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83 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 338 (1992-1993)
Institutional Perspective on Policing

handle is hein.journals/jclc83 and id is 348 raw text is: 0091-4169/92/8302-0338 THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY Vol. 83, No. 2 Copyright 0 1992 by Northwestern University, School of Law Printed in USA. AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF POLICING JOHN P. CRANK* AND ROBERT LANGWORTHY** ABSTRACT This article suggests that American municipal police departments are highly institutionalized organizations and should be studied in terms of how their formal structure and activities are shaped by power- ful myths in their institutional environment. The incorporation of powerful myths into the structure and activities of police departments enables them to attain legitimacy; with legitimacy comes stability and protection from outside interference by powerful sovereign actors who are present in the enveloping institutional environment. However, le- gitimacy problems arising from conflicting institutional myths may precipitate full-blown organizational crises. Such police department crises are resolved ceremonially through a ritual that combines the public degradation of the department and the removal and replace- ment of the disgraced police chief by a new chief with a legitimating mandate. I. INTRODUCTION A. OVERVIEW This article is about the institutional environment of American municipal police departments and the way in which that environ- ment influences the departments' organization and activity. This in- stitutional orientation differs from the normative focus of traditional theories of police department organization. This normative focus has concentrated on rational considerations of efficiency and effec- tiveness of police departments' organizational structures, policies and operational strategies as gauged by technical outputs, such as the production of arrests.' In contrast, the institutional perspective presented here focuses on powerful myths produced by broad processes in a police depart- * Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. ** Department of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati. 1 See LARRY K. GAINES ET AL., POLICE ADMINISTRATION (1991); ORLANDO W. WILSON & Roy C. MCLAREN, POLICE ADMINISTRATION (4th ed. 1977). 338

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