Field Supervisor Behaviour and Officer on Duty Personal Business

Abstract

Police patrol officers generally operate with little direct supervision of their work activities, enabling them to abuse their unassigned patrol time by engaging in personal business actions. The present study sought to measure the influences of supervisor modelling and supervisor contact on the amount of time which patrol officers spent on their own personal business-related activities. The findings suggest that the less time supervisors spent on personal business, the less time officers also spent on these types of activities. The findings also suggest that the more face-to-face contact supervisors had with their subordinate officers in the field, the less time these officers spent on personal business. Finally, the degree of influence face-to-face contacts and supervisor modelling had on patrol officers was limited.