Recent Book: Police Planning
| Published date | 01 January 1959 |
| Date | 01 January 1959 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X5903200113 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
By this
book
Dr. Harrison has raised to a new, high level the subiect of
document examination. Readers will appreciate the clear and unambiguous
nature
of its style, and all
that
has
been included in it has been
put
to the
test of practice, in
many
cases over aperiod of years.
By forensic scientists, solicitors, barristers, police
authorities-by
all who
in any way are likely to be concerned with suspect
documents-this
book
will be greeted with acclamation as one surely to be recognised as a
standing, and lasting, authority.
F.G.T.
O. W.
WILSON:
Police Planning. 2nd Edition. Blackwell Scientific Publi-
cations. 63s.
I
WOULD
find it easier to give British police officers an idea of the value
and importance of this book, if there existed a
book
with similar scope and
intentions published in this country; but there doesn't. Its scope is wide,
and
it offers a detailed analysis of the whole
art
and science of police
planning and organisation, with special reference to all
manner
of awkward
decisions and judgments
that
the police chief
or
his senior staff may expect
to have to make.
The
arrangement of the
book
is interesting, and its production
excellent-
as, indeed, it should be, at three guineas.
The
subject matter is divided
into
fifteen chapters, each dealing with a particular aspect of planning or
organisation-the
basic
nature
of
planning, functional organisation, terri-
torial organisation, patrol work, detective work, vice, traffic control, build-
ings and equipment, public relations, and so forth.
Each
chapter,
after
a
short preliminary discussion
of
the principles involved, goes on to pose, and
then to answer in an extremely careful and detailed manner, awhole series
of specific problems that the police chief or a
member
of his staff may
have
to solve. A
random
selection of problems may help to convey the
idea-
should the
Uniform
or the C.LD. be responsible
for
preventing
the
con-
tinuance of a series of crimes?
What
control should the officer in charge of
adivision have over specialists working in his division, such as traffic
patrols, C.LD. and so
on?
What
hours
are the best
for
the various reliefs,
and should there be overlapping reliefs? Is Sunday the best day
for
the
C.LD. rest
day?
Should the police organise club facilities to help prevent
juvenile delinquency? Should the investigation of traffic accidents be left
to the traffic department?
Should
forces maintain a single fingerprint
collection? Should an officer have to buy his own uniform and his own
gun?
How
should officers be selected
for
promotion?
What
should be
put
into
the
Instruction Book?
By a careful perusal of all these neatly argued problems and answers,
the reader should become able, or so
the
dust jacket tells us,
"to
make
correct decisions in any and all problems likely to arise; the
author
has
left nothing to chance."
Nor, would we add, to nature.
For
what a cold
and
cheerless force does
the
author
enrol us into, as we plough through
the
turgid and wordy pages
before us (why is it,
one
wonders,
that
in the United States they seem to
prefer a long word to a short one?). One is no
doubt
impressed by the
thoroughness of the approach and the arguments used;
but
one
is chilled by
the clinical conclusions so often reached.
Here
is police science, we feel,
produced, so to speak, in a test-tube,
rather
than
by the rough
and
tumble
of
real people in real back-streets. When we read
"the
area and population
density of the community influence
the
need
for
ageographical decentralisa-
tion of one
or
more
police functions and the extent of the desirable
specialisation" we feel we
must
agree with the soundness of the point of
view, but do we really
care?
But give us a New
Town
in one corner of
the county, and we'll jolly soon see
about
covering the ground.
Does it all matter?
Can
police work
ever
be reduced to a science,
from
the
art
it really is? I
doubt
it. As I peer down the dingy Victorian obscurities
of
my
own
patent corridor linen-cupboard filing system, I may wish
that
enough money was forthcoming to replace it with nice neat steel cabinets,
round the walls of an enlarged office; but at least we find it cosy, which is
more
than
Mr. Wilson's ideal
headquarters
sounds. Even the pleasant
64 The Police Journal
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