Many professionals are privately employed, either singly or as part of a peer-run corporation. They are able to dispense their expertise without close administrative direction and oversight. It is assumed that doctors and lawyers, whether self-employed or as members of larger practices, will exercise good judgment and discretion when responding to the demands that are placed upon them. Even where professionals are not privately employed, and must dispense their expertise under the umbrella of a larger, non-peeroperated organization, they are likely to be able to do so with little more than peer accountability. Thus university professors work within space that is secured by traditions of academic freedom, and physicians working in large hospitals are for the most part shielded from administrative interference in the way they dispense their expertise.

Police officers, however, generally work in publicly supported organizations that are strongly hierarchical in character, and not known for democratic decision making or peer review. Naturally this impacts on their work environment, on the possibilities that exist for professionalism, and on the institutional structures that develop in response. Although the rhetoric of professionalization is spouted by both management and rank and file, and much managerial direction is justified in the name of professionalization, the reality often seems quite otherwise.