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Chicago Police Case Report

Decent Essays

Since taking office in 2011, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, has continually made promises to put additional police officers on the streets to help reduce the number of violent crimes plaguing the city. Many of those officers, he promised, would come from desk positions within the department which could then be filled by civilians. During his quest for re-election in 2015, he asserted that his administration had kept his vow of putting 1,000 additional officers on the street, with many of them coming from desk positions. However last month, while introducing his 2018 budget, the mayor surprisingly repeated his original pledge. Recent records obtained by ProPublica Illinois show the reason for the mayor’s repeated pledge. Over the last four …show more content…

It appears that they did not understand the importance of organizational structure, which, if done correctly, could have provided the mayor and more importantly, his voting constituents, the police services Chicago so badly needs, while saving tens of millions of dollars in the process. Analyzing a problem and implementing a solution are both part of the decision-making process. Starling (2011) states, “Simon maintains that the ‘task of deciding pervades the entire administrative organization quite as much as does the task of doing’ – indeed, it is integrally tied up with latter’” (p. 252). Obviously, the City of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department’s administration did not adequately address the steps necessary in effective decision making regarding this situation. When analyzing and identifying the problem, symptoms and root causes need to be identified. Citizens might wonder if the administration did not recognize that violent crime was rising because more patrol officers were moving to desk jobs. Several questions that remain unanswered include: Why are officers moving to desk jobs? Are desk jobs more desirable than street patrol? Are they a reward from middle management to favored employees? Are promotions as easy, or easier, from a desk position? Certainly, to get to the root of the problem, the underlying reasons for these actions must be determined. Management must analyze these reasons as they gather facts to

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