American policing in an age of austerity and globalization: An option to face the challenge

This paper examines seven organisational consolidation approaches for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of American policing to counter the increase in the globalization of crime and in an environment of constrained budgets. The paper examines the historical reasons for decentralisation and identifies that the consolidation of police services, especially the merging of agencies or specific services or the regionalization of agencies could increase their service delivery efficiency and effectiveness. Although police reform, transparency and accountability are important concerns for police agencies when considering methods for maintaining community services with decreasing resources, the implementation of any form of consolidation must be able to take account of local accountability. With its focus on consolidating police services to increase service delivery effectiveness by reducing organisational duplication, this article expands the research available on strategies of police structural and systems reform to meet dynamic environments.