Relationship of Police Department Size to Quality of Police Services Term Paper

Relationship of Police Department Size to Quality of Police Services (US) - Term Paper Example e capabilities of the police force to efficiently and timely monitor, detect and prevent the unlawful activities in order to maintain the rule of law (Cordner, et al, p54). The main functions of police include the protection of the life and property of the civilians, maintenance of law and order, enforcement of the criminal law, to conduct criminal investigation, to control the crowd and to perform various other duties to assure public safety. (Brudeur, et al, 1992) The successful performance of all these duties requires proper management, resource allocation, training as well as the appropriate ratio of police force to the area population. The quality of the police service tends to be affected from the size of police force because if the numbers of policemen are insufficient to cover the designated area, there is always a possibility that the police force would not be able to perform their duties in effective manner. The research paper aims to investigate the relationship between the size of the police department to the quality of police services in United States. In this regard, the paper identifies the main qualities that affirm the effectiveness of the policing services. The paper also provides an overview to the structure and organization of police in United States and proceeds to analyze the relationship of the size of the police department with its service quality. It is revealed that along with appropriate size, there are number of other factors that could affect the quality of police service like proper training of policemen, management and organization of police structure and use of latest investigative technologies. The essay compares the Los Angeles city police department with New York City Police department in order to identify the relationship between the service quality of the police and department size. The case of Hurricane Katrina is also described as an example that illustrates the effects of having lesser police force to control more area and