Conflicts are inevitable in any institute because the individuals in these places have different upbringing, values, beliefs and cultural practices instilled by their parents, friends, extended family and social institutes that include churches and schools. The characters and habits each person poses, are in most cases very different from others, and hence the chances of people disagreeing on certain issues are very high hence the existence of conflicts. For this reason, many organizations formulate their own culture that is basically the creation of norms expected to be followed and practiced within the organization. The organizations may recruit individuals that they feel are fit and thereafter train them before placing them in any position, helping them to acquire habits, attitudes, and values of the organization social system. This process is referred to as ‘Occupational Socialization.’ The ability of individual organization members to assume the expected language, symbols, beliefs and folklore of the organization, known as the organizational culture helps to respond well to work related challenges or problems (Davis, 2016).
The occupational socialization is in many cases imposed through codified mores which are termed to be the written laws and rules that are published in form of memos, policy manuals or union contracts. Therefore, Organizations are considered to be micro-societies within which particular cultures are identified. The police, for instance, may develop a systematic way of approaching problems at hand. In some cases, their approach may be influenced by the powers a given officer has within the organization. Powers within an organization are not clearly defined. According to Dahl, power may be defined as the ability of an individual X to rule over individual Y to an extent where individual X may assign duties to individual Y which they are incapable of doing. As for the police, their powers may be constrained depending on the duties assigned to them or the police hierarchy they are in. In order for some police or criminal justice officials to maintain their positions or powerful hierarchies, they at times had to employ political powers and strategies. Power and authority can be categorized into traditional, charismatic and legal authorities. Among the three, legal authority is majorly based on regulations and rules within the organization. Furthermore, legal authority is anchored in the hierarchy of the organization. In summary, the elements of conflicts can be categorized in the needs, perceptions, power, values and emotional feelings.
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Types of Conflicts in Organizations
Conflicts can be categorized into different types that include personal conflict, and group conflict. Personal conflict is the type of conflict that is referred to as the ‘cognitive dissonance,’ that develops in an individual after they are not able to meet expectations either set by their superiors or by themselves. On the other hand, group conflict can be defined as the disagreement between organizational individuals on particular points of common interest. Effectiveness within the group can only be enhanced through a thorough resolution of the conflict. The group may end up disintegrating in the case where the conflict escalates and proper techniques on conflict resolutions are not implemented. Under group conflict, depending on the level or scope and nature of the group conflict, there are two types of conflicts which are task conflict and relationship conflict. Task conflict is the disagreement of individuals on the duty being performed whereas relationship conflict is the incompatibility between individual members based on their characters. As group conflicts reflect more on the relationships between individual groups in the organization, the generation of formal authority and delegations within the organizations by their structure is referred to the intra-organizational conflict which is made up of vertical, horizontal, line – staff and role conflicts. Among mentioned conflicts, within criminal justice organizations, role conflict is the most common one. This type of conflict takes place in the cases where individuals are unable to finish tasks assigned to them, either caused by poor communication between the supervisors and subordinate staffs, differed expectations or the difference in the roles that the subordinates are assigned to.
In addition, there is the intergroup conflict which entails groups within the organization to compete over scarce resources which are valuable. In the case of criminal justice and police departments, such conflicts are common because of the existence of many departments that have particular functional units like, the juvenile, traffic, detective, patrol, vice among others. As discussed in Chapter 11 of Group Behavior in Criminal Justice Organization, the conflicts may arise due to an allocation of certain resources to a given department by the Chief hence the feeling of discontentment by the denied department.
Police Training on Conflict Management
Different forms of conflict determine how certain members of the police force may handle and resolve the challenges at hand. For instance, the level of training and experiences that an individual has had are key on how fast they can formulate solutions in order to resolve the conflicts. Many police organizations have adopted the norm of formulating training programs that will enhance the police members to be equipped with the right and proper conflict management skills which were designed by Morton Bard (Conflict Management, 2016). Furthermore, the increase in incidences of crime within certain communities was perceived to be because of lack of skills within an individual who were unable to manage their interpersonal conflict (Police Conflict Mgmt. 2016). The efforts on training police and equipping them with the right interpersonal skills were faced with opposition from many of the officers who had the military foundation and thought the training was unnecessary. With persistence, the training slowly was accepted and implemented. The need to help officers to be more efficient in managing interpersonal conflict included training them on conflict management competence, communication, self-awareness, competencies of influence and empathy. Some of the training strategies involved the use of group works and discussions, lectures, role plays, and real life simulations of interpersonal conflicts. With the findings, police officers that took part in the conflict management training programs were identified to have higher rates of clearance, minimized rates in absenteeism among many more improvements (Zhang & Huo, 2015).
Causes of Organizational Conflict in Police Departments
As viewed earlier, conflicts in police organizations arise due to different reasons that include the difference personalities and the engagement in competition to earn promotions within the departments. The continuous changes and transformations that take place within a police organization are another key reason for conflicts because new levels of standards and levels are imposed on the individual hence the arising of insecurities and resistance amongst the members of the organization. The inability of certain police officers to reach or meet the supervisors’ expectations on the duties allocated to them (Police Conflict Mgmt. 2016).
Conflict Management
Social scientists have found out that conflicts can easily be managed in five ways that include, compromise, collaboration, competition, accommodation and avoidance. In the case of compromise, either of the parties involved in the conflict is entitled to a state of winning and losing at the same time. The solution in most cases is temporary for the sake of avoiding intense conflicts and may hinder achievement of long-term goals and important values. As for collaboration, both the parties win by agreeing on the goals although it is time and energy consuming (Pruitt, 2016).
The competition type of conflict management involves the attempts to win over one's opponents so that one may acquire the available resources that are scarce which in turn may cause more conflicts within the organization and retaliation of the individuals who have lost against the individuals who have won. In the case where an issue is of more importance to the others, invokes the ability to accommodate each other promoting goodwill and room to accept and correct mistakes. Avoidance has mostly employed the conflict or issue is not important or if it is very dangerous to the organization. The pressure associated with finding the right solutions to the conflicts within a criminal justice organization may lead the officers to indulge in unethical activities that include corruption. In the occupational socialization cases of corruption have identified to have decreased. Bribing and extorting money from citizens by police officers are some of the activities that have been shed and minimized through the facilitation of occupational socialization (Davis, 2016).
Conflicts under criminal justice have been maintained and resolved through processes that have been formulated in the police departments like thorough training. Occupational socialization is one of the key structures used to deal with possible conflicts that might arise within organizations. It is the process of molding individual members who have different habits, values, and beliefs to attain the values and characters expected by the organization. Police officers have the chance to take part in conflict management training that enables them to acquire interpersonal skills in order to be in a position to handle rising challenges or problems. Some of the things that cause an uprising of a conflict in a criminal justice organization include bribery, incompetence, and inability to accomplish assigned tasks. Favoritism towards certain individuals or groups is other reasons for conflicts in an organization.
References
Davis, J. (2016). Socialization Presentation prezi.com Retrieved 23 October 2016, from https://prezi.com/2mgml08tsfo4/socialization-presentation/Police
Police Conflict Mgmt. (2016). Training in Conflict Management for Police Officers (1st ed.). Retrieved from http://www.eiconsortium.org/pdf/police_conflict_managment.pdf
Pruitt, D. (2016). Conflict Management Law and Order , 51 (10), 128-131. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=203009
Conflict Management. (2016). What-when-how com Conflict Management (police) .Retrieved 23 October 2016, from http://what-when-how.com/police-science/conflict-management-police/
Zhang, L. Huo, X. (2015). The impact of interpersonal conflict on construction project performance International: Journal of Conflict Management , 26 (4), 479-498. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/ijcma-09-2014-0072
