A Sheriffs Office as a Learning Organization

The purpose of this article is to describe a strategic methodology, which is developed from learning organization theory and used to assess a Western Sheriff's Office. The authors use learning organization theory to augment four programmatic innovations carried out by the Ada County Sheriff's Office in Idaho. The learning model is mixed method: Quantitatively, it makes use of a stratified citizen survey and a deputy survey. Qualitatively, citizen and sheriff's deputy focus groups provide meaning from the point of view of environmental actors. The primary products of this method are presented here as narratives that present a comprehensive perspective on the way in which environmental actors viewed programs carried out by the Sheriff's Office.