Thoughts on implementation of Quality Management System in a Police Department

[Randy]

Nice Thread and interesting. Can it be done? Oh yeah and as pointed out, it already has and is. One problem I do have as may have been indicated is the background of the auditor of which I am probably one of the very, very few 3rd party types that has actually been a law enforcement officer and in senior/executive management of a law enforcement agency, much the same as I am with the military.

The biggest hurdle any LEA will have is the Executive buy-in, police chiefs are notorious when it comes to encroachment on their authority and digging around their organization, and the police officer himself is almost unapproachable unless it can be shown that you're a member of the club, no if's, and' or but's..."Unless you're one of us, you're one of them and I don't care who sent you for what"...and if they have a Police Union, "tough s#it, you ain't talking to our members". You had better be able to walk the walk and talk the talk and show then some scars.

Because of legal issues, court restrictions, US civil issues concerning privacy, Constitutional Rights and other things, looking at some records or whatever ain't going to happen, no how, no way.

Now could a QMS help a LEA be more efficient? Oh heck yeah. Could a QMS help a LEA be more effective? The jury is out on that one.

 

[Peter Fraser]

Who is the "the customer" in this case...?

 

[Randy]

Who is the "the customer" in this case...?

Peter this is one of the best questions that could be asked.

Another would be, "By what measure would customer satisfaction be based?" A vast majority of the time most folks that have dealings with a law enforcement agency aren't happy with the relationship or the police officer (I have physical scars to prove it)

And another would be, "What exactly is the product?" Protect & Serve? Protect & Serve who, what, how? What actually is protection and what really constitutes service? I'd be less than honest if I didn't say that protection and service to one is not protection and service to another.

As a law enforcement officer I can say the we all struggled with these 3 questions on a daily basis

 

[John Broomfield]

Who is the "the customer" in this case...?

Peter Fraser,

The customers of the police include:

• Vulnerable people - do they feel safe or do they fear crime?
• Suspects - are they treated with respect and given access to justice?
• Communities - to what extent are they encouraged to help the police?

It should be easy enough for the police to gather feedback from these sources.

John

 

[JaneB]

Who is the "the customer" in this case...?

I don't know in USA, but in Australia it would be the State Minister for Police, who is their minister, and answers directly to Parliament on them.
All the other parties I'd deem as interested parties and/or in some cases 'end users', but unless Police Department answers to them directly, not a direct customer.
Agree, it's not as straight forward as a commercial business. But surely, similar issues come up with a manufacturer who doesn't sell directly to the end user, but sells to a third party (distributor, agent etc) who does the actual sale to their customers. I'd argue there that whoever buys the product from the manufacturer is the customer, and the end users are the people who ultimately pay the bills. Ignore them at one's peril.

But again, it's not unique. Other government bodies, departments and NGOs (NonGovernment Organisations) have similar issues, and similarly for some commercial businesses as well.

 

[Randy]

The customer answer is the easiest answer of all...Society as a whole is the customer...

As for satisfaction, that's a constant variable that changes with the tides.

Product also will change as often as the second hand on a watch

The expectations of what we did, how we did it for the reasons we did it 40 years ago are so far from acceptable today that it defies description...But apparently we achieved customer satisfaction of sorts.

 

[Peter Fraser]

Since this is in an ISO9001-related forum, I wondered how concepts such as "customer requirements / expectations", "customer communication", "customer property", "customer feedback", "customer-related processes" are interpreted if "customer" is variously thought of as "society", "local government", possibly "national government", "suspects", "criminals", "victims"...

Must make defining the QMS, and audit and assessment, a challenge?

 

[Antonio Vieira]

Thats true Antonio, but that does not prevent Police Department to go in for ISO 9001 ... confidentiality can be addressed seperately through contractual agreements !

ISO 9001 can help develop the quality system requirements in the Police Department

I agree.
The only thing I find new in this subject is that the normal approach of a consultant must be completely different.
Here, when building a operational procedure, you can?t ask the normal ?how do you perform this activity? because in almost all of them you will hear ?that?s classified?.
I didn?t say it can?t be done, after doing this in Hospitals, where Medical activities (especially records) are all confidential, I don?t this will be more difficult?

 

[Randy]

I agree.
The only thing I find new in this subject is that the normal approach of a consultant must be completely different.
Here, when building a operational procedure, you can?t ask the normal ?how do you perform this activity? because in almost all of them you will hear ?that?s classified?.
I didn?t say it can?t be done, after doing this in Hospitals, where Medical activities (especially records) are all confidential, I don?t this will be more difficult?

A big problem is a procedure being "classified" it's either done by "gut instinct" or in a way that circumvents what many believe to be "lawful" conduct. You can't write down "gut instinct" in a procedure because guesses, SWAGs, and playing hunches can't be quantified.

There are many that think a "sting" is contrary to "lawful" conduct because it offers up opportunity for the criminal to act unlawfully. Sometimes covert methods of law enforcement (undercover) are considered unlawful because in order to do it well the "agent" may himself have to violate laws during its conduct.

As I said, unless you've done it you have no idea what's involved and if you go into an agency without having been a member of the club don't expect too much cooperation from the ranks in many cases

 

[John Broomfield]

I see now why loyalty to department usually trumps respect for process.