Chapter 3 Terms
The smallest geographical area an individual officer can patrol.
Beat
A method of hiring and managing government employees that is designed to eliminate political influence, favoritism, nepotism, and bias.
Civil Service System
A deliberate arrangement of people doing specific jobs, following particular procedures to accomplish a set of goals determined by some authority
Organization
An organization similar to the military along structures of strict authority and reporting relations.
Quasi-military organization
Police employees given traditional police powers by state and local laws, including penal or criminal laws and criminal procedure laws.
Sworn members
Informal job actions by officers in which they refuse to perform certain job functions in an attempt to win labor concessions from their employers.
Blue-flu
The ability and opportunity to transfer from one police department to another
Lateral transfers
A federal law passed in 1883 to establish a civil service system that tested, appointed, and promoted officers on a merit system.
Pendleton Act
Either part-time compensated or noncompensated sworn police employees who serve when needed.
Reserve officer
A managerial concept that specifies that each individual in an organization is directly accountable to only one supervisor
Unity of command
An organizational model marked by hierarchy, promotion on professional merit and skill, the development of a career service, reliance on and use of rules and regulations, and impersonality of relationships among career professionals in the bureaucracy and with their clientele
Bureaucracy
An influential relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes.
Leadership
All of the people working on a particular tour or shift
Platoon
Power-sharing arrangement in which workplace influence is shared among individuals who are otherwise hierarchical unequals.
Shared leadership
Managerial concept stating that each individual in an organization is supervised by and reports to only one immediate supervisor.
Chain of command
The process of running an organization so that the organization can accomplish its goals.
Management
Acronym for the basic functions of management: planning, organizing, directing, staffing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting
PODSCORB
The number of officers or subordinates a superior can supervise effectively
Span of control
The process of removing sworn officers from noncritical or nonenforcement tasks and replacing them with civilians or nonsworn employees.
Civilianization
Police employees without traditional police powers generally assigned to noncritical or nonenforcement tasks
Nonsworn (civilian) members
The entire collection of beats in a given geographic area; the organizational headquarters of a police department
Precinct/district/station
A group of officers who generally work together all the time under the supervision of a particular sergeant.
Squad