Question 1Plan 1Instead of enforcing mandatory training, the workforce needs to be motivated to opt for training sessions. These training sessions should have speakers from other police departments or the local community who have been in difficult situations and fought bravely. In these training sessions, individuals should be allowed to share their achievements with others. Also, these sessions should be open to members of local community so that they can come and give in their suggestions and recommendations. These sessions therefore will allow for an open interaction between the police and the community members that will help them benchmark the role the police is expected to play in their respective community. Moreover, it will aid in the development of a friendly environment so that the community members are less afraid to approach the police when required.
This will serve as the foundation for trust between the local community and the police force (Glenn 2003).Furthermore, these training sessions should also focus on the public. Customers/ public should during these sessions be trained to protect themselves. They should be warned against practices that could lead them on the path to crimes and should be made aware of what practices to adopt in order to maintain a healthy and safe environment. During these sessions, a bond of trust needs to be developed between the local community and the police force. They should be made aware of crimes being committed elsewhere and how the other community members fought those crimes.
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They need to be encouraged to report any strange activity that they witness in their neighborhoods.Plan 2In the second action plan, specific rewards can be set; both for the police force as well as the local residents. Rewards will motivate employees to stay aware of any criminal activities and hence act accordingly. Rewards may be given in the form of promotions or titles such as ‘Employee of the month’ or ‘Best Performance Award’ etc. A certain level of competition will stimulate active participation of all employees in the force that will help reduce crime rates and satisfy the public (Glenn 2003).Simultaneously, rewards can also be set for the local public. These rewards need not to be monetary. They can be titles given to individuals for their effective role in maintaining peace and safety in the community.
Also, each neighborhood can have a leader who can be given a title such as Secretary or the Security Councilor. This will help in making individuals more responsible. The titles can be given through an electoral process and the person with the highest contribution towards peace and safety could be elected for a given time period. This person could also act as an intermediary between the police force and the local community incase the people are hesitant to directly report their issues to the police.Question 2Plan 1A career development plan outlines the roles an employee should play at various stages that he goes through during his career. It focuses on how one’s abilities can help him get promoted.
This plan should include the assessment tools for employees according to which their performance could be measured. This program could include tools that help employees in goal-setting and understanding the expectations of the organizations and the customers/public (Patton 2001).Furthermore, the program needs to incorporate a mentoring plan, where senior experienced officers can take the responsibility of coaching groups of officers (Patton 2001). This will allow the officers to gain immense amount of knowledge about their field and different situations they may have to face in their careers. The mentors should also present the employees with situations where their leadership skills can be tested.
This will assist in shaping their decision making abilities and enhancing their expertise.A feedback plan should also be implemented. This will ensure that all queries of the employees are answered and they are clear about their direction in terms of career growth. Also, it will communicate to the management the problems the employees might be facing. These problems need to be tackled before they aggravate. The police department is responsible for an entire community of a particular area.
Unsatisfied employees may result in their lack of involvement in work which may result in higher crime.Officers should relentlessly be trained to take their responsibilities. They should realize that they will be held accountable if things go wrong. They serve as role models to the general public because they display the ‘picture of perfection’. It is therefore the police department’s job to shape the employees’ attitudes in a way that attracts respect for them from the public. The expectations attached with the police are high and therefore to make sure that the employees live up to these expectations, the department needs to conduct attitude surveys and customer/public feedback.Plan 2The police force plays a pivotal role in maintaining law and order in a vicinity.
Their sense of responsibility therefore needs to be high. Moreover, the police force is required to stay on guard constantly. As a result, many officers are unable to give adequate time to their families and friends. Therefore, it is essential that the employees are given sufficient incentives to work for the organization.For some, their social obligation to do good to the society and the community motivates them to work but for others, many more incentives are required to maintain their performance.Consequently it becomes important that when new officers are hired, their physical as well as mental fitness is taken into account.
This is usually taken into consideration when hiring new officers. However, during their serving tenure they need to be constantly reminded that they will be paid for their services by the organization. Payment is not only monetary. The officers need to know that the police department will lend its continuous support to them and help in their hour of need. There need to be policies that can focus on the support lent to the families of the officers incase of death or any other mishap.These policies should also focus on the expectations the employees have from the organization. This would help the organization in designing a retirement plan for the employees.
These retirement plans could therefore be a reflection of the needs of the officers after they have served in the police force.The retirement plans could be made specific i.e. employees could have their retirement plans designed according to their specific needs and performance during their service. This would motivate them to improve performance and work harder while they are in service.
Question 3Plan1With the growing use of information and communication technology, the efficiency and effectiveness of the police force can also be improved. Help lines already exist for the public. Mobile computing and wireless technology have facilitated the functions of the police department to a great extent. The police officers have their own phones to stay in touch with office and respond immediately to any accident. Nonetheless what is needed most is a way to be able to access all information even outside the police department.
Officers should be able to access all important information from their patrol cars so that they are able to respond to any criminal activity on the spot.However, further improvements can be made. The officers can be trained with simulation games. These simulation games can offer real life situations where officers can be required to apply their skills effectively and solve the respective problem.Simulation is also being used to establish zone boundaries. These zone boundaries are created based on the number of patrol cars available in an area and their response time. A successful simulation model that has been adopted by the Boston Police Department could be implemented at KWPD (Larson 1973).This system can be used to assess the procedure in different areas for example distribution of manpower and the impact on locations due to changes in human resource allocation.
The system can be customized to meet the needs of a particular police department (Caroll & Laurin).Therefore the use of simulation and mobile communication technology can greatly help in making the police department effective and efficient.Plan 2The latest technology that can be adopted at KWPD is the Business Intelligence technology that has been implemented at the Houston Police Department (Information Builders BI Technology Helps Houston Police Department 2008).
This application is useful as it helps in predicting criminal activities by identifying a pattern of crimes.This helps the department in assigning officers where a crime is expected to occur. This technology helps the Police department in gathering all the data related to a particular crime.
Details include where and how many times a particular crime occurred in an area, were the criminals caught, information on witnesses etc.The new tool helps in predicting patterns and trends of criminal activities. The police department is thus able to dig in large amounts of data to identify patterns and respond accordingly. Data gathering, analysis and dissemination of this data by the police helps preventing criminal activities.The new system works in a way that officers get timely reports of all the activities happening in other areas (Smalltree 2007). The report focuses on the specific problem areas which allows the officers to study these areas and well-equip themselves for any incident. They system enables the officers to look at all the crimes individually such as rapes, robberies, homicides etc.Therefore the use of business intelligence by the police department can greatly facilitate their functions enabling them to improve their services by responding to crimes immediately.
Question 4Plan1The economic downturn has had an immense impact on all fields of life. The Police department has also been affected by the economic crisis. However, there can be no compromise on the security of the public and therefore the police need to function effectively despite all hurdles.Nonetheless to minimize the impact of the crisis, there are a number of steps that can be taken by the Police department.
Due to surging global oil prices, there has been a dramatic increase in the resource cost for the police department. Oil is one of the basic inputs as the patrol cars and motorbikes require oil. The Police department therefore should now focus on buying fuel efficient or alternative fuel vehicles. Also, officers should be encouraged to use bicycles. Although this may not be as efficient as motorbikes or cars, they can help in reducing the impact. Furthermore officers should be encouraged to conserve fuel as much as possible and limit the use of fuel only in hour of emergency.
Instead of assigning a car to each officer, 2 officers maybe assigned one car. This will again result in saving in terms of fuel cost. Since a large amount of the budget is being spent on fuel, the officers may feel they are not being paid adequately. Therefore it is important that these officers have their requirements met since their involvement and active participation in their job is critical.Plan2Due to the economic crisis, the crime rates have also been going since large number of unemployed individuals resort to criminal activities. In these hard times, it is important that these officers be trained to deal with difficult situations. Sessions should be held where these officers are explained the difficult time the organization is going through.Lack of adequate funds to the police department is of direct concern for the officers since a decline in funds will mean a decline in their perks.
If the management decides to share these issues with the employees, the employees will feel a part of the organization. This involvement is necessary in order to maintain high performance and service from officers.Furthermore, the police department should cut all other expenditures that are not directly linked with the organizational objectives and employee satisfaction.
Operational costs need to be reduced. Equipments that conserve less energy and minimize costs should be brought to use.Moreover, the department can reduce the number of officers being hired but the ones hired should be highly trained in their area of expertise. Also, there can be one central location and any emergency calls can be directed from the centralized system in that location to the officers of the particular area. This will again reduce operational cost as there will be one centralized location to manage and operate.References1. Caroll, J.M.
& Laurin, P.G. Using simulation to assign police patrol zones.
Retrieved on August 26, 2008, from http://sim.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/1/1?ck=nck2. Glenn, R.W. (September 2003). Training the 21st Century Police Officer: Redefining Police Professionalism for the Los Angeles Police Department.
RAND Corporation3. Haber, L. (January 2006) BI Helps Police Predict, Prevent Crime. Retrieved August 26, 2008 from http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Database/BI-Helps-Police-Predict-Prevent-Crime/4. Larson, R.C.
(1973) On-line simulation of urban police patrol and dispatching. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://portal.acm.
org/citation.cfm?id=8115905. Patton, W. (November 2001).
Career Development Programs. Australian Council Educational Research (ACER)6. Smalltree, H. (April 2007) Business intelligence case study: Gartner lauds police for crime-fighting BI. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://searchdatamanagement.
techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid91_gci1250435,00.html7. Information Builders (February 2008) Information Builders BI Technology Helps Houston Police Department Fight Crime. Retrieved August 26, 2008, from http://www.informationbuilders.com/cgi-shell/press/intpr/f_intpr.pl?intpr_code=02_28_08_houston