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Police management studies from the 1950s through the 1980s featured the span of control concept. However, as policing started to move organizationally from a tall hierarchy to a more flattened organizational, the span of control concept began to fade from the literature.
Official ratios of officers to sergeant (sometimes called the “span of control”) generally range from 4:1 to 15:1, with an average of approximately seven officers to each sergeant. See, e.g., PERF, Supervision , supra, at 19.
This article presents findings from a survey of law enforcement administrators that analyzed the "span of control" (the number of people with whom a supervisor is responsible for communicating) in their departments.
1 sty 2005 · The second attribute of the authority hierarchy is the span of control (Soujanen, 1955, Udell, 1967). Span of control refers to the ratio of supervisors (at one level) to the number of workers (at the next lower level).
29 maj 2009 · Recommended span of control in law enforcement, depending on the source, is 5 to 12 police officers to 1 first-line supervisor. Currently there are 9 [of 22 total] districts which have become the main focus of the department’s strategy to reduce crime.
The number of subordinates a supervisor can effectively supervise is called the span of control. While some scholars suggest a specific ratio of supervisors to supervisees, others suggest span of control varies depending on where one is in the hierarchy.
Span of Control for Law Enforcement Agencies. Author: Troy Lane. Summary: The responses from the administrators indicate that many agencies prefer lower spans of control (lower number of officers per supervisor), which necessarily leads to multiple layers of management.
