Police Auditing: Theories and Practices.

Police Auditing: Theories and Practices by Allan Y Jiao, Ph.D., Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1999.

Police Auditing focuses primarily on theories and practices in law enforcement auditing. It provides a comprehensive view of auditing by examining empirical standards, procedures, and practices and evaluations of conducting and responding to such audits.

Developing and maintaining positive changes in law enforcement departments that eliminate gaps in performance and enhance interface with technology and the community are stressed in Police Auditing. These improvements help managers develop their short- and long-range strategies and operational planning efforts. This book does not cover accounting practices and is not a summary of a scientific research report.

The book provides law enforcement with various auditing methods to assist police departments in becoming more efficient, effective, and financially competent. It accomplishes this through a model for planned change and police auditing that incorporates certain interrelated elements applicable to police auditing, regardless of a department's mission and size.

This book examines eight components of implementing auditing changes that will give shape and direction to a law enforcement agency's vision and culture. Some examples of these include coping with external/internal pressures, closing performance gaps, meeting goals and objectives, and developing solutions and alternatives. These points will aid administrators in developing a systematic and comprehensive review in improving their departments.

The author served as a member of a municipal budget review task force and as chairman of a city public safety committee that evaluated law enforcement responses to various audit recommendations. These credentials allow him to draw upon his research and practical audit experience at the city level and from governmental and international departments to provide valuable information, in a systematic approach, to the entire law enforcement community. He identifies outstanding demonstrated audit procedures and methods of improved audit effectiveness and integrates them throughout the book.

In the chapter titled "Variety Police Audits," the author makes a relevant point that law enforcement auditing is not tied just to financial records involving allocation and expenditures of the budget and grants. The audit must address the total aspects of all law enforcement operations that compose and interface with the book's identified elements that will ultimately provide local residents and merchants with a safer living and business environment.

The author ends each chapter with an abstract to help auditors prepare an executive summary for distribution throughout law enforcement oversight offices and their organization and improve overall audit performance. When police auditors and department managers apply the procedures described in Police Auditing, the benefits can lead beyond the basics of just reviewing and documenting and aid them in completing a variety of other department goals. Police executives, supervisors, accountants, audit team members, department trainers, citizen review board members, and academic personnel should add Police Auditing to their intended reading list.

Larry R. Moore

Certified Emergency Manager International Association of Emergency Managers Knoxville, Tennessee