The 'front line' in police organizations suffers from waste and low morale. Organizations must ensure that minimum performance standards of work behavior are observed and that personnel are present in sufficient quantity and quality. However, the popularity of front-line abandonment appears to have increased. Among the reasons for this development are the inclusion of boring and monotonous tasks in front-line work and the use of the front line as a training area for recruits, who expect to advance up into the higher levels of the organization as time passes. The sum effect of such characteristics is to make the front line unpopular as a working environment and to lower the status of its functions and incumbents. Despite these tendencies, the organization must continue to emphasize the importance of front-line workers and of the work they perform. Contradictions between ideology and practice are examined in detail in various sections which discuss police ideology, formal police organization, the distribution of police manpower, the evaluation of police performance, and conflicting definitions of police work. The text is also concerned with organizational policies which devalue the patrol function, job dissatisfaction among patrol constables, consequences for the police and the public, and policy implications. Data tables and charts display the principal findings of supporting research, an an appendix describes the research methodology. Footnotes, about 80 references, and an index are included.