Rixton Case Study Summary

In the “Rixton” case study there is obviously issues with the department itself from the top to the bottom of the department. The chain of command is not enforced properly which creates further issues when concerning “authority-level principles” from being applied to issues that present themselves. The initial depiction of this department starts with the description of the small size of the police force (36) and generally small city it serves (16,000) while also introducing the top cop, the highest level of their police department, Chief Walter Eager (Cordner, 2016). It would be easy to assume a smaller department would be easier to maintain and produce high quality problem free police services, but that would be a mistaken assumption in this case.
This could be a positive thing in some departments but it doesn’t appear to be the case in Rixton. This Chief is not a capable administrator which in some ways can be attributed to the departments lack of leadership development which is shown further in this case study. Chief Eager chooses not to embrace the command structure and common administrative techniques such as well thought out and disseminated policy and procedure. By simply tacking up departmental policy changes on a cork board loaded down with old cluttered information. This implies to the lower officers that this is not important, if it were important their chief and or supervisors would instruct them on what the changes were or what they meant. The chain of command aspect being ignored here is the need for clear and concise communication from the top of the department to the officers and back to the top. The method of communication being used is neither formal nor is it using the supervisors or middle management to push new policies or