American Police Administration; A Handbook on Police Organization and Methods of Administration in American Cities (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1921. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE ORGANIZATION OF CITY POLICE DEPARTMENTS A Separate Department or a Bureau. Shall the police department be organized as an independent administrative department or as a subordinate division or bureau of a larger department of public safety? This is the first question that confronts the student of police organization or the legislator who must decide upon the charter provisions relative to this branch of municipal service. If one seeks an answer to this question by studying the practice of American cities it soon appears that neither plan of organization has been consistently followed. Police departments of American cities have been organized as independent departments or as bureaus of larger departments not upon the basis of a well-defined theory but as a result of local and often temporary conditions. Not even among cities of the same size is there uniformity. A large city may organize its police service as a bureau of the department of public safety while a smaller one may establish an independent police department. In either case good or bad results may follow. Moreover, the same form of organization may under one administration give good police service and under another the very opposite. The police experience of New York City since 1901 offers an illustration of this fact. In Cleveland, a city of over 600,000 population, the police force constitutes a division of the department of public safety under the supervision of a director.1 In Philadelphia, the third city in the United States, a similar type of organization prevails, the director of public safety having, according to the charter, the "care, management, administration and supervision of the police affairs, and all matters relating to the fire and police forces, fire-alarm telegraph, ere...