Political and Organizational Culture

Influence of Political and Organizational Culture on Local, National and International multi-agency investigations approaches.

Introduction

With changing human orientation fuelled by technological advancements, globalization and emerging global pandemics, including climate change, multi-agency working approaches towards criminal investigation and policing continue to receive particular attention. Beginning at the local, national to international levels, multi-agency organizations play a critical role in making the world a safer place for everyone. Unlike the conventional and reactive approaches to a criminal investigation, which mainly aimed at punishing offenders, the multi-agency or inter-agency approach, as referred to by Messenger (2013, p.6), aims at crime prevention by addressing the root causes of crime and not the consequences of crime. Winstone (2019, p. 237) defines multi-agency working as a collaboration of various firms in a different speciality that aims to work as interdisciplinary teams to prevent crime and enhance societal welfare proactively. Multi-agency working in the criminal justice system is used because it enhances information sharing and resources for effective crime prevention.

Multi-agency working is premised on five Essential Building Blocks and the National Decision Model (NDM). These five Essential Building Blocks are liaison, collaboration, communication, satisfaction and perspectives. All these must be emanating from the point of trust among the multi-agencies. In addition to this, the National Decision Model, centred on the police code of ethics, lays out the step-by-step procedure to be followed when making community policing decisions. The first three stages of NDM emphasize multi-agency working by requiring all decision-makers to cooperate in gathering and sharing information, assessing the threat posed and examining the best-equipped agency to solve the problem at hand (College of National Policing 2021, par.7).

Despite the pooled expertise, ideologies and resources enjoyed by multi-agencies working, it is exposed to political and organizational cultural influences that threaten to undermine its effectiveness at local, national and international levels. Given the various political and organizational cultural influences, multi-agency working may be required to adopt certain investigative approaches that suit the environment. These approaches may follow under any of the three widely applied multi-agency working models: multi-agency panel, multi-agency team, and integrated services (O’Brien, 2020, p.101634). The main difference among the three models is the level of integration, with integrated service being the most integrated model (Davies, 2020, p.279; Robinson and Payton, 2016). The purpose of this essay is to critically examine the political and organizational cultural influences on multi-agency approaches to investigation. To this end, the essay begins by analyzing the effect of political culture on investigation approaches of multi-agency working. Under the same section, the influence of organizational culture on investigation approaches of multi-agency working is critically scrutinized, and policy implications and suggestions are made to relevant stakeholders.

Political and Organizational Cultural Influence on Multi-Agency Approaches to Investigations.

Victoria Climbie was inhumanly killed by her great aunt Marie-Therese Kouao and her boyfriend Carl Manning on 25 February 2000, while living with the two in London. It was established that Victoria, who was only eight years old at the time of her death, was subjected to torture, physical abuse and neglect by guardians leading to her untimely death. A series of inquiries revealed that various agencies which have the mandate of protecting children had failed terribly in the case of Victoria and Baby P. These agencies include Haringey Council Child Protection Unit, the police, the hospital and the church. Peter Connelly (1 March 2006 – 3 August 2007), also referred to as Baby P, suffered the same fate that befell Victoria six years later (Lake, 2021, par.1). Peter Connelly died at the age of 17 months old as a result of physical torture from her mother, Tracey Connelly, and her mother’s boyfriends Steven Barker and Jason Owen, who were living in North London, the same place where Victoria was murdered. Aftermath medical reports revealed that Peter was physically tortured and maimed with more than 50 injuries, including broken back, fractured ribs and a missing tooth. In Baby P’s case, the Haringey Council’s Children and Young People’s Service, the police unit, and the NHS were blamed for failing to execute their mandate.

In both Victoria Climbie and Baby P cases, a number of political and organizational cultures came to play that hindered the effectiveness of multi-agency working, eventually leading to their death. To begin with, in both cases, the multi-agency teams adopted a loosely integrated model, which O’Brien (2020, p.101634) describe as a multi-agency panel model. In the multi-agency panel model, cooperation and coordinated efforts are very low. As a result, each agency tends to work independently, and no common long-term goals are bringing them together. This is against the essential building block of multi-agency working of liaison, collaboration, and communication. In the case of Baby P, the children protection unit, the London Police department, and National Health Service were aware of the predicament facing the toddler. For instance, before his death, Peter had been taken to hospital on various occasions by social workers, and her mother had been arrested two times following reports of child abuse from social workers. Nevertheless, the same day when Baby P’s mother was released from jail was when she brutally murdered Baby P. There was no commitment from the agencies involved in Peter’s case to work together and find the root cause of the problem. All their efforts, treatment, social service and arrest were merely transactional without any form of liaison and collaboration.

Atkinson, Jones, and Lamont (2007, p.3) attribute the failure of multi-agency teams to integrate on two main political and organizational cultures; division of roles and organizational incompetence. First, failure to work as one big team among multi-agencies can be determined by dividing roles and responsibilities among various agencies. Although the division of roles and responsibilities ought to be guided by each actor’s expertise, often more vocal and large agencies tend to take more roles, sometimes depending on the financial and other material resources they are contributing for the multi-agency project. When one agency dominates responsibilities, Atkinson, Jones, and Lamont (2007, p.3) warned that they could easily influence the goals and objectives of the multi-agency towards its individual rather than collective goals. Messenger (2013, p.46) assert that goals that lean towards one agency will not yield the desired outcomes since the purpose of the multi-agency is to establish new ways of solving a problem. In the case of Victoria and Baby P, the Haringey Council played had the dominating role yet failed to execute it, hence leading to the death of the two children. Investigation revealed that the Haringey Council’s Children protection unit had failed to obtain an interim care order to place Peter under safe care away from his home, despite the existence of legal grounds to do so. Other agencies could also not intervene because it was not within their power to initiate such a procedure. The Haringey Council also had a dominating role in the case of Victoria but never wanted to act, hence failing other agencies, such as the church, whose roles were not clearly defined.

Organizational incompetence at Haringey Council’s children unit was also another factor that contributed to a loosely integrated approach towards the investigation. Investigation after the death of Peter and Victoria revealed that staff at Haringey Council on various occasions missed to hold planned meetings and follow up on decisions agreed on the two children. Furthermore, basic child protection procedures at the council were not being followed; an issue raised by a former employee at the Council six months before the death of Peter but was ignored. In Victoria’s death, frontline staff had complained that restructuring of the Council social service did not prioritize child protection, leaving a lot of loopholes for child abuse. Lord Laming report also revealed that many social workers staff were not satisfied with the supervision they were getting from their seniors. Some confessed that their seniors were not competent enough to guide them appropriately (Batty, 2001, par.4). Lord Laming report also identified some social workers barred from working with children in 1993 but continued doing so until 2000 and was in charge of evaluating the condition of children deemed at risk. The reluctance of the Haringey Council to address the incompetence affected its ability to play its role, although it had the dominating decision.

Generally, in the two cases reviewed, it is evident that the principles of multi-agency working were ignored. The NDM of reaching appropriate action to address crimes was not followed. Most of the social workers involved in the two cases did not conduct a thorough analysis to uncover the threat that the two children were facing. For instance, a social worker at Brent council who was assigned to investigate the case of Victoria stopped the investigation without making any physical conduct with the victim (Batty, 2001, par.6). The police unit is at fault for not having gathered enough intelligence regarding the threat that Tracey Connelly posed to her child before releasing her without prosecution. On its part, the NHS was not even keen on examining the victims to discover the extent of injury caused to them, as was the case in Baby P (Lake, 2021, par.3). In Victoria’s case, Dr. Ruby Schwartz concluded that her injuries were caused by scabies hence ruling out the issue of child abuse (Batty, 2001, par.7).

Consequently, the children were left in the hands of their abusers unnecessarily longer, leading to their death. Other agencies, particularly the church in the case of Victoria, did not try to assess its capacity of addressing the threat that was facing Victoria. Instead, the church pastor, also failing to gather information, just exorcised demons and left her in the hands of her cruel aunt (Batty, 2002, par.6). Therefore, the multi-agency units working on the two cases neglected the fundamental building blocks on multi-agency working, and decisions were made without following the National Decision Model.

Multi-agency working is also a problem at the international level, particularly in the United States. Gabriel Fernandez, an eight-year-old boy, was also murdered by her mother and her mother’s boyfriend after being tortured, beaten, and starved for eight months (Verhoeven, 2020, par.2). The system failure witnessed in Victoria, and Baby P’s case also led to the preventable death of Fernandez. On record, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services and the police visited Fernandez home on various occasions by failing to place him under safe care away from his abusive parents (Therolf, 2016, par.2). The court established that sixty complaints were placed with the Department of Children and Family Services, mostly from Fernandez, other family members, teachers and security guards. However, the children department did not take any action, at some point accusing Fernandez of lying (Therolf, 2016, par.3; Charlotte, 2021, p.70). The Los Angeles Sheriff Department was also accused of failing in its role. Despite responding to various 911 calls from Fernandez home, they could not gather information; establish the threat facing the young boy and institute necessary action. Therefore, multi-agency working that is not based on fundamental principles of collaboration, communication, liaison satisfaction and perspectives can fail locally and nationally.

International multi-agency organizations such as Interpol have also encountered a number of challenges that span beyond organizational cultural incompetence. Most of these challenges emanate from national and global political interests. One of the political-cultural influences on multi-agency investigation approaches is protectionist policy. The protectionist policy affects cooperation among multi-agency teams depending on the existing national and regional political arrangements. Different players may not be willing to share resources, including personnel and information, to achieve a common goal at the local and national levels (Davies, 2018, p. 432). For instance, UK exit from the European Union has far-reaching implications regarding access to intelligence, particularly the Schengen Information System (SIS II) and the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), which are only available to members of the EU (Morris, 2020, par. 3). Specifically, SIS II has been beneficial to UK policing, providing real-time intelligence on international criminal groups and run-away convicted sex offenders with more than 603 million logins from the UK in 2019 (Morris, 2019, par.6). This implies that UK may easily harbour organized criminal gangs from all over Europe without knowing (UK in a Changing Europe, 2021, par.9). UK is also not going to continue enjoying extradition arrangements under EU, counter-terrorism efforts under Europol, where full membership in the EU is required to access all its services. It is worth noting that multi-agency working within the EU is also affected by UK exit. In particular, the EU will not benefit from the very strategic alliances the UK has with other powerful countries in the world, including the US. For instance, through the UK, the EU was able to access intelligence from the Five Eyes intelligence network, an external intelligence network to which only the UK in Europe is a member. Consequently, protectionist policies are a barrier to multi-agency working.

Another organizational cultural issue that can influence the multi-agency approach is professional culture (Blay, 2019, p.207). Multi-agency teams bring together different professionals with unique working cultures. For example, at the local level, the multi-agency team may consist of law enforcement officers who are generally looking out for offenders, social workers who are looking for victims to protect and perhaps individuals from the private sector whose main aim may be finding the most optimal solution to prevailing challenges at most cost-efficient way. Different professional cultures are viewed as a threat to the effective operation of the multi-agency team because if not astutely managed, it can result in a clash of cultures (Tyson and Hall, 2019, p.139). For instance, police officers may withhold information from private sector participants on the ground of being opportunistic. In the same vein, third sector participants may regard police officers with suspicion and mistrust, making it difficult for the multi-agency teams to collaborate and liaise to achieve desired outcomes.

Messenger (2013, p.86) suggests that professional cultural clashes in the multi-agency team can be solved by clearly communicating the vision and purpose of the team. This can also be done in meetings so that each participant focuses on the bigger goal instead of how they think and share their ideologies. Another study suggests that recruitment of members to multi-agency teams should be carefully done to ensure that members being recruited are willing to tolerate other professional cultures (Cox, 2019, p.105). While if not managed, professional cultural differences can be problematic, they can also be a source of innovation and creativity in a team, at both national and international level (Garcia-Meca, Garcia-Sanchez, and Martinez-Ferrero, 2015, p.208). Therefore, the different professional cultures should not be suppressed but embraced to increase the team’s creativity.

The need to identify with a particular organization is another organizational culture that may affect the investigation approach of multi-agency working (Ashmore, 2017, p.7). Multi-agency working involves getting experts from different organizations, local and national levels, and different countries to work together to achieve a common goal. Barton and Valero-Silva (2013, p.547) identified that organization attachment resulting from the need to identify with either home or multi-agency working might affect the investigation approaches. Feeling attached to the home agent may hinder the full integration of the multi-agency team and even lead to competition among participants. This will eventually affect the effectiveness of the multi-agency working since anything that does not conform to the home organizational culture may be resisted. According to Messenger (2013, p.48), signs of resistance may include a lack of interest in the objectives of the multi-agency, pushing for the multi-agency objectives to suit those of home organizations. Where the leader cannot help all members commit to the multi-agency mission, then the appropriate approach would be a multi-agency panel. This approach does not call for a high level of integration. However, given that the objectives of the multi-agency affect the model chosen, it is the responsibility of the multi-agency leader to facilitate the team to integrate.

Political culture also affects the funding available to multi-agency investigation teams (Walsh and McGrath, 2016, p.362). Studies have shown that funding has a significant effect on the model of the multi-agency team (Steigenberger, 2016, p.63; Chingumbe, 2018, p.30). A long-term integrative approach where all the agencies involved commit to a long-term working relationship that will require undertaking most of the activities together may require pulling together of resources. The availability of these pooled resources from member participants is likely to be influenced by the political culture of the agencies involved. For instance, not all agencies involved can contribute equally to the mission of the multi-agency team. Some agencies are more endowed with resources than others, while others may require more resources to participate in the multi-agency mission effectively. Agreeing on the workable framework on how the resources will be contributed will be influenced by various political interests and political relationships among transnational agencies. For instance, the US has been a major funder of most United Nations peacekeeping missions in the Middle East and around Africa. The contribution the US has been making to UN peacekeeping missions is targeted at meeting the enormous costs of these missions and as a way of retaining the global hegemony against long-time contenders such as China and Russia (Long and Jensen, 2021, par.3). On the other hand, the short-term mission may not require a formal and integrative working approach. In this case, each agency may utilize its resources to accomplish the goals of the project.

Conclusion

Multi-agency working toward crime investigation can proactively prevent crime and build a safer and more responsible society. However, such a reward will be realized with concerted efforts from the government, private and third sectors to address the political and organizational cultural influences that can undermine the effectiveness of multi-agency working. This essay has critically examined multi-agency working investigation approaches through the political and organizational cultural lenses. Multi-agency working within the country has been a challenge largely because of organizational cultural incompetence, characterized by poor decision making among the key agencies involved. At the international level, multi-agency organizations such as Interpol are exposed to political and organizational culture challenges. Among major political-cultural influences analyzed include sharing of roles and responsibilities, contributions of resources to fund the activities of multi-agency working, jurisdictional differences, and protectionist policies, among others. The essay has also identified that language, professional culture, and the need to identify with a particular agency are the organizational cultural influences on multi-agency working investigation approaches. The solution to these political and organizational challenges lies with the participants’ perspective. Some of the challenges identified, such as differences in professional cultures, provide opportunities for creativity. However, language barriers require a holistic approach to ensure that language does not become a stumbling block.

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