ABSTRACT
In recent decades, ad hoc police structures, such as multi-jurisdictional investigative teams, have become widespread in the United States (Coldren and Sabath 1992; Jefferis et al. 1998). In their intensified fight against organized crime, police authorities have been required to improve both the flexibility of criminal investigations and the coordination of the resources devoted to the dismantling of criminal organizations. In parallel, the war against drugs, the proliferation of firearms in problematic neighbourhoods, and the emergence of particularly violent street gangs have necessitated a reconfiguration of police responses. Police agencies may thus be understood as open organizational systems; that is, systems that interact (positively and negatively) with their socio-political environment and learn expectations of and propose appropriate responses to that environment.1
