Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Togetherness
One of the things that I have found quite interesting about the series thus far is the lack of "togetherness". It seems as if there is no uniform goal among the branches of government. Each branch seems to have their own personal agenda. My question is why do these branches seem to be competing for criminal investigations, when in reality they all want the same result? I understand that each branch needs there own agenda and are positioned to take on certain cases. In "The Wire" though, each branch seems reluctant and unwilling in provioding assistance to each other. Its kind of like there invisible to one another. The one exception to my theory is McNultys friend that works for the FBI (I forget which branch he works for) that lends them the wire taps. Even then though, each branchs head seems to enforce their own agendas without consideration for their own personal organization. I guess thats the beauty of being the boss. I suppose my ending question is one that asks, does this portray a fair picture of our policing agencies? If so, why is there so much individualism within these agencies that support the same goal?
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Think of this in terms of system theory...the different components of CJ seem to have a lot of system blindness in that they don't think about the intertwined nature of the work each component is doing. Also, think in terms of the inherent nature of bureaucracies: What may be the ultimate "goal" often gets lost as the focus becomes more immediately located (getting arrests, clearances...the easily quantified immediate "success" which those running the unit can pull out to prove they are doing their jobs). In fact, we might want to question whether the actual goals are really the same across all the units and individuals...goal (actual goals, not ideal ones) conflict may be a real root of the disconnect you note. This is not only a problem in CJ, but in many other social institutions (other aspects of government, for sure, but also education, etc.).
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I think the answer to your question is a qualified "yes." Many police organizations, both historically and contemporarily, have this problem. It's been a major problem in effective investigating for quite some time (some famous cases come immediately to mind including the investigation of the Manson murders and the investigation of OJ Simpson). Do a little research on this problem and you'll likely find some solid research digging into it. On a positive note, the move from "professional" policing and quantitative approaches to measuring success to more community-policing and problem-oriented policing models should ideally help overcome this problem. To a lesser degree, technology, too, helps overcome this problem as it opens better channels for communicating and sharing information.
I think that is one of the biggest problems with our criminal justice system. If they all worked together I am sure that more cases would be solved in a more timely manner. I guess it is more of a pride thing, they want to be the one who solves the problem. A lot of these characters try to be very tough and are unwilling to ask for help. Even within their own divisions. Some of the scenes in the homicide division show many open cases but they do not really help eachother solve the cases. The exception would be when McNulty used Omar to solve a couple of open murders and he shared this information with a troubled officer.
ReplyDeleteI agree with shannon, the togetherness should help solve more cases, but is not seen so much because of ego problems and different people's perspective of justice. Not only we see this lack of togetherness on the police side, but also the gang side--because everyone wants to advance in "the game" so they can work together, but really gang members are after their own best interest to make more money, to have more power, and to be respected and admired.
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