http://interchangepa.com/blog/?p=250 At the intersection of politics, culture and technology Tue, 23 Oct 2012 03:20:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 http://interchangepa.com/blog/?p=250&cpage=1#comment-371 Massimo Bergamini Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:06:51 +0000 http://interchangepa.com/blog/?p=250#comment-371 Thanks for your thoughtful comment. In my experience, cultural change within organizations comes more readily if there is strong and committed leadership backing it and setting the tone. I don't think a paradigm change in a police organization can really occur unless the chief and senior leadership embody it. Thanks for your thoughtful comment. In my experience, cultural change within organizations comes more readily if there is strong and committed leadership backing it and setting the tone. I don’t think a paradigm change in a police organization can really occur unless the chief and senior leadership embody it.

]]> http://interchangepa.com/blog/?p=250&cpage=1#comment-370 Inspector Mark Spooner Thu, 03 Mar 2011 11:51:22 +0000 http://interchangepa.com/blog/?p=250#comment-370 I’m responsible for community policing in the borough of Barnsley, a town that sits in the county of South Yorkshire in England. I’ve worked in community policing for the last 8 years and have also developed training packages for supervisors and local authority staff who work within the communities they serve. The first thing to say is that delivering community policing on the ground is the hardest and most complex thing I have had to do throughout my service, and is far more difficult than simply responding to an incident called in by members of the public. As your article highlights, unfairly perhaps, police culture, leadership and values lay at the heart of the problem. Police officers, in the main, are law enforcers by nature – and rightly so, that’s what the organisation asks them to do and it’s what they are good at – and I know it’s a bit chicken and eggish, but that role drives the organisational culture and the values of the organisation and the individuals within it. So when a completely different way of doing business is required, in this case neighbourhood or community policing, the values and the culture (and leadership) are going to be out of kilter – this sometimes manifests itself by officers declaring a dislike for community policing because its not seen as ‘real’ policing. The other cultural issue is timescales – traditional response law enforcement works in quick time with decisions being made and carried out quickly, sometimes in minutes, hours or at most weeks – but that won’t happen with community policing – trust has to be gained before any progress can be made and that’s often a long haul – especially when working with other agencies to deal with neighbourhood problems. So I’ve got a lot of sympathy for Supervisor Compos who is obviously trying to change how SFPD delivers it’s service to the community, and the question is how best to start the change in culture within his organisation – in my view he could do worse than use legislation, because if people HAVE to do it they generally will, and slowly community policing will become business as usual. I’m responsible for community policing in the borough of Barnsley, a town that sits in the county of South Yorkshire in England. I’ve worked in community policing for the last 8 years and have also developed training packages for supervisors and local authority staff who work within the communities they serve.
The first thing to say is that delivering community policing on the ground is the hardest and most complex thing I have had to do throughout my service, and is far more difficult than simply responding to an incident called in by members of the public.
As your article highlights, unfairly perhaps, police culture, leadership and values lay at the heart of the problem. Police officers, in the main, are law enforcers by nature – and rightly so, that’s what the organisation asks them to do and it’s what they are good at – and I know it’s a bit chicken and eggish, but that role drives the organisational culture and the values of the organisation and the individuals within it.
So when a completely different way of doing business is required, in this case neighbourhood or community policing, the values and the culture (and leadership) are going to be out of kilter – this sometimes manifests itself by officers declaring a dislike for community policing because its not seen as ‘real’ policing.
The other cultural issue is timescales – traditional response law enforcement works in quick time with decisions being made and carried out quickly, sometimes in minutes, hours or at most weeks – but that won’t happen with community policing – trust has to be gained before any progress can be made and that’s often a long haul – especially when working with other agencies to deal with neighbourhood problems.
So I’ve got a lot of sympathy for Supervisor Compos who is obviously trying to change how SFPD delivers it’s service to the community, and the question is how best to start the change in culture within his organisation – in my view he could do worse than use legislation, because if people HAVE to do it they generally will, and slowly community policing will become business as usual.

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