Week 1 Defining the Safety Management System Several years ago, during my short time as a football coach, I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to legendary coach, Eddie Robinson. He spoke about the importance of a system. Coach Robinson relayed the experience of being thrust into the helm at Grambling. He had been informed of how simple minded his athletes would be and the difficulty of running plays and defensive schemes. Well, if you watched Grambling State during the Robinson era, you would see anything but a simple offensive scheme. Instead you would see multiple formations, motions, audibles, and an attack that could change and adapt midstream. It was his system that enabled the team to understand and execute his plan. In other words, it learned from its experiences. A safety system must have the same characteristics. It has to be able to adapt procedures and policies at a pace which allows it to manage the outcomes that are associated with the tasks of the organization. In order to accomplish this it must: 1. Collect relevant statistics and information (facts) 2. Organize and analyze the data (investigate) 3. Implement countermeasures 4. Monitor changes, and 5. Communicate with all the components. A safety management system must be comprehensive in order to allow the organization to learn from its experience. The goal of a management system is to implement a chosen strategy by allocating resources at critical tasks (Kausek, 2007). A system is defined as a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, that form a whole. The whole is the operating process that governs the core activities mentioned above. The structure of the system is defined from its processes. It is further described as “open” or “closed.” A closed system operates by itself without interaction from other entities or inputs. “Open” describes a system which interacts with entities in an environment. Safety is an “open” system. It has many customers that have input to it and then it produces an output or service to the customer. We can further describe systems as high functioning or low functioning. This refers to the exchange of information between the inputs and the system. In other words safety is an “open” and “highly functional” system. Safety continually exchanges feedback to its inputs in order to maintain close alignment. So, it collects data, analyzes it, adapts to it, coordinates change, and then resets to do it again. A simple schematic of this exchange could be drawn in this manner. In this basic schematic you can see that safety has closely aligned inputs. This drawing can be made better. Missing is the names of the customers and the services or outputs that safety produces to each. A systematic approach encompasses all levels of an organization. The functions can be spread among each level or among its inputs, if so structured. This helps in implementing the change and directing its continuation. But the bigges.

1. Week 1
Defining the Safety Management System
Several years ago, during my short time as a football
coach, I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to legendary
coach, Eddie Robinson. He spoke about the importance of a
system. Coach Robinson relayed the experience of being thrust
into the helm at Grambling. He had been informed of how
simple minded his athletes would be and the difficulty of
running plays and defensive schemes. Well, if you watched
Grambling State during the Robinson era, you would see
anything but a simple offensive scheme. Instead you would see
multiple formations, motions, audibles, and an attack that could
change and adapt midstream. It was his system that enabled the
team to understand and execute his plan. In other words, it
learned from its experiences.
A safety system must have the same characteristics. It has
to be able to adapt procedures and policies at a pace which
allows it to manage the outcomes that are associated with the
tasks of the organization. In order to accomplish this it must:
1. Collect relevant statistics and information (facts)
2. Organize and analyze the data (investigate)
3. Implement countermeasures
4. Monitor changes, and
5. Communicate with all the components.
A safety management system must be comprehensive in
order to allow the organization to learn from its experience. The
goal of a management system is to implement a chosen strategy
by allocating resources at critical tasks (Kausek, 2007). A
system is defined as a set of interacting or interdependent
entities, real or abstract, that form a whole. The whole is the

2. operating process that governs the core activities mentioned
above.
The structure of the system is defined from its processes.
It is further described as “open” or “closed.” A closed system
operates by itself without interaction from other entities or
inputs. “Open” describes a system which interacts with entities
in an environment. Safety is an “open” system. It has many
customers that have input to it and then it produces an output or
service to the customer.
We can further describe systems as high functioning or low
functioning. This refers to the exchange of information between
the inputs and the system. In other words safety is an “open”
and “highly functional” system. Safety continually exchanges
feedback to its inputs in order to maintain close alignment. So,
it collects data, analyzes it, adapts to it, coordinates change, and
then resets to do it again.
A simple schematic of this exchange could be drawn in this
manner.
In this basic schematic you can see that safety has closely
aligned inputs. This drawing can be made better. Missing is the
names of the customers and the services or outputs that safety
produces to each.
A systematic approach encompasses all levels of an
organization. The functions can be spread among each level or
among its inputs, if so structured. This helps in implementing
the change and directing its continuation. But the biggest
advantage of a systems approach comes in the area of time
management. Safety professionals can get caught up in crisis
mode. This is a condition where the activities are overwhelmed
by reactive investigations of incidents. Insufficient time for

3. implementing countermeasures or proactive activities then leads
to more reactive activities. This downward spiral becomes
difficult to reverse. The systematic approach attempts to
balance reactive and proactive activities in order to prevent a
downward turn of safety.
The model of safety that we are exploring would like this:
Organization Structure
Leadership
Resources
Culture
The center represents our core activities. The headings viewed
in this typical risk management model would comprise of a
complete reporting system and of a self-assessment system for
identifying the risks and hazards. The statistics kept for
recordkeeping and the subsequent identification of cause with
our investigations will allow us to analyze the risk or hazard.
System safety analysis, Process Safety Management and all
investigations produce countermeasures. Implementing the
solution and then re-assessing the solution allows us to stay in
touch with environment and adjust our policies, procedures, and
training. Of course, all of these are influenced by the variables
you see surrounding the core and additionally, the values and
manner that the core activities are carried out will influence the
variables.
If the entire schematic were surrounded with the system’s
inputs or customers and the system’s outputs were identified
this would be the complete schematic of safety as a whole
system. This course will address you filling in the blanks that I
have left for this model. By course end you should have an idea
of the values and activities that you will display or perform in
your safety system.

4. Completing the Schematic of Safety
The core duties of safety can be said to encompass
identifying hazards, assessing the risk of the hazard,
investigating the hazard or occurrence to produce a
countermeasure, implement the change, or counter, and to
assess the counter for effectiveness. These duties are impacted
positively or negatively by the organization’s structure,
leadership ability and style, resource allocation, and culture.
These core duties and the variables that impact it are central in
our vision of safety as a system. These produce the value
services that safety provides to its customers, or inputs.
You will be tasked this week with identifying the various
customers that provide input to safety. These customers
surround the safety bubble of core duties and impacting
variables. In other words, take the simple schematic from above
with safety in the middle and unidentified inputs orbiting it, and
replace safety with the schematic of core duties and variables.
The next step will be to identify the value propositions, or
services that safety provides to these customers. Place the
services or the top services beneath the relevant customer. You
now have a solid picture that defines safety for the specific
organization. This visual will go a long way in establishing
meaning through symbolism. It provides a quick visual
definition of safety to all members of the organization.
Management system standards divide the components or
tools for the system we have pictured into three types of
components. These components are:
1. Core processes, which produce the services in our system,
2. Supporting processes, which provide direct input to the core
processes, or measure the results of the core processes, and
3. System supporting processes which protect the integrity of

5. the system as a whole (Kausek, 2007).
We have already defined most of the core processes or duties of
safety. The supporting processes include programs such as
hazard recognition and reporting, or the tracking of measures
for success for outputs, which are encompassed in the goals and
objectives that safety and the organization have produced.
System supporting processes include document control, program
effectiveness audits, division of responsibilities, and system
auditing.
As we progress through the course you will see where
specific components fit into the overall system as core,
supporting, or system supporting.
ID Hazards
AnalyzeRisk
Produce Countermeasure
Implement Countermeasure
RE-assess Countermeasure

6. safety
input
input
input
input
OSH 410
Week 1 Lesson 3
Management Standards as a Guide
Management standards such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001,

7. OHSAS18001, or Z-10 are meant to be vague guidelines that
provide the infrastructure to a safety management system. There
are 4 basic elements to any formal management programs:
1. Management Commitment
2. Hazard Identification, analysis, and control,
3. Hazard communication,
4. Employee involvement and training (Kausek, 2007).
The safety program at any organization has these common
elements. Do not confuse the term program with a safety
compliance program. We are referring to the overall safety
program. This is one reason why I personally refer to individual
compliance programs as “initiatives.” But from these common
elements is evident that tow levels of culture can exist within
the same organization or location. A level of management
commitment can contrast with the level of employee
participation. If we measure the two we can measure the safety
culture at an organization more accurately than traditional
measures of performance.
The most definite measure of management commitment is
the allocation of resources for correcting deficiencies. Any
investigation, regardless of type, such as audit, hazard report, or
injury investigation, produce a countermeasure in order to
prevent the repeat of the occurrence. In order for the
countermeasure to be implemented, all necessary resources must
be allocated. This is the bottom line measure for business
people. Business people typically talk in terms of dollars.
Safety professionals must also learn to speak in this manner
rather than relying on the leadership and humanity side of
motivation for safety commitment. This means producing break
even points and returns on investment for proposed safety
projects. If it is important to business it is measured directly or
indirectly to dollars. Hence, a closed audit, or implemented
countermeasure, indicates management commitment. Looking at
the overall number of closed versus open countermeasures is an
accurate measure of management commitment. Other measures
such as committee membership, budget numbers, or

8. implemented standards can be misleading.
Some standard definitions may not meet your
organization’s needs or fit well with your developed policies.
For example; the term accident is defined in OHSAS 18001 as
an undesirable event that leads to injury, death, ill health, or
other loss. The term “accident” is surrounded by misuse and
misconception from the beginning of workplace safety
initiatives. This term was not used in my own system for
defining levels or categories of events. Therefore, you might
adopt your own definitions and tweak any standard of
management systems as being used as a guide and not adopted
verbatim if that fits your needs better.
Another good example surrounds negative connotations of
definitions such as accidents. The word itself hints at the event
not being foreseeable or preventable when in fact, it was and
the true meaning was that the result was not intended. It also
influences safety professionals to assume that events are never
intentional and therefore they might miss early attempts,
violations, or signs of workplace violence. In Human
Performance applications to workplace safety, organizations are
encouraged to look at what the organization is doing well, in
order to set a standard and adopt best practices that actually are
shown to be effective. Therefore, terms such as failure must be
used rather than accident, to signify the negative connotation of
risk. Successes or workstations and processes with little to no
failure must also be examined in order to identify common
elements that the organization is experiencing, in order to
systematically adopt standards of design or practice.
Management standards like ISO 14001 and 18001 and
ANSI Z-10 are designed around Deming’s Plan, Do, Check, and
Act model. The diagram below shows the relation to Deming’s
systems management model.
(Copied from Kausek, 2007)
PDCA provides a visual model for your management system

9. design. The activities can be developed around meeting all of
the PDCA activities shown above. Following this design allows
for continuous improvement as it collects performance data and
allows for management review of the data (Manuele, 2008).
All management systems should have at minimum planning
components, operations, corrective action components, an
improvement process, and support processes. Basically your
system must continually identify workplace hazards and assess
the risk. It must then deploy controls, assess or monitor
countermeasures for effectiveness, tweak the countermeasures
for maximum effectiveness, and then have support processes
such as documentation and tracking methods. In other words it
is a continuous investigations program. Identifying hazards,
assessing the risk proactively or reactively are investigations.
Examples include: JHA’s, audits, injury investigations,
workstation assessment, behavior observations and many more
are examples of investigations.
The Planning and Implementation of the System
This topic is a semester in itself and the information is
being added to supplement your vision of the system and the
steps to developing it and then implementing. The figure below
shows the development flow that Kausek recommends for
implementing OHSAS 18001 initiatives.
(Reprinted from: Kausek, 2007)
This chart shows steps in development and launch of a job
hazard analysis initiative for a safety management system from
planning, design, deployment, and improvement stages.

10. It may also be helpful to place or track project
implementation on an Excel document that might resemble the
example that Kausek provides in the figure below.
(Reprinted from Kausek,2007)
Change in an organization is difficult. The overall process
can be listed as:
Identifying the drivers of change, Organize and plan the change,
Evaluate the current situation, Develop the implementation
project, Communicate the change to all levels, Implementation
of the project, assess and improve the plan. The process is an
ongoing circle of continual improvement that hinges on
organizational learning.
Kotter covers the steps of organizational change in his
book, “Leading Change.” Key to the success in the steps is use
of key advocates, connecting change agents, and avoiding those
that oppose change no matter what. His Steps for Organizational
Change are:
1. Create a sense of urgency,
2. Form the guiding team,
3. Develop the vision and strategy,
4. Communicate for understanding and buy-in,
5. Empower others to act,
6. Produce short term wins,
7. Do not let up,
8. Create a new culture (Kotter, 1999).
The steps can be much more complex and are covered better in
OSH 412. For instance, creating a sense of urgency relies on
educating key members of the organization and being able in
safety to produce break even points and show returns on

11. investment in terms that show a true need and later produce
buy-in.
Next in the course we will cover an overall management
philosophy by studying Crosby’s Zero Defects and then using
the core elements of Community Oriented Policing to give a
foundation or vision and strategy for system design and
implementation.
The second step of the course will be to develop a
communications plan and a hazard recognition program. Metrics
will then be covered that will measure performance for the
organization. Then we will develop incident investigation
forms, a failure modes and effects analysis form, and finally
key components of an audit system.
OSH 410
Week 1 Lesson 2
The Case for Systematic Management
Safety provides many value propositions that benefit the
workforce and the company concurrently. These include reduced
worker’s compensation costs, increased morale, increased
productivity, improved market value of the organization,
recruitment of more qualified personnel, and in the end the
bottom line. A comprehensive management system facilitates
the success of safety in these values propositions and in many
others. But a system is vital for sustainable leadership efforts.
Good leaders begin preparing for their own absence on day
1. They begin developing the skill and talent of those around
them by empowering them to make decisions as their skills and
talents develop. They develop the readiness of their team and
begin to delegate the duties to subordinate teammates. A system
makes this possible. An established system provides a clear path
to the necessary tasks and divides the skills required in a way
that allows a good manager to focus talents and skills in the
most efficient places. So, as safety personnel are promoted,

12. leave, or are absent for whatever reason, the team is more cross
functional and able to fill the gap.
This also means that gains made by the organization are
not lost as safety management personnel change, or the
structure of the organization changes. One of the most frequent
concerns of a workforce, when a proper system is not in place,
centers on how long the new safety person will be at the
organization. This impacts buy-in negatively. It is like starting
over every time the position changes.
A third solid reason for an established management system
is that the learning curve for any new safety professional is
reduced. Safety is always based fundamentally on hazard
recognition. Without this basic investigation skill, a safety
professional is not adequate at any level. This skill does not
change, but application in a new environment always presents
new learning curve challenges. This is reduced with an effective
management system. It ensures program continuation on a more
even scale.
Comprehensive management is a must for establishing a
positive safety culture. Comprehensive means that it covers all
completely. We have already identified the core duties of safety
as being to identify hazards, assess risk, investigate and plan
countermeasures, implement change (counters), and then to
assess the effectiveness of our counters or change. However,
this hints at looking only at failures. What about the positive
occurrences and the patterns they present? Can they produce
organizational practices that root out more and more failures?
Let’s first look at the core duties, the benefits of a systems
approach, and then examine a skeleton for management, or a
standard like OHSAS 18001, or ANSI Z-10.
The first core duty relies on employee participation
because safety as a department or as an individual cannot
possibly uncover all of the hazards that do, can, or will exist in
an organization. Safety professionals are not always a master of
the job duties or technical skills that they are expected to
manage safety for. The real experts are the people that perform

13. the job tasks on a routine basis. It is the job of the safety
professional to obtain the proper information to perform core
duties. This means getting the information from the worker. It is
done from interviews, observation, learning the job task, and
working with engineering on the designed work process.
Safety is truly the controls between hazard and that which
is to be protected. It involves two distinct strategies learned in
OSH 261. They are “accident prevention” and “injury
prevention.” The control matrix looks like this:
ANSI B-11-2008
Safety must identify the designed work process and then
identify how work is really done. The goal is to move the gap
between these two closer together and to then places controls,
either psychological (accident prevention) or engineered (injury
prevention) in place between the work and the risk. Redundant
controls are preferred. The more redundancy exists without
unduly hampering work efficiency, or increasing the gap
between designed procedures and actual procedures, the better
safety performs. This is due to human behavior to take the
fastest, easiest, or most efficient perceived path. The figure
below shows this theoretical gap that is at the center of
Conklin’s Human Performance Concept.
Reprinted from:Conklin, T. (2012). Pre-Accident Investigations:
An Introduction to Organizational Safety. Burlington,
VT.(p.72).
The First Step
The very first step is to identify the hazards present at the
location or various locations and which OSHA, EPA, DOT, or
state regulations apply. The safety professional should then
begin to look at the national consensus standards, permanent
variances from other organizations, and letters of interpretation
to find out what applies to the hazards and situations present.
A hazard analysis then can guide the development of the
system by helping to identify the needs of the organization from

14. a compliance standpoint for safety.
Core Programs
Since core programs focus on the primary services or
outputs that safety performs for the various customers, or the
core duties, the OSH 410 course will focus on the core programs
by producing the supporting processes. Establishment on culture
relies upon these programs. The identification of hazards is the
first core duty of safety. It relies heavily on employee
participation. We will focus on a reporting program and an
employee hazard identification program as possible supporting
processes for achieving this core duty. Analyzing hazards and
failures is also a core duty. We will produce documents and
discuss processes that are supporting to this core duty as well.
Investigations and auditing will be addressed as supporting
processes. Many key documents will be developed for the
supporting processes that are covered.
Many more supporting processes are required to
completely make the cored duties effective. Due to time
constraints we will concentrate on reporting, employee hazard
identification, investigations, and auditing. We will also explore
management philosophy, program effectiveness audits, and
leading and lagging indicators in order to provide system
support.
Program Maturity
A safety manager that is establishing or modifying a
management system must have a vision of where the system
wants to be and also have a realistic picture of where it is
currently and how to progress. The Kausek Management System
Evolution Diagram provides a good visual model to program
development in stages. Figure 3 shown below depicts
management system maturity.

15. Reprinted from: Kausek,J. (2007). OHSAS 18001: Designing
and Implementing an Effective Health and Safety Management
System. Lanham, MD.(p.6).
The design stage is the very outset of program design and
implementation. Once core duties are identified, supporting
processes are designed and implemented. Forming committees
that represent all levels of the organization are important.
Building upon existing practices that are successful is a must in
order to limit organizational change. Design must be practical
and build upon associate expectations. The safety manager must
have a vision of the system in general and a strong vision of
leadership and management philosophy.
The compliance stage focuses meeting minimum
regulations and on system supporting processes. Internal audits
must look at compliance to policy and finding process
shortcomings and non-compliance issues. Benefits at this stage
rely on how well the previous safety management practices were
implemented (Kausek, 2007). This is because documenting and
formalizing processes and procedures can reflective of actual
practices. Thus, organizations that were doing the right things
previously, will not report much gain from a formalized system.
But conversely, organizations with a lack of adequate safety
management efforts, can report large gains. This overlooks the
sustainability benefits as previously covered in regard to system
implementation. They may not yet be realized through
performance measures. Sustainability is reflected in success
over time and change of management.
The effectiveness stage is next. Once implemented
processes are in compliance with system design, the focus
becomes results oriented. Measures are put in place to identify
the most successful supporting processes as well as overall
performance metrics. The best management practices of the
organization and the system become evident. All others piggy
back and resemble the keys to success.

16. Finally, the continuous improvement stage takes over. At
this level the best practices of the organization become common
to all facilities.
Core System Components, Supporting Processes, and System
Support
This week we have explored Kausek’s organization of a
management system in which we have core system components,
supporting processes, and system supporting or integrity
processes. Core processes produce the services in our system,
supporting processes provide the direct input to the core, and
system supporting processes guard the integrity of the system as
a whole.
At the same time I have taught that a safety management
system reflects the organization’s ability to learn as a collective
unit. What else is it when a hazard is discovered and then
countered? In order to facilitate organizational learning, (the
prevention of repeat incidents from significantly similar causes)
the system must be comprehensive toward safety and
1. Collect relevant statistics and information (gather the right
facts)
2. Organize and analyze the data (investigate the facts)
3. Counter problems and produce standards
4. Monitor changes (implement the counters, organizational
change)
5. Communicate with all components of the organization.
The core duties of safety at an organization are said to be:

17. 1. Identification of hazards (and we can extend this to include
threats, and vulnerabilities)
2. Assessment of the hazards (investigate for causes)
3. Produce countermeasures to the hazards/ produce company
standards
4. Implement the countermeasure plan/make organizational
change
5. Re-assess changes for effectiveness (continual improvement)
The article in the discussion board “Safety Management
Systems: Comparing Content & Impact” gives you elements, or
criteria that are mandated to be central in the supporting
processes of your safety management system. These are listed
as:
Management Commitment
Employee Involvement
Planning
Implementation & Operation
Proactive Checking & Corrective Action
Reactive Checking & Corrective Action
Management Review
Now this is not always clear and easy to combine. Let me
suggest my interpretation of the lessons conveyed this week.
Let me start out by saying that the core processes that produce
the services to our customers are not stand alone policies or
procedures. They are instead a collection of policy and
procedure that are supporting processes that combine to provide
the services. Allow me to also suggest that measures of any
process are always system support because they show the
effectiveness of the supporting in delivering the services. This
is in contrast to Kausek. So consider the organization below:
Core Process Supporting Processes
System Support
Gather Facts
Reporting Procedures

18. Incident documentation/logs/records
ID of Hazards, Threats,Vulnerabilities
1. Hazard Recognition Programs: 1. JHA 2. Employee
Recognition Programs
2. Behavior Based Observations/Compliance observations
3. Auditing Programs
4. Early Intervention in System Safety Analysis Teams
5. Emergency Response planning
Program Effectiveness Audits
Metric Tracking
Formal procedures
Training
Assessment of Hazards
Investigation programs
System Safety Committees
Program Effectiveness Audits
Metric Tracking
Formal procedures
Training
Planning Countermeasures
System Safety Analysis Committees/Problem Solving methods
Emergency response/First Aid Programs
Program Effectiveness Audits
Metric Tracking
Formal procedures
Training
Implementing Change
Organizational Change Plans
Program Effectiveness Audits
Metric Tracking
Formal procedures
Training
Re-assessment
Program Effectiveness Audits

19. Metric Tracking
Formal procedures
Training
Organizational Communication
Production of company standards
Program Effectiveness Audits
Metric Tracking
Formal procedures
Training
Injury Management
Return to Work Programs
Safety Away from Work programs (SAW’s)
Program Effectiveness Audits
Metric Tracking
Formal procedures
Training
There may be other programs/policies that can be fitted into the
supporting and system supporting categories. But overall the
core processes are examined to see if and how well they are
delivering the services to the customers. Each process that
provides direct input to the core duty, then is also examined for
improvement in order to increase service output. Of course
some supporting processes can provide input to more than one
core duty or process, such as those listed as supporting to the
ID of Hazards, theses also are a source for gathering the
relevant facts.
Notice in my model how vitally important training is at
every core duty. It preserves the integrity of the system. Where
does training fit with or in the article from the DB? Training is
and education is relevant at all levels, floor associates,
supervision, management, and executive management.
Management commitment and employee participation must
be elements in any system because they are the two primary
measures of safety culture. Furthermore, it is imperative that the

20. general manager for safety, have and establish a clear overall
philosophy for managing safety. The visual model we completed
in week 1 and our continued exploration of this concept in week
2 governs the overall approach to our system. Systems may play
out very differently if governed by a different guiding
philosophy.
Now later on when we are writing safety operations plans,
or written plans for how we will manage safety, I call the
supporting processes, core management programs to distinguish
them from day to day safety policies such as lock out – tag out.
COMM
UNITY
POLIC
ING DE
FINED
3
Community Partnerships
Collaborative partnerships between the law enforcement agency
and the individuals and organizations they serve to develop
solutions to problems and increase trust in police.
Other Government Agencies �
Community Members/Groups �
Nonprofits/Service Providers �
Private Businesses �

21. Media �
Organizational Transformation
The alignment of organizational management, structure,
personnel, and information systems to support community
partnerships and proactive problem solving.
Agency Management
Climate and culture �
Leadership �
Labor relations �
Decision-making �
Strategic planning �
Policies �
Organizational evaluations �
Transparency �
Organizational Structure
Geographic assignment of officers �
Despecialization �
Resources and finances �
Personnel
Recruitment, hiring, and selection �
Personnel supervision/evaluations �
Training �
Information Systems (Technology)
Communication/access to data �
Quality and accuracy of data �
Community policing is a philosophy that promotes
organizational
strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and
problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the
immediate

22. conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime,
social
disorder, and fear of crime.
4
Problem Solving
The process of engaging in the proactive and systematic
examination of identified problems to develop and rigorously
evaluate effective responses.
Scanning: Identifying and prioritizing problems �
Analysis: Researching what is known about the problem �
Response: Developing solutions to bring about lasting �
reductions in the number and extent of problems
Assessment: Evaluating the success of the responses �
Using the crime triangle to focus on immediate conditions �
(victim/offender/location)
5
Community Partnerships
Collaborative partnerships between the law enforcement agency
and the individuals and organizations they serve to develop
solutions to problems and increase trust in police.
Community policing, recognizing that police rarely can solve
public
safety problems alone, encourages interactive partnerships with
relevant stakeholders. The range of potential partners is large
and
these partnerships can be used to accomplish the two

23. interrelated
goals of developing solutions to problems through collaborative
problem solving and improving public trust. The public should
play
a role in prioritizing public safety problems.
Other Government Agencies
Law enforcement organizations can partner with a number of
other government agencies to identify community concerns
and offer alternative solutions. Examples of agencies include
legislative bodies, prosecutors, probation and parole, public
works
departments, neighboring law enforcement agencies, health and
human services, child support services, ordinance enforcement,
and
schools.
Community Members/Groups
Individuals who live, work, or otherwise have an interest in the
community—volunteers, activists, formal and informal
community
leaders, residents, visitors and tourists, and commuters—are a
valuable resource for identifying community concerns.
Partnerships
with these factions of the community can engage the community
in achieving specific goals at town hall meetings, neighborhood
association meetings, decentralized offices/storefronts in the
community, and team beat assignments.
Nonprofits/Service Providers
Advocacy and community-based organizations that provide
services to the community and advocate on its behalf can be
powerful partners. These groups often work with or are
composed
of individuals who share certain interests and can include such
entities as victims groups, service clubs, support groups, issue

24. groups, advocacy groups, community development corporations,
and the faith community.
Private Businesses
For-profit businesses also have a great stake in the health of the
community and can be key partners because they often bring
considerable resources to bear on problems of mutual concern.
Businesses can help identify problems and provide resources for
responses, often including their own security technology and
community outreach. The local chamber of commerce and
visitor
centers can also assist in disseminating information about police
and business partnerships and initiatives.
6
Media
The media represent a powerful mechanism by which to
communicate
with the community. They can assist with publicizing
community
concerns and available solutions, such as services from
government
or community agencies or new laws or codes that will be
enforced.
In addition, the media can have a significant impact on public
perceptions of the police, crime problems, and fear of crime.
7
Organizational Transformation
The alignment of organizational management, structure,

25. personnel,
and information systems to support community partnerships and
proactive problem-solving efforts.
The community policing philosophy focuses on the way that
departments are organized and managed and how the
infrastructure
can be changed to support the philosophical shift behind
community
policing. It encourages the application of modern management
practices to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Community
policing
emphasizes changes in organizational structures to
institutionalize
its adoption and infuse it throughout the entire department,
including the way it is managed and organized, its personnel,
and its
technology.
Agency Management
Under the community policing model, police management needs
to
infuse community policing ideals throughout the agency by
making a
number of critical changes in climate and culture, leadership,
formal
labor relations, decentralized decision-making and
accountability,
strategic planning, policing and procedures, organizational
evaluations, and increased transparency.
Climate and culture
Changing the climate and culture means supporting a proactive
orientation that values systematic problem solving and
partnerships.

26. Formal organizational changes should support the informal
networks
and communication that take place within agencies to support
this
orientation.
Leadership
Leaders serve as role models for taking risks and building
collaborative relationships to implement community policing
and they use their position to influence and educate others
about it. Leaders, therefore, must constantly emphasize and
reinforce community policing’s vision, values, and mission
within
their organization and support and articulate a commitment to
community policing as the dominant way of doing business.
Labor relations
If community policing is going to be effective, police unions
and
similar forms of organized labor must be a part of the process
and
function as partners in the adoption of the community policing
philosophy. Including labor groups in agency changes can
ensure
support for the changes that are imperative to community
policing
implementation.
Decision-making
Community policing calls for decentralization both in command
structure and decision-making. Decentralized decision-making
allows front-line officers to take responsibility for their role in

27. 8
community policing. When an officer is able to create solutions
to problems and take risks, he or she ultimately feels
accountable
for those solutions and assumes a greater responsibility for the
well-being of the community. Decentralized decision-making
involves flattening the hierarchy of the agency, increasing
tolerance
for risk-taking in problem-solving efforts, and allowing officers
discretion in handling calls. In addition, providing sufficient
authority to coordinate various resources to attack a problem
and
allowing the officers the autonomy to establish relationships
with
the community will help define problems and develop possible
solutions.
Strategic planning
The department should have a written statement reflecting a
department-wide commitment to community policing and a
plan that matches operational needs to available resources and
expertise. If a strategic plan is to have value, the members of
the organization should be well-versed in it and be able to give
examples of their efforts that support the plan. Components
such
as the organization’s mission and value statement should be
simple
and communicated widely. Everything should connect back to
it.
Policies

28. Community policing affects the nature and development of
department policies and procedures to ensure that community
policing principles and practices have an effect on activities on
the street. Problem solving and partnerships, therefore, should
become institutionalized in policies, along with corresponding
sets
of procedures, where appropriate.
Organizational evaluations
In addition to the typical measures of police performance
(arrests,
response times, tickets issued, and crime rates) community
policing
calls for a broadening of police outcome measures to include
such
things as community satisfaction, less fear of crime, the
alleviation
of problems, and improvement in quality of life. Community
policing calls for a more sophisticated approach to evaluation—
one
that looks at how feedback information is used, not only how it
measures outcomes.
Transparency
Community policing involves decision-making processes that
are
more open than traditional policing. If the community is to be a
full partner, the department needs mechanisms for readily
sharing
relevant information on crime and social disorder problems and
police operations with the community.

29. 9
Organizational Structure
It is important that the organizational structure of the agency
ensures that local patrol officers have decision-making authority
and are accountable for their actions. This can be achieved
through
long-term assignments, the development of officers who are
“generalists,” and using special units appropriately.
Geographic assignment of officers
With community policing, there is a shift to the long-term
assignment of officers to specific neighborhoods or areas.
Geographic deployment plans can help enhance customer
service
and facilitate more contact between police and citizens, thus
establishing a strong relationship and mutual accountability.
Beat
boundaries should correspond to neighborhood boundaries and
other government services should recognize these boundaries
when coordinating government public-service activities.
Despecialization
To achieve community policing goals, officers have to be able
to handle multiple responsibilities and take a team approach to
collaborative problem solving and partnering with the
community.
Community policing encourages its adoption agency-wide, not
just
by special units, although there may be a need for some
specialist
units that are tasked with identifying and solving particularly
complex problems or managing complex partnerships.

30. Resources and finances
Agencies have to devote the necessary human and financial
resources to support community policing to ensure that
problem-
solving efforts are robust and that partnerships are sustained
and
effective.
Personnel
The principles of community policing need to be infused
throughout the entire personnel system of an agency including
recruitment, hiring, selection, and retention of all law
enforcement
agency staff, including sworn officers, nonsworn officers,
civilians,
and volunteers, as well as personnel evaluations, supervision,
and
training.
Recruitment, hiring, and selection
Agencies need a systematic means of incorporating community
policing elements into their recruitment, selection, and hiring
processes. Job descriptions should recognize community
policing and problem-solving responsibilities and encourage the
recruitment of officers who have a “spirit of service,” instead of
only a “spirit of adventure.” A community policing agency also
has
to thoughtfully examine where it is seeking recruits, whom it is
10
recruiting and hiring, and what is being tested. Some

31. community
policing agencies also look for involvement of the community
in this process through the identification of competencies and
participation in review boards.
Personnel supervision/evaluations
Supervisors must tie performance evaluations to community
policing
principles and activities that are incorporated into job
descriptions.
Performance, reward, and promotional structures should support
sound problem-solving activities, proactive policing and
community
collaboration, and citizen satisfaction with police services.
Training
Training at all levels—academy, field, and in-service—must
support community policing principles and tactics. It also
needs to encourage creative thinking, a proactive orientation,
communication and analytical skills, and techniques for dealing
with quality-of-life concerns and maintaining order. Officers
can be
trained to identify and correct conditions that could lead to
crime,
raise public awareness, and engage the community in finding
solutions to problems. Field training officers and supervisors
need
to learn how to encourage problem solving and help officers
learn
from other problem-solving initiatives. Until community
policing
is institutionalized in the organization, training in its
fundamental
principles will need to take place regularly.

32. Information Systems (Technology)
Community policing is information-intensive and technology
plays a central role in helping to provide ready access to quality
information. Accurate and timely information makes problem-
solving efforts more effective and ensures that officers are
informed about the crime and community conditions of their
beat.
In addition, technological enhancements can greatly assist with
improving two-way communication with citizens and in
developing
agency accountability systems and performance outcome
measures.
Communication/access to data
Technology provides agencies with an important forum by
which
to communicate externally with the public and internally with
their
own staff. To communicate with the public, community policing
encourages agencies to develop two-way communication
systems
through the Internet to provide online reports, reverse 911 and
e-mail alerts, discussion forums, and feedback on interactive
applications (surveys, maps), thereby creating ongoing dialogs
and
increasing transparency.
Technology encourages effective internal communication
through
memoranda, reports, newsletters, e-mail and enhanced incident
reporting, dispatch functions, and communications
interoperability
with other entities for more efficient operations. Community
policing also encourages the use of technology to develop

33. 11
accountability and performance measurement systems that are
timely and contain accurate metrics and a broad array of
measures
and information.
Community policing encourages the use of technology to
provide
officers with ready access to timely information on crime and
community characteristics within their beats, either through
laptop
computers in their patrol cars or through personal data devices.
In
addition, technology can support crime/problem analysis
functions
by enabling agencies to gather information about the greater
aspects of events including more detailed information about
offenders, victims, crime locations, and quality-of-life
concerns, and
to further enhance analysis.
Quality and accuracy of data
Information is only as good as its source and, therefore, it is not
useful if it is of questionable quality and accuracy. Community
policing encourages agencies to put safeguards in place to
ensure
that information from various sources is collected in a
systematic
fashion and entered into central systems that are linked to one
another and checked for accuracy so that it can be used
effectively

34. for strategic planning, problem solving, and performance
measurement.
12
Problem Solving
The process of engaging in the proactive and systematic
examination
of identified problems to develop and rigorously evaluate
effective
responses.
Community policing emphasizes proactive problem solving in a
systematic and routine fashion. Rather than responding to crime
only after it occurs, community policing encourages agencies
to proactively develop solutions to the immediate underlying
conditions contributing to public safety problems. Problem
solving
must be infused into all police operations and guide decision-
making
efforts. Agencies are encouraged to think innovatively about
their
responses and view making arrests as only one of a wide array
of
potential responses. A major conceptual vehicle for helping
officers
to think about problem solving in a structured and disciplined
way
is the SARA (Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment)
problem-
solving model.
Scanning: Identifying
and prioritizing problems

35. The objectives of scanning are to identify a basic problem,
determine
the nature of that problem, determine the scope of seriousness
of
the problem, and establish baseline measures. An inclusive list
of
stakeholders for the selected problem is typically identified in
this
phase. A problem can be thought of as two or more incidents
similar
in one or more ways and that is of concern to the police and the
community. Problems can be a type of behavior, a place, a
person or
persons, a special event or time, or a combination of any of
these.
The police, with input from the community, should identify and
prioritize concerns.
Analysis: Researching what is
known about the problem
Analysis is the heart of the problem-solving process. The
objectives
of analysis are to develop an understanding of the dynamics of
the problem, develop an understanding of the limits of current
responses, establish correlation, and develop an understanding
of
cause and effect. As part of the analysis phase, it is important to
find
out as much as possible about each aspect of the crime triangle
by
asking Who?, What?, When?, Where?, How?, Why?, and Why
Not?
about the victim, offender, and crime location.

36. 13
Response: Developing solutions to bring
about lasting reductions in the number
and extent of problems
The response phase of the SARA model involves developing
and implementing strategies to address an identified problem
by searching for strategic responses that are both broad and
uninhibited. The response should follow logically from the
knowledge learned during the analysis and should be tailored to
the specific problem. The goals of the response can range from
either totally eliminating the problem, substantially reducing
the
problem, reducing the amount of harm caused by the problem,
or
improving the quality of community cohesion.
Assessment: Evaluating the
success of the responses
Assessment attempts to determine if the response strategies
were successful by determining if the problem declined and if
the response contributed to the decline. This information not
only assists the current effort but also gathers data that build
knowledge for the future. Strategies and programs can be
assessed
for process, outcomes, or both. If the responses implemented
are
not effective, the information gathered during analysis should
be
reviewed. New information may have to be collected before new
solutions can be developed and tested. The entire process
should
be viewed as circular rather than linear.
Using the crime triangle to focus on
immediate conditions (victim/offender/

37. location)
To understand a problem, many problem solvers have found it
useful to visualize links among the victim, offender, and
location
(the crime triangle) and those aspects that could have an impact
on them, for example, capable guardians for victims, handlers
for offenders, and managers for locations. Rather than focusing
primarily on addressing the root causes of a problem, the
police focus on the factors that are within their reach, such as
limiting criminal opportunities and access to victims, increasing
guardianship, and associating risk with unwanted behavior.
Problem Analysis Triangle. (Clarke and Eck, 2003)
14
Notes
U. S. Department of Justice
Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
1100 Vermont Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20530
To obtain details about COPS programs, call the
COPS Office Response Center at 800.421.6770
Visit COPS Online at www.cops.usdoj.gov
e030917193
Cover Page

38. Overview
Community PartnershipsOther Government AgenciesCommunity
Members/GroupsNonprofits/Service ProvidersPrivate
BusinessesMediaOrganizational TransformationAgency
ManagementClimate and cultureLeadershipLabor
relationsDecision-makingStrategic
planningPoliciesOrganizational
evaluationsTransparencyOrganizational StructureGeographic
assignment of officersDespecializationResources and
financesPersonnelRecruitment, hiring, and selectionPersonnel
supervision/evaluationsTrainingInformation Systems
(Technology)Communication/access to datQuality and accuracy
of dataProblem SolvingScanning: Identifyingand prioritizing
problemsAnalysis: Researching what isknown about the
problemResponse: Developing solutions to bring about lasting
reductions in the number and extent of problemsAssessment:
Evaluating thesuccess of the responsesUsing the crime triangle
to focus on immediate conditions
(victim/offender/location)NotesBack Cover