The typical national study of a policing topic entails sending a survey to police departments to be filled out by chiefs, sheriffs, or their designees—one official respondent per agency.1 This method works well for determining the prevalence of structural characteristics (for example, the number of departments that have gang units); formal programs; and official policies. However, there are many important characteristics of police organizations that cannot be measured this way, such as leadership, supervision, discipline, integrity, job satisfaction, commitment, stress, and so forth. Moreover, it can be argued that it is these very organizational conditions that have the greatest impact on the quality of service that police officers and agencies deliver to their communities.
