Law Enforcement Policy and Management for the '90s: A Professor's Caveats as Viewed from the Street

Abstract

Issues surrounding law enforcement administration for the 1990s are discussed by an academician who recently completed an eight-month term as a police practitioner. This experiential period afforded a unique opportunity for participant-observation and assessing the status of police methods and policies as professional American policing approaches its sesquicentennial anniversary. Implications and concerns for the future are discussed in the areas of law enforcement methods and practices, personnel issues, civil liability, and discipline and corruption. The general proposition is tendered that the 1990s hold several anticipated problems and challenges for law enforcement administrators; there is a need for "enlightened" chief executives to address these issues and in some instances to employ non-traditional methods and philosophies toward solving them.