Important Part of Managing Law Enforcement Agency Essay Paper

Supervision is an important part of managing a law enforcement agency. Chapter 8 of the course textbook covers several supervision models used to effectively manage police operations. Span of Control is one of the models examined and it refers to identifying the appropriate number of employees that can be managed by any one supervisor (p. 227). Give your opinion regarding what is the appropriate span of control and explain your rationale.  Important Part of Managing Law Enforcement Agency Essay Paper
In most cases, careers in Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement exist, in some form of another at the Federal, State, and Local/County/City level and often in the private-sector. This week, research your selected position on USAJobs.gov, USCourts.gov(federal) or your state’s employment management system, local municipality’s employment management system, and Indeed.com (private-sector), and discuss the similarities and differences (example: salary, jurisdiction, scope of work, required skill and education, and promotion potential).

Span of control and practical reflection

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Span of control

Employee supervision makes use of different management models of which ‘span of control’ is one. In this case, ‘span of control’ refers to the number of subordinate personnel that can be effectively managed by a single supervisor. In fact, it is a relative concept that is dependent on individual supervisor capabilities, supervisory expectations, and environmental conditions. Firstly, a supervisor with greater capabilities and experience has the capacity to supervise more people that one with less capabilities and experience. Secondly, close supervision with regular updates allows for fewer subordinates in the span of control owing to time and effort constraints. Supervisory updates being required less often allows the supervisor to have more subordinates within the span of control. Finally, the environmental conditions include the geographical area size, capital investment and implications of non-performance. A large geographical area size, high capital investment and serious implications for non-performance restrict the supervisor to having fewer employees in the span of control with the reverse being equally true (Barney & Hesterly, 2014).

Practical reflection

The career of choice is psychological/criminal profiler. The job expectations involve criminal personal, behavioral and criminal profiling to help investigators in developing profiles for violent criminals such as rapists and murderers who have not been apprehended. This career has opportunities with the government as a FBI special agent working out of Quantico, Virginia at the National Analysis of Violent Crime. The private sector also employs psychological profilers as criminologists and statisticians who advice investigators on unsolved cases, possible targets about potential threats, and teaching them on how to manage cases even as they identify indicators of criminal behavior. Working as a psychological profiler requires the individual to have a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice or psychology, and a post-graduate degree in a psychology related field. In addition, there is a need for certified training in crime typologies, interviewing skills, legal issues, crime scene analysis, human behavior, forensic pathology, forensics, and criminal investigations. Skills requires for the job include critical thinking using reasoning and logic, analytical skills, strong intuition, emotional detachment, active listening, complex problem solving, organization, and attention to detail. Once employed, a criminal profiler earns between $65,000 and $100,000 every year with most of them earning $73,000 every year. The promotion potential for psychological profilers is typically dependent on education and performance at work (Discover Criminal Justice, 2019).

References

Barney, J. & Hesterly, W. (2014). Strategic Management and competitive advantage concepts and cases. London: Pearson Education Limited.

Discover Criminal Justice (2019). Career profile: becoming a criminal profiler. Retrieved from https://discovercriminaljustice.com/career-profiles/criminal-profiler/#context/api/listings/prefilter . Important Part of Managing Law Enforcement Agency Essay Paper