Edward Norris, an assistant commissioner of police in the New York City Police Department (NYPD) supervising more than 40,000 officers and credited with assisting in the turnaround in New York's crime scene, is offered a similar job with the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) supervising 3,000 officers in the most crime-ridden city in America. The challenges include entrenched crime, racial tension, declining population, negative effects on business, underfunding, critical media, low arrest rates, and a police department with underused resources and a dysfunctional organization and culture. In the A case students are asked to lay out their action plan for dealing with the situation, and in so doing, have to wrestle with most of the issues in managing large-scale organizational change.
1. How many of you have ever been victim of a crime? What was it like? Why is this case/situation important to businesspeople?
2. Given the conditions in Baltimore at the time, would you have taken this job? Why or why not?
3. If you had taken the job, what would you have done and why?