsibility in the optimal measure. Critics of this system bemoan that direct orders which can be disobeyed only at the risk of severe discipline and chastisement become all important in this system, and as such and there is no room for maneuvering for individual officers when they need to take decisions and act on their own. In this point of view, police officers toward the bottom of chain are portrayed as lackeys to their superiors, capable of and needed to only execute the orders they receive from above. This dismal picture of police chain of command is simply not true. When dealing with murders, burglaries and other crimes, police officers at the precinct level have all the freedom they need to act on their own, and do not wait upon the orders from superiors from every step they take, as if they were automatons programmed by their masters. The first few hours after the happening of a crime are very crucial for nabbing the perpetrators and there is simply no time for bureaucratic-type orders to pass down the chain of command for every move. The officers take their own decisions most of the time, and are taken to the task by the superiors only when they do something grossly wrong. Answerability to the superiors makes way for accountability and responsibility and is not intended to constrain the freedom of police officers acting on the field. Interference by the superiors usually happens only when warranted. As Stevens remarks, Lieutenants tend to be morale specialists who do not exercise regular supervision, but rather are called in when a street officer is having a problem. Their talent and leadership come into play when something unexpected happens.
Sometimes it may happen that the police officer in action may receive orders that may compel him to act otherwise than he may seem fit, but such a thing happens in every type of organization because every organization is to some extent or other hierarchical. There is nothing wrong in receiving orders from above, as long as such orders are based on better judgment. Hence, orders received from above could work for good or bad depending upon their situational validity in the same way as decisions taken by the acting officers themselves could be sometimes wrong and need not always be right. In a quasi-military structure of organization, precedence is given to orders received over the field officers decisions in cases of conflict because of the commonsensical assumption that the superiors have more experience and judging ability. If these orders turn out to be unwise or inappropriate, the fault is with the individual persons and not with the system itself which is a very logically sound type of organization. In his criticism of the quasi-military structure of police organization Panzerella (2003) points out that Although police forces promote from within, many police leaders have climbed the bureaucratic ladder and have little operational experience. Obviously, here the problem is not with the bureaucratic structure itself but with inexperienced officers being promoted to higher cadres. Such a practice can be rectified without any need to change the system itself.
But then the system itself is blamed for everything. Egon Bittner, another noted critic of the quasi-military form of policing, says that the quasi-military structure of police organizations leads to the abuse of force and misconduct. The truth is quite the opposite. Abuse of force and misconduct can happen anywhere, but a quasi-military form of organization is the best safeguard that such abuses are minimized. In reality, most of the problems associated with police arise from lack of accountability or lax accountability, and not because of excess accountability as the critics claim. That is to say, the police department can become more efficient and the actions of police officers more justifiable if the police organization sticks more closely to the quasi-military form and not deviate from it.
One of the widely-publicized cases of police injustice and the deficiencies of our law-enforcement agencies is the story of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, two innocent men, who were framed in a murder case by the police of a small Midwest town, Ada, and later given life sentences. The highly popular novelist John Grisham (2007) wrote an entire best-seller on this case, title An Innocent Man. This murder happened in the early 80s, possibly during the time when some parts of America were experimenting with more lax and creative approaches to policing. For years, the police of this small town investigated separate murder incidents of two young girls, made all the blunders they could possibly make, and arrested two persons for one murder and another two teenagers for another murder, all of whom were innocent. The police officers involved in this case went so creative in fact that they invented a novel technique of interrogation that depended on dream interpretations. The foolishness of these police officers was also documented in another book titled The Dreams of Ada by the New York Times journalist Robert Mayer. Such atrocities could be committed by the police obviously because of lack of accountability. This is what can happen if police officers are given the freedom to work and investigate cases in the way software professionals write code at Apple, with minimal supervision and accountability.
I have been in the military and I believe that without that structure that the military had the United States would not have the best military in the world. The police organization needs to move a little closer to the military structure and not away. Changes are happening in the military too, and the police departments can implement such changes in their own organizations. Therefore I can agree with Panzarella when he says that The quasi-military model of police command is outmoded even as a military model. The contemporary military may provide a more apt model for the necessary task of reinventing police leadership.
The police and the military share a deep structural and spiritual bond.
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