Lemas: A Comparative Organizational Research Platform

• Author: Robert H. Langworthy
• Published date: 01 December 2002
• DOI: 10.3818/JRP.4.1.2002.21
• Date: 01 December 2002
• Subject Matter: Article

LEMAS: A Comparative Organizational research platform • 21

*LEMAS: A Comparative Organizational

Research Platform

Robert H. Langworthy

University of Alaska Anchorage

Justice Center

JUSTICE RESEARCH AND POLICY, Vol. 4, Special Issue, Fall 2002

© 2002 Justice Research and Statistics Association

This article is based on a paper prepared for the National Research Council, Division of

Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, Committee on Law and Justice, Meeting

of the Committee to Review Research on Police Policy and Practices, Washington, DC,

April 11, 2002.

*Abstract

The Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey is

a comparative organizational research platform from which studies of police organi-

zational structures can be launched. This article briefly describes the survey and its

origin, discusses its capacity to provide measures of organizational dimensions, and

considers how the survey results can best be used to increase our understanding of

police organizations.

22 • Justice Research and Policy

At the heart of understanding criminal justice and governmental social control is

an understanding of organizations, for it is in the context of organizations that

we conduct the business of criminal justice and impose governmental social con-

trol. While it is clearly the case that individuals enact criminal justice and govern-

mental social control, it is also the case that they do so under the auspices of

organizations. When a police officer makes an arrest, he or she does so while

representing the state through its agency. Judges sentence, prosecutors prosecute,

correction officials exact penalties or compel treatment all through reference to

the officialdom asserted by their home agencies. Indeed, it is this reference to

agency that compels individuals to permit themselves to be arrested, adjudicated,

and corrected. If, as suggested above, criminal justice and governmental social

control are the purview of organizations, then those interested in understanding

these phenomena might well focus some attention on understanding the enact-

ment vehicles—organizations.

Peter Blau and Richard Schoenherr, in their ground-breaking work The Struc-

ture of Organizations (1971), suggest that there are two complementary but

competing conceptions of organizational behavior that pose a dilemma for scholars

trying to develop a scientific understanding of organizations. First, there are the

social-psychological processes that produce action. Second, there are organiza-

tional structures that are the context for these social-psychological processes.

Blau and Schoenherr also suggest that though comprehensive understanding of

organizational behavior requires understanding of both process and structure, stu-

dents of organization must select either process or structure as the focus of their

inquiry. This is so because social psychological processes are best examined from an

in-depth case study approach, while structures are best examined in a comparative

organizational framework. Thus the dilemma; students of organizations must

study either processes or structures, which ultimately renders their understanding

incomplete. More complete understanding of organizations must rest on systematic

integration of case study and comparative organizational literatures.

Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) pro-

vides two important elements for developing a more complete understanding of

police organizations: 1) a platform for describing police organizations that pro-

motes comparative analysis of structures; and 2) a platform for contextualizing

the burgeoning literature of police organizational case studies. LEMAS is an ad-

ministrative survey of police organizations conducted every three years (more or

less) designed to:

provide information about sworn and civilian personnel, hiring practices,

training procedures, expenditures, and agency equipment such as sidearms,

body armor, and computers. This policy relevant information is helpful in

comparing [emphasis added] agencies, and in assessing the needs of law