Crisis management and Los Angeles County: Evaluating preparations to deploy the incident command system (California)

Although the United States has adopted the Incident Command System (ICS) as a standardized command and control system for U.S. public safety organizations to respond to critical incidents, manmade and natural disasters, there has been no research into how police departments prepare to employ this system. The need for such research led to this study that examined the preparations of 48 police departments in the Los Angeles County Mutual Aid Organization (LACMAO) to deploy the ICS.; The purpose of the study was to evaluate the overall training and program preparations to implement ICS. The research questions included: evaluating LACMAO ICS training objectives and programs, identifying the level of technical support available to support deployment of the system, and ascertaining the relationship between ICS preparations and technical support and LACMAO's resulting ability to manage a critical incident. Qualitative methods were used to collect four sources of data: an introductory demographic survey of the participating departments, 14 follow-up interviews, participant observations, and a series of 4 case studies. The analytical method used was content analysis.; The study concluded that LACMAO does not have systematic procedures in place to prepare for ICS deployments. The departments have a reasonable level of technical support for critical incident management but inadequate training to deploy it. The survey participants perceive there is a connection between pre-event preparations and the ability to respond and mitigate the impact of a critical incident, but there are insufficient preparations to deploy the system. A key recommendation is for LACMAO to develop topical and organizational specific training materials and programs designed to achieve ICS objectives. The study provides research data on a subject vital to society---improving public safety critical incident management. The results and recommendations can be used to help develop new strategies for public safety by understanding critical incident response and the relationship between pre-incident preparations and the ability to respond and mitigate the impact of a natural or human-made disaster.