A police captain in a large city has a problem. Use the Rational Choice Decision-Making Model to solve the Captain’s problem.
The police captain laments:
I’ve got a real problem with my officers. They come on the force as young, inexperienced rookies and we send them out on the street, either in cars or on a beat. They seem to like the contact they have with the public, the action involved in crime prevention, and the apprehension of criminals. They also like helping people out at fires, accidents, and other emergencies.
The problem occurs when they get back to the station. They hate to do the paperwork, and because they dislike it, the job is frequently put off or done inadequately. This lack of attention hurts us later on when we get to court. We need clear, factual reports. They must be highly detailed and unambiguous. As soon as one part of a report is shown to be inadequate or incorrect, the rest of the report is suspect. Poor reporting probably causes us to lose more cases than any other factor.
I just don’t know how to motivate them to do a better job. We’re in a budget crunch and I have absolutely no financial rewards at my disposal. In fact, we’ll probably have to lay some people off in the near future. It’s hard for me to make the job interesting and challenging because it isn’t—it’s boring, routine paperwork, and there isn’t much you can do about it.
Finally, I can’t say to them that their promotions will hinge on the excellence of their paperwork. First of all, they know it’s not true. If their performance is adequate, most are more likely to get promoted just by staying on the force a certain number of years than for some specific outstanding act. Second, they were trained to do the job they do out on the streets, not to fill out forms. All through their career it is the arrests and interventions that get noticed.
Some people have suggested a number of things, like using conviction records as a performance criterion. However, we know that’s not fair—too many other things are involved. Bad paperwork increases the chance that you lose in court, but good paperwork doesn’t necessarily mean you will win. We tried setting up team competition based upon the excellence of the reports, but the officers caught on to that pretty quickly. No one was getting any type of reward for winning the competition, and they figured why they should bust a gut when there was no payoff.
I just don’t know what to do.
- What solutions are currently working?
- Are there any ready- made solutions that can be adopted?
- Would a proprietary solution be the best option? If so what are the budget considerations for this approach?
- Who are the stakeholders that need to be considered in the development of this budget or potential solution?
- Remember to incorporate and consider the big picture; here relative to other people and their view as well as the impact the proposed solution will have on them; remove the typical; blinders; that go into problem solving and solution development and the; silo; approach.
