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For the most part, police departments of a similar size are structured in the same way. There are also some similarities in structure between very large departments and very small departments. There are also significant differences between large and small departments, however. One of the biggest is the amount of specialization present in the organization. As noted, specialization refers to the number of distinct units within the organization as well as the number of supervisory levels in the organization.

The problems and priorities of large departments are also different than those of smaller departments. In addition, diversity among officers tends to vary by department size. Overall, approximately 27% of sworn officers are racial or ethnic minorities, although larger departments are generally much more racially diverse than smaller ones.¹⁴ This same pattern applies to the representation of female officers (see A Research Question).

One aspect of police operations that does not vary significantly by police department size is the technology that is available to officers (see Technology on the Job feature).