Law Enforcement and Organizational Structures Research Paper

Organizational Structure

Mission Statement

The goal of the Sheriff's Department is to protect and serve all people in accordance with the law, and with the ultimate goal of creating and maintaining a high quality of life in the community. High quality of life is in part defined by respect and tolerance, as well as safety and order. To serve the primary goal of promoting a high quality of life, the Sheriff's Department will work with any and all community organizations as willing partners. The Department values cooperation, compassion, and communication. All stakeholders will be treated with respect, and in accordance with egalitarian values and social justice. Discrimination will not be tolerated, either within the Sheriff's Office or in the community at large. Ultimately, the laws of the county, state, and nation are our primary provision. The preservation of human rights and liberties is also our mission.

Part 1-Structure

Formal and informal organizational structure

Organizations are basically formatted to be in two categories, the formal and the informal organizational structures. The formal organizational structures are intentionally designed with the aim of having the people working within the organization have cohesiveness in undertaking their duties with the ultimate aim of meeting the objectives of the organization. The formal organizations are hence arbitrary structures that the individuals working for the organization are required to adjust to in order to continue working for that organization in unison and harmony. The structure guides the employees to doing some things in a given specific manner and to take orders and execute them from given individuals within the organization and generally cooperate with other employees. The formal structure also allows for the coordination between or among employees in line with the partners that they are assigned (Business Case Studies, 2014).

Ideally, the formal structure is therefore built around four major bases or pillars as follows;

Division of labor- here, the organization divides the work into several smaller operations with each operation assigned to a given individual or specific individuals with the aim of specialization maximization.

Scalar and functional process- this ensures that the organization maximizes the possibilities of growing vertically as well as horizontally.

Structure -- and this means that there is an overall arrangement within the organization which makes sure there is a proper balance set among the various sections of the organization and also makes sure that the execution of all the assignments or operations is in required line and the organizational objectives are secured.

Span of control- this is usually in reference to the number of subordinate employees who are answerable to the superior individual hence there is a known and recognized source of command and instructions.

Apart from these pillars, the formal structures of organizations can be identified through characteristics such as being deliberately impersonal, one that is based on the ideal relationship between the employees of the organization at different ranks, the structuring is so deliberate with the ultimate aim of meeting some given goals and it is also founded on the view of the group nature of human beings.

The informal organizational structure on the other hand often manifests themselves even without the management knowing. The formal structure naturally degenerates into the informal structures even without the management intending to have it so. The informal organizational structure hence refers to relationships among the employees in an organization that are hinged on personal attitudes, emotions likes and dislikes. The relations do not follow the rules set down or any procedures or regulations as is the case in the formal organizational structures. It is a common observation that the large formal groups often give rise to small informal groups in any organization, and these informal groups do come up automatically as oppose to being pre-planned as is the case with formal groups. The environment within the organization always plays a part in the spontaneous development of the informal groups. Apparently, as earlier insinuated, there is no organization that operates strictly by the formal written rules. The interactive relationship between…