Is police ineptitude more to blame on the individual officer or on the department as a whole?

Police departments are like any other organization.  When
members perform badly, it can be for a variety of reasons, and the mixture of reasons
can vary from department to department.

It is certainly
possible for ineptitude to be the fault of the department.  A department that has
inadequate training procedures will surely turn out a number of inept officers.  The
same is true if the department is lax in its supervisory activities.  Poor training
and/or poor supervision can lead to ineptitude and are the fault of the
department.

However, it is certainly true that even good
departments can have bad officers.  No process of hiring, training, and supervision is
foolproof.  A "bad apple" can get in to even the best of
departments.

Bad police officers can be attributed to
departmental shortcomings, individual shortcomings, or a combination of the
two.