Abstract
Woodrow Wilson’s The Study of Administration brought forth the notion that politics and administration are separate and distinct areas of study and that a new discipline of “administration” could standalone from political science. The late nineteenth century progressive reform movement, eager to eliminate corruption in government, misinterpreted Wilson’s treatise and advocated for the absolute schism between politics and administration, i.e., the so-called politics/administration dichotomy. This essay pays particular attention to political culture and how it affects the selection of the chief police executive over a 119-year period. Politics is not separate from administration, and by extension, a political culture is not divorced from a police culture. In James Q. Wilson’s Varieties of Police Behavior: The Management of Law and Order in Eight Communities, Wilson determined a municipality’s political culture is related either directly or indirectly to its police style. The present research examines the police chief executive (N = 129) selection process in the three largest American cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The findings of this research and their relevance on contemporary policing in the United States will be delineated in comprehensive detail.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adrian, C. R., & Press, C. (1972). Governing urban America. New York: McGaw-Hill Book Company.
Appleby, P. (1949). Policy and administration. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Astor, G. (1971). The New York cops: An informal history. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Banfield, E. (1961). Political influence. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.
Banfield, E., & Wilson, J. Q. (1963). City politics. New York: Vintage Books.
Blumberg, A. S., & Niederhoffer, A. (1970). The police in social and historical perspective. In A. Niederhoffer & A. S. Blumberg (Eds.), The ambivalent force: Perspectives on the police. Waltham, MA: Ginn and Company.
Bratton, W. J. (2016). William J. Bratton: How to reform policing from within. Retrieved from https://www.Nytimes.com/2016/09/16/Opinion/William-J-Bratton-How-To-Reform-Policing- From-Within.html.
Cantu, A. (2017). Goodbye, Gallagher: An exit interview with the chief of police. Santa Fe Reporter. Retrieved from https://www.sfreporter.com/news/2017/12/12/goodbye-gallagher/.
Charles, S., & Spielman, F. (2019). Who might be next to lead the Chicago Police Department? Retrieved November 19, 2009, from http://Chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2019/11/6/20952062/Chicago-police-department-leadership-superintendent-search.
Chemerinsky, E. (2001). An independent analysis of the Los Angeles Police Department’s board of inquiry report on the rampart scandal, 34 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 545. Retrieved May 18, 2019, from https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol34/iss2/4.
Chicago Police Board. (2019). Retrieved December, 18, 2018, from https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/cpb/supp_info/superintendent-search.html.
Chicago Police Department. (n.d.). Retrieved May 8, 2019, from https://home.chicagopolice.org/inside-the-cpd/history.
ChicagoCop.com. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2019, from https://www.chicagocop.com/history/people/heads-of-the-police-department/.
Czitrom, D. (2016). New York exposed: The gilded age police scandal that launched the progressive era. New York: Oxford University Press.
Elazar, D. (1984). American federalism: A view from the states. New York: Harper Row, Publishers.
Enter, J. (1985). The rise to the top: An analysis of police chief career patterns. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 14(4), 334–346.
Fosdick, R. (1969). American police systems. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith.
Frederickson, H. G., Johnson, G. A., & Wood, C. (2004). The changing structure of American cities: A study of the diffusion of innovation. Public Administration Review, 64(3), 320–330.
Goodnow, F. (1900). Politics and administration. A study in government. New York: Russell and Russell.
Hassell, K. D., Zhao, J., & Maguire, E. R. (2003). Structural arrangements in large municipal police organizations: Revisiting Wilson’s theory of local political culture. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 26, 231–250.
Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department (Los Angeles, Calif.), & Christopher, W. (1991). Report of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles: The Commission.
Langworthy, R. H. (1985). Research note: Wilson’s theory of police behavior: A replication of the constraint theory. Justice Quarterly, 2, 89–98.
Liederbach, J., & Travis, L. F. (2008). Wilson redux: Another look at varieties of police behavior. Police Quarterly, 11, 447–467.
Los Angeles Police Department. (n.d.-a). Retrieved May 5, 2019, from http://www.lapdonline.org/police_commission.
Los Angeles Police Department. (n.d.-b). Retrieved November 15, 2019, from http://www.lapdonline.org/chiefs_of_the_los_angeles_police_department.
Lowi, T. (1964). At the pleasure of the mayor: Patronage and power in New York City 1898–1958. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe.
Manning, P. K. (1977). Police work. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McClelland, E. (2018). Chicago Magazine. Retrieved August 25, 2019, from https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/September-2018/Rahm-Emanuel-Could-Be-Chicagos-Last-Boss/.
Murphy, P. V., & Plate, T. (1973). Commissioner: A view from the top of American law enforcement. New York: Simon and Schuster.
National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. (1931). Report on police. United States Government Printing Office. National league of cities. Retrieved from http://www.nlc.org/build-skills-and-networks/resources/cities-101/city-structures/forms-of-municipal-government.
National League of Cities. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2019, from https://www.nlc.org/partisan-vs-nonpartisan-elections.
Niederhoffer, A. and Blumberg, A. (1970). The Ambivalent Force. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Novak, K., Smith, B., Cordner, G., & Roberg, R. (2017). Police and society (7th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Obama, B. (2014). Executive order—Establishment of the President’s Task force on 21st Century Policing. Retrieved May 16, 2019, from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/18/executive-order-establishment-presidents-task-force-21st-century-policing.
Penegor, J., & Peak, K. (1992). Police chief acquisitions: A comparison of internal and external selections. American Journal of Police, 11(1), 17–32.
Police Executive Research Forum. (n.d.). Retrieved December 2, 2019, from https://www.policeforum.org/career-opportunities.
President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. (1967). The challenge of crime in a free society. USA: United States Government Printing Office.
Pursley, R. (1976). Community characteristics and policy implementations: Some exploratory findings about two categories of municipal departments. Journal of Criminal Justice, 4, 291–301.
Reppetto, T. (1979). The blue parade. New York: Free Press.
Richardson, J. (1974). Urban police in the United States. Port Washington: Kennikut Press.
Rizzo, B.J. (2010). Serving at the pleasure of the mayor: An exploration of political involvement in New York police commissioner departures 1901–2001. Doctoral Dissertation. Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3408059).
Rokyo, M. (1971). Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago. New York: Penguin Group.
Ruchelman, L. (1973). Who rules the police? New York: New York University Press.
Sayre, W. S., & Kaufman, H. (1960). Governing New York City: Politics in the metropolis. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Schein, E. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Schein, E. H. (1992). Organizational culture and leadership (2nd ed). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Shefsky, J. (2019). How, and why, Chicago has nonpartisan elections. WTTW news. Retrieved June 17, 2019, from https://news.wttw.com/2019/02/26/how-and-why-chicago-has-nonpartisan-elections.
Simon, H. (1997). Administrative behavior: A study of decision-making processes in administrative organization. New York: The Free Press.
Sonenshein, R. J. (2006). Los Angeles: Structure of a city government. The League of Women Voters of Los Angeles.
Spielman, F. (2019). Beck’s decision to abolish merit promotions could shortchange blacks and Hispanics, alderman warn. Retrieved December 13, 2019, from https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2019/12/11/2101199/chicago-police-charlie-beck-merit-promotions-alderman.
Stelnicki, T. (2018). Acting Santa Fe police chief gets job full-time. Santa Fe Reporter. Retrieved December 19, 2019, from: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/acting-santa-fe-police-chief-gets-job-full-time/article_687fe5da-38e1-5be2-aa91-c47ea2bed9ed.htm.
Sudo, C. (2011). Jody Weis’ $76K vacation bonus. The Chicagoist. Retrieved May 4, 2019, from https://chicagoist.com/2011/06/21/jody weis_76k_vacation_bonus.php.
Waldo, D. (1948). The administrative state: A study of the political theory of American public administration. New York: The Ronald Press Company.
Weichselbaum, S. (2016). The police laboratory: A new model of policing hasn’t saved Chicago. Why are other cities copying it? Retrieved May 12, 2019, from http://time.com/chicago-police-3/.
Wilson, J. Q. (1968). Varieties of police behavior: The management of law and order in eight communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilson, J. Q., & Kelling, G. (1982). Broken Windows: The Police and neighborhood safety. Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/.
Wilson, W. (1887). The study of administration. In J. M. Shafritz & A. C. Hyde (Eds.), Classics of public administration (8th ed., pp. 35–47). United States: Cengage Learning.
Zhao, J., & Hassell, K. D. (2005). Policing styles and organizational priorities: Wilson’s theory of local political culture. Police Quarterly, 8, 411–430.
Zhao, J., He, N., & Lovrich, N. (2006). Effect of local political culture on police behaviors in the 1990s: A retest of Wilson’s theory in more contemporary times. Journal of Criminal Justice, 34, 569–578.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rizzo, B. (2021). Do We Get the Police We Deserve? A Historical Review of Police Executive Selection in America’s Largest Cities. In: Albrecht, J.F., den Heyer, G. (eds) Enhancing Police Service Delivery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61452-2_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61452-2_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-61293-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-61452-2
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)