Organizational Structure in American Police Agencies: Context, Complexity, and Control

Maguire, Edward R.

ISBN 10: 0791455122 / ISBN 13: 9780791455128

Published by State Univ of New York Pr, 2003

About this Item

illustrated edition. 288 pages. 9.00x6.00x0.07 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # zk0791455122

Bibliographic Details

Title: Organizational Structure in American Police ...

Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Publication Date: 2003

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Brand New

About this title

Synopsis:

A new theory accounts for the characteristics of individual police departments.

Although most large police organizations perform the same tasks, there is tremendous variation in how individual organizations are structured. To account for this variation, author Edward R. Maguire develops a new theory that attributes the formal structures of large municipal police agencies to the contexts in which they are embedded. This theory finds that the relevant features of an organization's context are its size, age, technology, and environment. Using a database representing nearly four hundred of the nation's largest municipal police agencies, Maguire develops empirical measures of police organizations and their contexts and then uses these measures in a series of structural equation models designed to test the theory. Ultimately, police organizations are shown to be like other types of organizations in many ways but are also shown to be unique in a number of respects.

About the Author:

Edward R. Maguire is Associate Professor of Administration of Justice at George Mason University.