The unbending blue line: transformational change in police organizations with a case study of a West Coast City Police Department patrol deployment

In practice, many police organizations have been slow to adopt real and meaningful change grounded in a sound analysis of current procedures. More often than not, based on routine and lacking any meaningful measures, police organizations are loath to modify their practices, despite an organizational need to make the best use of existing resources. By using data from a West-Coast-City-Police-Department, this thesis assesses whether organizational impediments, systemic inefficiencies and a reluctance to employ evidence-based practices identified in police organizational literature, were prevalent in the deployment and scheduling of patrol officers in a metropolitan centre. The deployment model of the West-Coast-City-Police-Department was analyzed in terms of whether it was achieving the most effective and efficient use of their resources. It is suggested these findings illustrate the larger problems inherent to many police organizations in general and how the adoption of evidence-based practices, grounded in empirical research, could result in greater efficiencies.