Work Attitudes of Police Recruits: Is There a Family Connection?

Abstract

Policing scholars have long observed that many individuals entering into the policing profession have family connections to the field that may influence occupational choices and predispositions. Crank (1998) argued that family links to the profession provide a sort of pre-employment socialisation that fundamentally shapes officers' attitudes toward police culture, community residents and management strategies. The purpose of the current study is to build on this existing literature by determining how generational linkages to policing affect attitudes toward the policing profession. The focus of this study is on police recruits who recently entered formal academy training. Studying individuals at this point in professional development is valuable because it mitigates any effects of formal law enforcement employment experiences. The research utilised occupational predisposition and socialisation theories to assess the relationship between family connections to law enforcement and recruit attitudes. Using independent sample t-tests to examine mean differences, and regression models to study the impact of independent variables on outcome measures, the analyses examine the impact of family connections on a series of dimensions of professional orientation. The findings indicate that recruits with no family in law enforcement were more likely to hold a negative attitude towards their supervisor and that those with family in law enforcement were more likely to believe that assisting citizens was just as important as enforcing the law. Implications for larger and more systematic study of police recruits are discussed.