The Challenge of Innovation in Law Enforcement Organizations
Police Chief Magazine published a story by NOVA’s John M. Weinstein, Ph.D., Lieutenant, Commander, Strategic Planning and Outreach, Northern Virginia Community College Police Department.
The Challenge of Innovation in Law Enforcement Organizations
How is it that England, the world’s foremost military and naval power of the 18th Century, was unable to defeat George Washington’s impoverished and ill-equipped Continental Army? Why did ragtag guerilla armies in Vietnam and Afghanistan defeat and embarrass the world’s two greatest military superpowers? Why did the world’s greatest intelligence agencies fail to detect the 9/11 terrorist attacks? These failures are not limited to the government; similar debacles can be seen in the business world. How have upstart companies like Uber and Lyft brought the taxi industry to its knees, and why are big box stores going the way of the dinosaurs?
In each instance, a muscle-bound and rigid Goliath lacked the nimbleness and flexibility to think outside the box and react to a new asymmetric threat. They were good at doing what they had always done and insisted on defining the world in a way that was familiar to them. The problem is their strength, structure, and rigidity were ultimately their weaknesses, and their adversaries successfully exploited their inflexibility.
A common theme here is that colonial England, the U.S. and Soviet militaries, U.S. intelligence, and large corporate entities were structured hierarchically. Hierarchy has long been considered the prescription for exercising effective authority and control, especially in complex organizations. However, when faced with a new environment, these muscle-bound behemoths were wholly reactive and incapable of adapting and developing relevant responses.
These anecdotes define the dilemma facing modern law enforcement (and other) organizations. Sadly, absent significant structural changes that abandon hierarchy and the reactionary cultures of control and self-preservation they’ve engendered, law enforcement organizations are likely to fail to deal effectively with increasingly chaotic, accelerating and unpredictable social changes.
The Issue
In 2014, the author identified eight trends that are changing law enforcement (LE) operations in the 21st Century.1 These trends include shifting populations and generations, immigration and the growing balkanization of society, the digitalization of society, and the impacts on the quantity, quality, and controllability of information, increasing and more sophisticated threats from domestic terrorism and asymmetric operations; and accelerating technologies. Each trend has had formidable impacts on the expectations of communities and has consequently shaped community-police interactions, the nature of the crime, interpretations, and expectations of privacy and constitutional safeguards; and definitions of jurisdiction, among other aspects of policing.
