Organizational theories argue that police attitudes and values are shaped by the organizational and working culture of policing and the demands placed upon officers by their police colleagues. These theories, sometimes referred to as behavioral management theories, emphasized the importance of looking at what police officers actually do and acknowledging just how complex the modern police department had become. Researchers had observed that while many police departments were organized along similar lines, they often adopted very different approaches to basic policing problems and their relationship with the public (Walker & Katz, 2007). The watchman style is based primarily on the use of the uniformed police patrol, this approach places great emphasis on order maintenance and individual officer discretion. Police departments adopting this style rarely engage in research or systematic planning and tend to suffer from problems of discriminatory arrests and corruption, because there are few effective restraints on the activities of individual officers (Walker & Katz, 2007).
The legalistic style is a style of policing which emphasizes the importance of law enforcement and maintaining clear and impartial legal standards for both the police and public alike. Police departments organized along legalistic lines tend to be bureaucratic, use performance indicators as a means of promoting professional standards, and place considerable importance on research and planning. Looked at historically, the legalistic style of policing tends to replace the watchman approach as the police become more professional, technologically advanced, and more proactive (Walker & Katz, 2007). The service style of policing sees the police primarily as servants of the community. Although law enforcement and order maintenance remain priorities, emphasis is placed on maintaining good police public