Product Description

For courses in Police Supervision, Human or Organizational Behavior, and Ethics.

 

Using an exploratory and interactive structure, this introduction to police supervision covers all the latest supervisory concepts and practices with an emphasis on character, teamwork, and conflict resolution. Boasting a 15-responsibility organization, the Sixth Edition implements self-discipline, self-restraint, & self-reliant through Team Fundamentals, Team Development, and Teamwork.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #362802 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From the Publisher
A practical book which covers all the latest supervisory concepts and practices, and encourages the reader to think and then behave as a supervisor.

From the Inside Flap
PREFACE

This, the fourth edition, continues to represent the police supervisor's role as a set of integrated responsibilities. This has been and, in all likelihood, will be an enduring theme for future editions.

As in past editions, all fifteen responsibilities are formatted as chapters. Each one of the responsibilities has been modified, some considerably. more than others. A few have been retitled to reflect a thematic emphasis on teamwork.

I realize that the term "team" is overused to the point that today some find it trite. I toyed with the words "partner," "collaborative," "consensual," "seamless," and others. "Teamwork" prevailed, as you'll soon see in the three major sections: Team Basics, Team Building, and Teamwork.

Team Basics provides the infrastructure for contemporary police work—community-oriented policing. These chapters deal with constancy and integrity of purpose—values, ethics, and vision—and with the allocation of the requisite time to communicate all three. The chapters on ethics and vision contain a lot of new material.

Team Building starts with a supervisor's responsibility for serving as a team leader. This naturally encompasses motivating, empowering, and training one's staff, while ensuring that everyone is mentally and physically well. The two chapters on team leadership and motivation are essentially new.

Teamwork includes organizing for action, measuring the results of that action, rectifying mistakes, and making certain that community-oriented policing works. I am convinced that it takes teamwork to make it work. Finally, the supervisor is challenged to sense incoming demands or needs for change. Significant updatings are found in the chapters on performance appraisal and conflict resolution.

Being a police supervisor is much more than having more pay, more authority, more influence, more status, and the like, It is much more a set of vital responsibilities, as you will soon discover in the chapters that follow.

I would like to thank Joe Sandoval of Metropolitan State College, Sgt. Twan Uptgrow of the Metro-Dade Police Department, and Sgt. Marc Deluca of the Charlotte Police Department for reviewing the manuscript. My warmest thanks to Kim Davies, Senior Editor, Prentice Hall, who coached and inspired me during the writing of this edition; Pat David and Julie Schmidt, who expertly typed and critically edited the manuscript; and, finally, my longtime prized teammate and wise co-author, George Rush, who said, "Be a big boy. Write this one by yourself."

Paul Whisenand
San Clemente, California

From the Back Cover

• uniquely updated and designed for the existing or prospective supervisor in a police agency.
• ideally suited for college and academy courses devoted to police supervision and human relations.
• newly formatted to cover the foundational subjects of values, ethics and mission.
• a fresh look at the interplay of human communications, trust, empowerment and team leadership.
• a preview of the next phase of community-oriented policing.
• a commonsense approach to handling problem police employees.

All of the above and much more is compacted into highly readable and definitely useful set of 15 supervisory responsibilities. Combined, they offer keys for you to become both police supervisor and police leaders.

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Customer Reviews

Supervising Police Personnel
This book is entirly overwritten. It is very listy, for example, It tells you that there is 6 characteristics of a well written report. Then in the very next line he tells of the 6 different types of reports. Then he goes further to break down each type of report and explain what they are and why they are used. The ideas are notable. However the book's content is poorly written and is more for the overall manager not specific to police services. And yes, one needs to do the job before one can write about it.

Tiresome, windy, unrealistic, list happy
This guy is out of his mind. A very frustrating read which makes U.S Army technical manuals seem fascinating. Mr. Whisenand is an obvious scholar, but I fear his "book of lists" does not translate all that well to actual human beings. In addition, I found the section on "community oriented policing" especially overblown. He fails to consider the prosecutorial implications of stating that "long and detailed reports are turnoffs to many people" (page 331, paragraph 1), they're turnoffs to defense attornies too!
Again, an extremely intelligent man and dilligent social scientist, but this book is horrible.

This book is utterly useless
If you need this book to tell you that you should have ethics and values, then maybe you shouldn't be in law enforcement in the first place.

I don't know how many ways Mr. Whisenand has to say the same thing OVER AND OVER AGAIN. 319 pages? The same points could have been made in about 70. Maybe the publisher had a minimum page requirement for Mr. Whisenand. It's a bit hypocritical as Mr. Whisenand writes on page 89 that "A concise report expresses all the necessary information in as few words as possible..." He should practice what he preaches.

Which leads me to my next point. What is Mr. Whisenand's real world law enforcement experience anyway? In the book, it lists that he was an officer with the LAPD and a reserve deputy sheriff with the Orange County Sheriff's Department. Curiously, no where does it list how many years he did at each or the ranks he held. He also does not relate any of his own experiences as a PO, only that of others. Hmmmmm...

I only gave this a rating of one star because it won't let you put in zero stars.