Policing Styles and Organizational Priorities: Retesting Wilson’s Theory of Local Political Culture

Abstract

In Varieties of Police Behavior, a classic study of police organizational behavior published more than 30 years ago, James Q. Wilson discovered three distinctive styles of policing: the legalistic, the watchman, and the service styles. Police agencies with a legalistic orientation focused strictly on law enforcement activities, whereas those with a service style focused on providing needed services to residents and business owners. Furthermore, Wilson identified local political culture as the major determinant of variation in policing styles. Varieties of Police Behavior has become a classic work in police scholarship, described in almost all police textbooks, influencing a generation of students of policing. Citation analyses, additionally, have shown that it is one of the most frequently cited works in policing yet remains one of the least tested empirical studies. This study retests the validity of Wilson’s findings in today’s policing environment with the goal of furthering theoretical formation in police research. Based on recent data from a sample of large municipal American police agencies, we find little support for Wilson’s theory of local political culture in contemporary police practice.