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Grand Rapids Police Department Organizational Assessment

Submitted by: Alexander Weiss Consulting, LLC 2705 Ridge Ave. Evanston IL, 60201 March 20, 2015 Phone: 847-‐332-‐1160 ALEXANDERWEISSCONSULTING.COM

Alexander Weiss Consulting, LLC 2

Grand Rapids Police Department Organizational Assessment Introduction At the request of the Grand Rapids Police Department (GRPD) Alexander Weiss Consulting, LLC conducted an organizational assessment of the department beginning in late fall 2014. Our goal in this effort was to identify challenges and opportunities for the agency in both the short and long term. Our report is based on extensive interviews with members of the senior leadership group, middle management and with police officers. Our inquiry was relatively broad in scope but in our report we focus on the following issues:

• Organizational Structure • Conflicts between temporal (shift) accountability and geographic

accountability • Using data to inform strategy and decision making • Career Development and Job Enrichment • Criminal Investigations • Public Information and Press Relations

We begin the report with some of our most critical findings, and end with a series of recommendations. The Grand Rapids Police Department is a full service law enforcement agency. It is the second largest agency in Michigan. Like many communities in the state Grand Rapids has experienced financial stress related both to the overall decline of the automobile industry, and as a result of the significant economic downturn in 2008. In that sense they were not alone. In a recent study conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum police respondents were asked to describe the effects of the economic downturn on their agency’s staffing1. The actions taken included:

• Cut overtime spending: 66% • Eliminated or reduced police employee salary increases: 58% • Imposed a hiring freeze for sworn positions: 43% • Imposed a hiring freeze for civilian positions: 43% • Reduced staffing levels through attrition: 36% • Laid off employees: 22% • Implemented unpaid furloughs: 16%.

1 http://policeforum.org/library/critical-issues-in-policing-series/Econdownturnaffectpolicing12.10.pdf


GRPD has reduced staffing by nearly 25 percent. In spite of this we found the members of the department to be very professional, highly motivated and particularly eager to participate in the changes in strategy and organization under a new chief. Organization The following figure illustrates the current GRPD Staffing and Organization.

There are a few important observations regarding the general structure:

• There are three exempt, non-‐union positions including the chief and two deputy chiefs

• There are six captains on the command staff including the four service area commands, investigations, and support services

• The span of control is as follows: o Lieutenant to Sergeant 15: 32 1:2.1 o Sergeant to Police Officer 32: 234 1:7.3


• The ratio of nonsworn to sworn staff is 84: 290 1:3.5 Patrol Organization Several years ago GRPD shifted from a deployment scheme based on time (shift) to a scheme based on geography. The city was divided into four “service areas” each directed by a captain. All of the patrol division’s sergeants and police officers are assigned to a service area and report to the area captain. Area captains work Monday through Friday, normal business hours. In addition to this geographical deployment the department has lieutenants that serve as watch commanders. Watch commanders work the same schedule as the sergeants and officers. Watch commanders are also responsible for managing the department’s interns. In general there are four mechanisms for service area commanders to communicate problems that need to be addressed. While they are on duty, captains can communicate directly with sergeants in their commands. Moreover, they can communicate with area commanders electronically. Captains will ask the SRT to address problems in their commands. Finally, area commanders can ask watch commanders to address problems during nights and weekends. On its face this system works adequately, but it is, in our view not optimal. On paper sergeants and officers work directly for area captains, but for many of them, particularly those working at night and on the weekends, the watch commander is the boss. Moreover, the lieutenants act as though the officers and sergeants work for them. This conflict stems from a number of factors. To begin, the watch commanders are responsible for critical issues like scheduling and deployment. They make decisions that affect how and where officers are assigned. Second, after business hours watch commanders must sometime make critical staffing decisions, some of which may affect the ability of the agency to respond to priorities previously identified by service area captains. Finally, in the current configuration, it is not at all clear as to whom the watch commanders are accountable to. Using Data to Inform Strategy The efficiency of GRPD operations is hampered by an ineffective analytical capacity. While there is a dedicated crime analysis unit, we found little evidence that that the information provided by the unit is being used effectively in the field. Moreover, the department’s data systems are very disjointed and do not provide the kind of information needed to support deployment. We also noted that there is no systematic process in place to ensure accountability for crime control strategy and implementation. While the leadership group clearly


pays attention to such matters, it is largely on an ad hoc basis. An agency as large and complex as the GRPD would significantly benefit from a dedicated research and planning unit, as it would leverage other existing resources. In a primer for law enforcement, the US Bureau of Justice Assistance summarized nine reasons law enforcement agencies need an analytical function:2

• Helps solve criminal investigations, • Increases the ability to prosecute criminals, • Supports the chief executive and the agency’s mission, • Proactively informs law enforcement officers of crime trends and develops

threat, vulnerability, and risk assessments, • Trains law enforcement and other intelligence personnel, • Assists in the development of computerized databases to organize

information and intelligence, • Fosters meaningful relationships with other law enforcement personnel, • Ensures compliance with local, state, tribal, and federal laws and regulations,

and • Provides support to fusion centers.

A PERF survey further finds that the analysis itself is most often used for:

• Determining whether the agency is effective in reducing crime and disorder (59%),

• Determining short-‐term deployment (e.g., patrol scheduling) (52%), • Determining future personnel needs (51%), and • Holding management and command staff accountable for crime

reduction and prevention (47%). Career Development and Job Rotation There are a number of factors that influence the careers of law enforcement officers. First, the nature of the enterprise requires that most officers will be assigned to uniformed service delivery; with the resulting requirement for shift work. Second, as officers age their capacity to perform the duties of patrol may be diminished. Third, in most agencies police officers reach top pay in four to five years. Finally, a relatively small percentage of officers are likely to be promoted in their careers. In the face of these constraints many officers seek specialized assignments. Depending on the agency there can be many different opportunities including, traffic, investigations, community affairs, swat, etc. These assignments often offer significant benefits including better hours and working conditions, additional pay, advanced training, and the opportunity to become highly skilled in a discipline that might have application outside of policing. 2 http://www.iaca.net/Articles/analysts_9_steps.pdf


GRPD has a number of specialized units and positions and as a general rule members can stay in those assignments indefinitely. This is true not only for police officers but for supervisors and commanders as well. Unfortunately, the methods that are used in many law enforcement agencies to staff these units are problematic for a number of reasons:

• The factors that influence whether a person receives an assignment may not be merit based, or at least not perceived to be3

• In many organizations officers can remain in specialized assignments indefinitely, thus limiting opportunities for others

• Specialized units often define the nature of their responsibilities; at times not consistent with the agency mission

• Specialized unit commanders often think that they have the best possible individuals in their units, often ignoring the fact that there may be others more qualified that have not been afforded access

• Managers in specialized units have limited exposure to the requirements of managing other units.

Criminal Investigations One of the key challenges that law enforcement agencies face is how to allocate scarce resources. This is particularly true in the case of investigations. Most agencies do not have enough capacity to conduct complete investigations for all of the crimes reported to their agencies. This circumstance is compounded because of three factors:

• Some incidents are of a nature such that they require follow-‐up investigation

even when there is little chance that the case will ultimately be solved, • Some incidents could be relatively easily solved, but the resources required

to conduct the investigation are assigned elsewhere, • There are incidents that, even with a significant effort, are unlikely to be

solved. While we were not tasked with a staffing analysis for criminal investigations we did find several things that suggest that the department can do more in this area. First, there does not appear to be a rigorous, systematic process to assign cases and to ensure that investigators are managing cases effectively. Cases are not scored according to solvability and seriousness and when they are assigned there is no formal procedure in place to check on case progress. We were told that cases remain open “as long as there are leads, “ but such an informal approach does little to

3 Each specialized position in Lansing PD has a set of formal job requirements but in practice the posts are assigned largelt on the basis of seniority.


ensure that investigators are actively pursuing leads or that investigative resources might not be better used in other cases. The detectives work Monday through Friday during regular business hours. This seems wholly inconsistent with the department mission. In addition, it means that almost all serious offenses occurring after hours require an investigator to appear on overtime. It also means that serious offenses that occur any time after Friday afternoon, for which there is no call out, will not get any follow-‐up until Monday at the earliest. Finally, the department has a policy that addresses victims of crime that are reluctant to testify after a suspect has been identified. Victims are instructed at the time of the preliminary investigation that if they wish to pursue the case they must come to police headquarters during normal business hours (that's when detectives are there) to sign a form that indicates their willingness to testify and follow through with the case. If the victim fails to appear the case is cleared and classified as victim failed to cooperate. While it is helpful to identify victims that may be reluctant witnesses the GRPD procedure is seriously flawed for a number of reasons:

• Forcing victims to come to headquarters may cause them to miss work or otherwise be inconvenienced

• Some victims, particularly undocumented workers, may be particularly reluctant to come to the police building

• This approach fails to acknowledge the possibility that the victim’s inability to cooperate or participate with the investigation may change at a later time.

• By characterizing the behavior as a “refusal,” it conveys a negative image that fails to recognize the very real effects of trauma and the legitimate reasons why participating in the investigation may be difficult if not impossible for many victims.

Public Information Police organizations are in a constant struggle to maintain and increase their legitimacy in the community. In order to ensure a legitimate reputation, police organizations must contend with the force of the news media. It has been demonstrated that police perceptions of their relationship with the media was strongly influenced by their ability to tap into the power of the media to generate support for the organization. A proactive strategy implemented by police organizations to try to manage the external pressure of the media is the appointment of public information officers (PIOs). Public information officers recognize the power of the media and attempt to use this power to promote the organizations. News personnel are satisfied because the police provide data or


information so they can easily produce crime stories.4 The PIO responsibilities are split at GRPD are split between two lieutenants, one who does most of the work responding to requests from reporters on crime events and one who does most of the social media work (Facebook page and twitter). The rest of the command staff is expected to be responsive to reporter requests and have been encouraged to tweet/post as well. There has been very limited training for staff working with the media. Much of the contact with the media has been reactive and too much of the responsibility has been placed with the chief of police. Recommendations In the following section we provide a series of recommendations that we believe will serve the department in its efforts to develop a data-‐driven, strategic and adaptive organization. We recognize that organizational change takes time, resources, and consensus among stakeholders. Thus we have classified our recommendations according to the time suggested for their implementation. The typology for this classification is as follows:

• Short Term: Within six months • Mid-‐Term: Within two years • Long-‐Term Within four years.

Recommendation One. The GRPD should adopt an organizational structure that supports neighborhood based policing and problem solving. (Long-‐term) Many of the performance gaps that we observed in the department are structural. That is, in our view, the organization design and systems don't contribute, and in some cases, hinder the effective implementation of strategy. To that end, we are suggesting a significant change in organizational structure.

4 Maintaining Legitimacy Using External Communication Strategies: An Analysis of Police-Media Relations. Steven Chermak; Alexander Weiss. Journal of Criminal Justice, Volume: 33 Issue:5 09/2005.


There are a number of key attributes to this new organizational structure. Among them are:

• The nature of geographic deployment changes in that we reduce the number of area commands from four to two. A captain will manage each area command, although in the long term it may be advantageous to create a new exempt, non-‐union position to fill those posts. (Long-‐Term)

• The six lieutenants currently assigned as watch commanders will be reassigned to the commands. Two will serve as shift commanders, and the other as executive officer and direct other command activities. (Mid-‐Term)

• Community service officers will be assigned initially to the office of the chief (Short-‐term) but will, over time, be decentralized in the two-‐area structure.

• The detective unit will be reorganized so that most detectives will be assigned to the commands. A small number of specialized investigative units will be assigned to the Operations Support Bureau (mid-‐term)

• The Operations Support Bureau will have two divisions each headed by a captain. Special Operations Division will include:

o SRT o Central Investigations o Forensics o Special Events o Crime Analysis and Deployment (Mid-‐term)

• The Support Services Division will be headed by a captain, but could be directed by a senior level non-‐sworn member. It will include many of the currently assigned units plus the interns.(Mid-‐term)

Chief of Police

Deputy Chief Field Operations

Area Command Captain

Area Command Captain

Deputy Chief Operations Support

Special Operations Captain

Support Servcies Captain

PIO Internal Affairs


Recommendation Two. The GRPD should establish an office for information focused on working with media in all forms to inform the community and enhance the department’s image. (Short-‐term) In policing, it's essential to gain citizen support and involvement. The news media can play a key role in this effort through their wide dissemination of information. The police know that most people form their impressions of crime and the justice system from newspapers, television, and radio rather than from direct exposure (as crime victims, for example). For the police, the media convey their message to the public; for the media, the police are an indispensable information source. But "marketing" policing through the media is not easy, because stories about long-‐range strategies lack the human drama and immediacy of crime stories. Police-‐media relations should be mutually supportive, in a way that media representatives see the police as accessible, and that the media are accommodating when public information officers (PIOs) ask for coverage.5 “Social media is integrated technology that allows users to generate their own content and share that content through various connections. There are numerous social media tools available, with different characteristics, user demographics, and functionalities. Examples of social media tools include blogs, social networking sites, micro blogging sites, photo-‐ and video-‐sharing sites, wikis, RSS feeds, and podcasting. Social media has many unique characteristics including: • Immediacy – Users are able to control the conversation by being the first to

disseminate information and by having the ability to immediately respond to incorrect or negative information.

• Interaction – Social media also helps facilitate interaction and engagement between the community and agency, helping to improve communication and relationships.

• Audience – Many social media sites operate free of charge and are accessible by a large and diverse audience through mobile devices and computers.

• Scalable – Social media can be tailored to meet the unique needs of any organization and can be integrated into an agency’s communication and outreach strategy.”6

5 Steven Chermak and Alexander Weiss Marketing Community Policing in the News: A Missed Opportunity? National Institute of Justice 6http://www.iacpsocialmedia.org/GettingStarted/SocialMediaAnIntroduction.aspx#sthash.eQasXnP4.dpuf


Recommendation Three. The GRPD should implement a strategy to enhance their information systems and to better utilize information to guide crime control strategy. (Mid-‐term) The department has launched an effort to improve and better integrate its data systems, but this will likely take a long time and be very costly. Moreover, experience suggests that when an agency builds a data system without a clear connection to agency goals and objectives, the system tends to be disjointed and underutilized. That is, we believe that it is important for the department to articulate its goals, strategy and objectives, and then build data systems to support those goals. One way to accomplish this is through COMPSTAT. COMPSTAT is a relatively new police management strategy that originated in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in the early 1990’s. The effort began as a way to deal with crime data that was being collected on a daily basis at each precinct (interestingly, the department’s main information system provided crime data that was nearly one year old). The department began to convene weekly meetings to discuss the timely crime data. These “discussions” evolved into an intense and often heated effort to increase accountability for crime control. In each COMPSTAT session the department focused on a particular geographic command, typically a borough. The senior staff from the command and the precinct commanders from that command would discuss crime trends, major cases, and their intervention strategies. The presenters would be questioned by a group of senior executives of NYPD. While this dialogue was underway, PowerPoint images of relevant crime and performance data were displayed prominently behind the presenter. The COMPSTAT process had four critical components:

• Accurate and Timely Intelligence • Effective Tactics • Rapid Deployment of Personnel and Resources • Relentless Follow-‐Up and Assessment7

There were a number of aspects of the NYPD program that were critical to its success, including:

• Department executives had access to extensive data gathered and prepared by the COMPSTAT unit. Their briefing sometimes included data about incidents that had occurred in the evening before the meeting.

• COMPSTAT sessions were very public (i.e. open to members of the department of all ranks), and could prove to be extremely embarrassing for

7 Silverman, Eli. NYPD Battles Crime: Innovative Strategies in Policing. Northeastern University Press, 1999.


commanders that were ill prepared. This kind of public scrutiny was very unusual in policing. It was rare to criticize a senior police official in front of their subordinates.

• NYPD took actions when commanders were unsuccessful. Underperforming commanders were replaced. This created unusual opportunities for women and members of minority groups to assume leadership positions.

• Commanders that were successful in reducing crime were often rewarded with increased resources and assets. This tended to shift the department’s focus from programs that don’t work to those that do.

• COMPSTAT forced units to communicate with each other. If, for example, a precinct detective commander failed to share information with the precinct’s narcotics commander it would reflect badly on the precinct commander, and that situation would generally be rectified very quickly.

• COMPSTAT emphasized the notion that the police could control crime and improve the quality of life in New York, and that it was the department’s responsibility to do just that.

The COMPSTAT process has received enormous attention in the police community. Hundreds of departments have adopted COMPSTAT –like programs. Among the more notable are Seattle, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Baltimore. Many small and medium communities have also adopted COMPSTAT.8 Importantly, many agencies have learned that it is important to shape and mold the COMPSTAT process to fit its organizational norms. In other words, COMPSTAT worked in New York, and can work in other places if properly adapted. Some individuals have criticized COMPSTAT. They argue that because COMPSTAT is essentially a “top-‐down” approach to management, and a result, it is inconsistent with community policing, which focuses on individual officer empowerment. In fact, as one recent study points out there are strong linkages between crime control, community policing, and COMPSTAT.9 Among those commonalities are:

• Community Interface. COMPSTAT can facilitate a two-‐way exchange of information between the police and the community by incorporating (in addition to crime and other computerized police data) various kinds of community data in the police COMPSTAT meetings (e.g., community satisfaction or quality of life surveys), or by providing the community

8 David Weisburd, Stephen D. Mastrofski, Rosann Greenspan, and James J. Willis. The Growth of Compstat in American Policing. Police Foundation, 2004. 9 Abt Associates Inc. Police Department Information Systems Technology Enhancement Project (ISTEP): Phase II Case Studies. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2003


with access to non-‐sensitive COMPSTAT information via the police department website.

• Environmental Scanning. This information domain emphasizes the need to

incorporate a wide array of data, including social and community data, into the police decision-‐making process. The COMPSTAT process, in theory, provides a forum for display and discussion of these other data sets, as they could be incorporated into the process in much the same manner than police crime data are.

• Interorganizational Linkages. Community policing requires that the police

work closely with other governmental agencies, non-‐profit organizations, and the private sector to address crime and disorder problems. The COMPSTAT process can fulfill this requirement either by including other agency data in the COMPSTAT data analyses (e.g., social service agency data that depict possible contributing factors to crime problems) or by including representatives from these other organizations in the meetings.

• Workgroup Facilitation. COMPSTAT meets the workgroup facilitation

requirement by enabling key stakeholders within a geographic area–both within and outside the police department – to participate in COMPSTAT meetings.

• Problem Orientation. The problem orientation requirement stresses the

need to focus on problems rather than incidents. COMPSTAT meetings focus on community problems and examine their nature and extent via crime and other trends. In addition, while COMPSTAT processes generally display incident-‐level crime data, they could also potentially display other data that show potential contributing factors to community problems.

• Area Accountability. COMPSTAT is perhaps best aligned with the area

accountability requirement that commanders be responsible for specific geographic areas and, therefore, have access to information that provides them with required information about their assigned geographic area. COMPSTAT crime maps are of course inherently area-‐specific; other analyses, presented as either tabular data or graphs, can be presented in an area-‐specific manner as well.

Recommendation Four. The Department should adopt a career development program that includes a strong emphasis on the importance of patrol and periodic transfers from specialized assignments back to patrol. (Short-‐term)


It is not uncommon to hear police executives proclaim, “patrol is the backbone of the department. “ While this sounds good we find that in many departments there is a disconnect between their rhetoric and reality. For example, it is not uncommon to find departments in which vacancies in special units are filled as soon as they occur, even though it means that the patrol unit will be short-‐staffed. Moreover, in some departments once an officer leaves patrol there is a relatively high probability that they will not return. There are two strategies that we believe will address this issue. The first is to implement systematic job rotation for officers and supervisors assigned to special units back to patrol. The second is to introduce a master police officer program. Job rotation has been common in police organizations since the 1980’s. Nonetheless, it still has many critics. To some, it is inefficient to remove highly trained and experienced officers and return them to patrol. To others, special assignments are a reward for years of service in patrol, and serve a useful function in the organization. Finally, critics of job rotation argue that there are some officers that cannot be in patrol because of physical or other limitations, and special units provide a place for them. These critiques, of course, aren’t consistent with good organizational development. When an officer with experience and training returns to patrol, those skills aren’t lost-‐rather they bring those skills with them. This improves their performance and ostensibly the performance of their squad. Secondly, police officers that are not able to perform the functions of their job should be released. GRPD has assembled a committee that has formulated a plan for job rotation. We applaud their work with one exception. We believe that the schedule for rotation should not be variable (this creates ambiguity) and that the times for rotation should favor shorter windows. Thus we recommend the following schedule:

• Canine Team 8 yrs. • Community Police Officer 5 yrs. • Detective Unit (MCT and FST) 8 yrs. • Detective Unit (all others) 5 yrs. • Property Management 5 yrs. • Special Response Team 8 yrs. • Task Force Assignments 5 yrs. • Traffic/Special Services 8 yrs. • Training Bureau 5 yrs. • Vice Unit/MET 6 yrs. • Youth Commonwealth 5 yrs.

Moreover, we recommend that any member that is promoted return to patrol.


The second component of our program to strengthen patrol is to create a master police officer program. Another approach discussed was to create a new position in the squad to serve as lead officer, or as often referred to a “master police officer.” The Master Police Officer (MPO) is generally an officer that has exhibited exceptional skills and is capable of serving as a lead officer in many settings, and as a supervisor in the absence of a sergeant.

Typically there is a testing process for this position. For example, in Fairfax County Virginia, “A Police Officer II who has a minimum of five (5) years of service as a sworn officer with Fairfax County and who is certified by the Chief of Police or designee as demonstrating exemplary expertise in an authorized Police Officer II specialty, may be eligible to receive a police proficiency pay adjustment and assume the work title of "Master Police Officer". 10

Another example is in Richmond, Virginia. “The Master Patrol Officer Program in Richmond Virginia is designed for exemplary sworn members who have exhibited a high degree of professionalism and commitment to the Department but do not wish to pursue the traditional managerial career track of supervisory promotions.

The Master Patrol Officer Program is designed to ensure the availability of personnel to serve as support personnel to sergeants in the Precinct and the Special Operations Division (SOD) in carrying out their daily duties in the accomplishment of the mission of the Department.

The policy of the Richmond Police Department (RPD) is to maintain Master Patrol Officers within the precincts and the SOD as needed. Due to their experience, knowledge, professionalism, competence and stature among their peers, a Master Patrol Officer should also be capable of serving in an acting supervisor capacity when a sergeant is not available.

Although this position is not a step in grade, MPOs shall receive special assignment pay (operational differential) and be extended the same courtesy and respect afforded any other Department supervisor. “11

The MPO program may be a good strategy for GRPD. It is a mechanism that can help to keep the department’s best officers in patrol (rather than in special assignments), and the MPO would be part of the supervisory team for the squad and would also be available to answer calls for service when the sergeant is working. As the administrative burden on sergeants continues to increase, the MPO may be able to relieve some of that burden, thus freeing the sergeant to engage in mentoring, evaluation and leadership for the officers.

10 http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/hr/pdf/mpo2015.pdf 11 Richmond Police Department General Orders.


Recommendation Five. The criminal investigation function should be decentralized to more closely align these activities with the command area strategy. (Mid-‐term) For nearly thirty years researchers have sought to better understand the criminal investigation function and its relationship with other police personnel. 12 Police administrators have found it difficult to make substantial changes in how investigations are conducted and how they are organized. In fact, a recent study done by researchers at Michigan State University concluded that, “the criminal investigation process has remained relatively unchanged in the face of the many paradigm shifts in the profession of policing over the past 30 years. 13 One of the more interesting questions for the police administrator is how to integrate criminal investigations with community policing. This was examined in a recent study conducted by the Police Executive Research Forum.14 They studied 388 municipal departments and 159 sheriff departments. Nearly all of the municipal departments reported substantial implementation of community policing. Among the important findings of this study are:

• Organizational Structure o In 75% of agencies almost all investigative functions are located in an

investigations bureau or division. o 25% share investigative function between patrol and investigations

• Location and Assignment o Most investigative personnel are physically centralized (40%) o Most investigators are centralized and have citywide responsibilities

(47%) o Most investigators are physically centralized but they may work

specific geographic areas (24%) o A core of investigators are physically centralized, and is responsible

for specific types of crime of a citywide nature (51%) o Certain investigative functions are physically decentralized (22%) o Certain investigative functions are physically decentralized and

investigators are assigned specific geographic areas (12%)

12 For example see: John Eck. (1983) Solving Crime: A study of burglary and robbery. Police Executive Research Forum. Peter Greenwood, Jan Chaiken, and Joan Petersilia (1977) The Criminal Investigation Process. Heath. 13 Frank Horvath; Robert T. Meesig; Yung Hyeock Lee (2001) National Survey of Police Policies and Practices Regarding the Criminal Investigations Process: Twenty-Five Years After Rand 14 Mary Ann Wycoff and Colleen A.Cosgrove. Investigations in the Community Policing Context. National Institute of Justice. 2001.


o Certain investigative functions are physically decentralized and investigators are assigned specific geographic areas and specific types of crime (21%).

• Specialization o Most detectives are generalists and investigate a variety of crimes

(39%) o Most detectives are specialists and investigate crimes within their

area of expertise (53%) o Most centralized investigators are specialists while most

decentralized investigators are generalists. • Rank

o Investigators have a rank or pay scale equivalent to patrol officers (60%)

o Investigators have a pat scale or rank above patrol officers (40%) • Relationship with Patrol

o Patrol officers have no investigative responsibility beyond taking the initial report (16%)

o Patrol officers may have investigative responsibility beyond the initial investigation (82%)

• Chain of Command o Investigators report to area commander who is responsible for patrol

operations in specific area (6%) o Investigators report to area commander who is responsible for all

operations in specific area (4%) o Investigators with specific geographic assignments report through

investigative chain of command (17%) o All investigators, regardless of geographic location, report through an

investigative chain of command (84%). These findings are further evidence of the difficulty of integrating criminal investigation functions and personnel into community policing strategies. The PERF authors suggest that, “Detectives are commonly a highly-‐organized workgroup-‐often perceived as conservative, insular, and elitist and subsequently, administrators who attempt to change investigators’ roles often expect to encounter substantial resistance to change.” As the GRPD moves towards a more decentralized model of policing we believe that the department should adopt a hybrid approach to the decentralization of criminal investigation. That is, we recommend that the decision to decentralize a unit should be based on what makes sense from an operational and organizational perspective. For example, there are categories of offenses that are citywide in nature, such as gangs, narcotics, and some types of violent crimes (e.g. gang related shootings, and some offenses committed by sexual predators). For these offenses, it makes sense to maintain a core of centralized investigators. Most other offenses are generally well suited to a physical decentralization of investigators.


Assigning investigators to area commands will help them acquire in-‐depth knowledge of crime patterns, local suspects, and will help them develop a network of informants. Moreover, decentralization will promote stronger working relationships with other officers in the area, and will help to develop a stronger tie to the area. Decentralization does have some potential costs. First, decentralized investigators may feel disconnected from other investigators, particularly if they are in a different chain of command. It is also possible that some of the results that came from collective action will be reduced. That is, some investigators that performed well in a centralized structure may not perform as well in the area command model. The strongest reason to move towards investigative decentralization is accountability. As GRPD adopts an area based model for accountability, it will be increasingly important that area commanders are accountable for results and have control over resources required to meet their objectives. The Madison Wisconsin Police Department has decentralized nearly all of its investigative activities. Most investigators are in the chain of command of the district commander. A centralized investigation support unit, managed by a captain has the following units:

• Criminal Intelligence Section, • Madison Area Crime Stoppers, • Crime Prevention, • Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force, • Forensic Services Unit.

Conclusion The Grand Rapids Police Department is well positioned for organizational change. After dramatic staffing cuts the financial situation has stabilized, and positions are being filled again. This reduction has had a profound effect on the organization and its members. There is a generally held view that the department was much different before these staffing cuts were made and that, many things that the department would like to do now can’t be done easily because of personnel shortages. It seems clear that it is unlikely that the organization will be as large as it once was. That is, the “new normal” organization will be much leaner, highly adaptive, and data-‐driven. The following table illustrates the goals and measures for a traditional organization as compared with one that is seeking a higher level of performance. GRPD is well poised to make that transition.


Traditional Performance Output Outcome Incidents Problems Reaction Prevention Summary Results Feedback Control of Serious Crime Public Safety Accountability for Rules Accountability for Problem Solved Intuition Data Isolation Integration Individual Based Evaluation Unit or Agency Performance

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