Police Role Perceptions: Their Operationalization and Some Preliminary Findings

Abstract

Several authors have noted that police do much more than capture criminals. Perhaps the most cited role typology was developed by James Q. Wilson, who divided the police role into three categories: law enforcement, order-maintenance and services. Wilson suggested that police departments assumed a particular role through depart mental policies consistent with community values communicated through the govern ment structure. Regardless of the method of communication, according to Wilson's thesis, there should be a consistent policy held by officers in a particular community, and this policy should differ according to the community characteristics within which the particular department is located. This study operationalized a police role perception instrument and conducted a preliminary correlational analysis with indicators of the community, the government structure, the nature of crime in the particular community, along with the personality and job characteristics of the police respondent. What was found was that police role perceptions cannot be characterized as easily as Wilson suggests. Principally, the role perception categories transcended law enforcement and order-maintenance and might best be labelled "proactive" and "reactive" in addition to "peacekeeping" and "service" roles. The categories were not mutually exclusive within the communities, and they were generally related to the level of serious crime in the community -an indication of how much time an officer could spend on the secondary aspects of his job.