Strategic Planning

Strategic planning has become a popular movement in the public sector since the U.S. Congress passed the Government Performance and Results Act in 1993. Section 3 of this act stipulated that all federal departments would have a strategic plan in place by September 30, 1997. Strategic planning has become a fixture of many publicly administered organizations, including law enforcement agencies. U.S. police departments have made significant strides in the past two decades in creating strategic plans for their organizations. In the context of police agencies, strategic planning is a process initiated by top managers that sets goals and identifies steps to achieve success, taking into account personnel and budgetary resources.

The community policing movement has incorporated strategic planning as a key element of its philosophy. Different from previous reforms in the history of U.S. policing, community policing represents an overhaul of almost every facet of an agency’s public safety mission, including community mobilization, innovative programs, and philosophical change. A primary feature of this contemporary reform concerns the use of the concept of planned change, in the implementation and evaluation of innovative activities such as reorientation of patrol and managerial innovations (e.g., employee empowerment). CompStat, with its primary emphasis on controlling crime geographically, is another example of planning strategically in order to make the best use of limited organizational resources. In addition, police organizations across the United States have developed long-term plans for fighting terrorism and responding to crisis situations. Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies across the nation claim that they have adopted a variety of strategic planning processes. This entry describes how police agencies have implemented strategic planning and the models they have used for employee participation.