Change or be changed: Diagnosing the readiness to change in the Canadian police sector
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X17740317 |
| Author | Michael Halinski,Linda Duxbury,Steven Murphy,Craig Bennell |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Change or be changed:
Diagnosing the readiness
to change in the Canadian
police sector
Linda Duxbury
Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Craig Bennell
Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Michael Halinski and Steven Murphy
Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada
Abstract
Concerns have emerged over the readiness of police agencies to adapt to change. To
better understand why this might be the case, we used Lewin’s theory of change and an
emic methodology to investigate the internal and external forces for and against change
within this sector. Using a qualitative methodology we analysed the data from 103
interviews with key police and community stakeholders to identify the drivers and
barriers to planned change. Examination of the resulting force field diagram revealed
that: (1) community stakeholders feel the forces for change exceed the barriers, while
police stakeholders perceive the reverse, (2) strong drivers of change are largely
external to the police service, (3) key barriers to change were internal to the police
service, and (4) police culture is a strong barrier to change. We end by offering
suggestions on how this information can be used to manage change in this sector better.
Keywords
Policing, police sustainability, change management, force field analysis
Corresponding author:
Linda Duxbury, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, 915 Dunton Tower, Ottawa, ON, K1 S 5B6,
Canada.
Email: linda.duxbury@carleton.ca
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2018, Vol. 91(4) 316–338
ªThe Author(s) 2017
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0032258X17740317
journals.sagepub.com/home/pjx
Over the past several years, serious concern has emerged in many Western economies
over the future and sustainability of public policing. As Hoggett et al. note: ‘It would be
hard to find a police service anywhere in the world today that is not alive to the
imperative of change’ (2013: 7). Canada is no different. Key stakeholders in the Cana-
dian policing community – including police leaders (Gruson, 2011), police associations
(CPA, 2012), police governance bodies, governments (FCM, 2012a, 2012b), external
think tanks (CCA, 2014) and the public – have expressed serious concern about the
sustainability of policing in general, with a significant emphasis being given to the
economics of policing (Fantino, 2011). Data, which show that police budgets are
growing at a faster rate than total public expenditures and GDP (Fantino, 2011; FCM,
2012a; 2012b), have been used by policy-makers and the public to inform the debate
and push for change. Others (e.g., CCA, 2014) have supplemented this discussion by
identifying a range of internal and external forces which, they claim, require Canadian
police services to change their structures and practices so as to better align with these
new realities.
Internal drivers of change that have been noted in the literature (CPA, 2012; CCA,
2014; Gruson, 2011) include: high rates of retirement resulting in the loss of experience
and corporate memory; reduction in the average level of experience among operational
officers; increased time and costs spent on the recruitment, retention, training and eva-
luation of officers; operating below mandate d complements with little likelihood of
correction; under-representation of women and minorities; technology; and increased
costs/decreased efficiencies due to increases in absenteeism, stress and work-life conflict
and decreased staff morale. Pressures for change are also arising from external sources as
police agencies need new skills and resources to respond to issues related to national
security and international terrorism (FCM, 2012a); cyber bullying, internet fraud, iden-
tity theft, child pornography and credit card fraud (Stephens, 2005); public unrest and
riots; organised crime; the needs of marginalised populations, including the eld erly,
Aboriginal people, the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill and the chronically unem-
ployed or unemployable; changes in the law; and demands for greater cost-effectiveness
by police service boards (CCA, 2014).
While many Canadian police services have made efforts to adapt to their evolving
context, the inventory of pressures described above requires that they undertake change
of a more transformational nature to deal effectively with these shifting operational and
organisational demands (CCA, 2014). While change in this sector is necessary, urgent
and imminent, implementing planned change within the Canadian police context will be
challenging as there is little agreement between key stakeholders on who will have to
change and how, and which actors should be driving this process. Nor could we find any
evidence that the necessary change diagnostics had been undertaken at a national level to
inform this issue. This is unfortunate given research showing that sound diagnostics are
critical to successful change as they contribute to problem solving and action (Burke,
2011; Burnes, 2004; Phillips, 2013). These concerns, along with the fact that there does
not currently appear to be a process or route to follow to address them, provide the
impetus for our study, which seeks to identify the key drivers and barriers to planned
change within the Canadian police sector from a multi-stakeholder perspective. The
results from this study are likely to be of interest to police agencies and governments
Duxbury et al. 317
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