“They’re making a bad name for the department”

Abstract

Examines the link between level of organizational commitment and patrol officers’ attitudes toward and participation in police occupational deviance in a police patrol bureau. Uses analysis and interpretation of qualitative data gathered during field research in one mid‐sized police department to develop the subject. Field research was conducted over a seven‐month period, during which 580 hours of field observations were made and 48 unstructured interviews with patrol officers were conducted. Analysis disclosed that patrol officers with low levels of organizational commitment tended to engage in patterns of work avoidance and manipulation and employee deviance against the organization ‐ in contrast, patrol officers with high levels of commitment to the organization were likely to engage in employee deviance against the organization. Finally, patrol officers with a medium level of organizational commitment engaged in any of the three forms of deviance, depending on which end of the commitment continuum they tended toward. Claims that all patrol officers accepted informal rewards.