Municipal Police Officer Job Satisfaction in Pennsylvania: A Study of Organisational Development in Small Police Departments

Abstract

Current policing literature indicates that the retention rate of patrol officers is in steady decline. On the whole, various policing factors that include fatigue, stress and workload appear to be major reasons for high turnover rates. In order to substantiate patrol officers' views of contemporary policing, we examined their perceptions of issues related to overall job satisfaction and correlating factors. Municipal police officers from 14 south central Pennsylvania police departments located in one mid-size county were surveyed to determine if there were any significant differences or correlations between perceptions of overall job satisfaction and previous research related to satisfaction with administration, shift work, equipment, community support, department morale and policies and procedures. Results indicate that there is an apparent connection between stress and overall job satisfaction. Most notably, higher stress levels, faster rotating shifts and officers' perceptions of department morale were shown to impact the levels of overall job satisfaction.