Sworn Officers Research Articles

Measuring Complexity: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis Approach

This study examines complexity as a measure of support for organizational redirection. This study considers whether 16 items (culture, mission, values, decentralization, policies and procedures, administrative reporting practices, weapons, contract, pay, benefits, patrol boundaries, equalization of workload, size of boundaries, communications, 10-codes, and car numbers) appropriately characterized a suppressed measure of complexity related to complex organizational change, a police department merger. The current study utilizes data collected from 390 sworn officers from two merged law enforcement agencies in Kentucky. The results of the structural equation model analysis supported the view that four factors (mission, logistics, benefits, and policy) fashion an underlying construct for measuring complexity related to organizational change/redirection. The implications of these findings are also considered.

Privatizing the Police: A Brief Look at the Potential Benefits of Market Forces in the Operation of Law Enforcement

It has long been the conclusion of common wisdom that policing is a public good. According to Forst (2000), as of 1965, there were more sworn police officers than private security personnel, and sworn officers outnumbered the civilian employees of police departments by a count of 8.3 to 1. However, private security personnel, whatever their value to their client, are, with rare exception, not sworn officers with enforcement capability. With the recent proliferation of instances of police brutality and wrongful shootings, corruption and other such market failures within the effective monopoly of public policing, perhaps it is proper to ask whether competition can provide better alternatives.

Strategic policing philosophy and the acquisition of technology: findings from a nationally representative survey of law enforcement

ABSTRACTPolice departments that emphasise certain strategic models (e.g. community-oriented policing, problem-oriented policing) may adopt specific types of technology to better achieve their core missions. A contrasting theory is that police agencies do not invest strategically in technology; rather, they adopt technology in a ‘black box’ without a larger plan for how a particular technology fits within the agency’s guiding philosophy or operational goals. Despite the importance of this discourse, very little research has been conducted to address these claims. Using survey data from a large and nationally representative sample of police agencies in the United States (N = 749), we examine whether strategic police goals are associated with technology use for six core technologies (crime mapping, social media, data mining software, car cameras, license plate readers (LPRs), and body-worn cameras (BWCs)). Nationally, across the sample of all US law enforcement agencies, we find little relationship between strategic goals and technology. Agency size, rather than policing philosophy was a more important determinant of technology use. However, stronger relationships between strategy and technology emerged when the analysis was limited to a subsample of larger agencies (250 or more sworn officers). Specifically, community and hot spot policing strategies were positively associated with the use of geographic information system technology, social media, and LPRs. Agencies who emphasised hot spot policing were also more likely to have used BWCs. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Does training matter in public organizations? Assessing training effects in the U.S. law enforcement agencies

This study examined the consequences of training on organizations. With data collected from 464 U.S. law enforcement agencies, training effects were explored in terms of crime control performance and sworn officers' resignation in regression analysis. According to the findings, training did not significantly improve crime control performance and police officers tended to stay in current organizations when they received a longer training. This study also found that law enforcement agencies in large cities tended to require longer training hours for their police officers.

Organizational justice and officer “buy in” in American policing

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensions of organizational justice in police organizations and evaluate how they contribute to organizational commitment, job satisfaction and compliance with agency rules.Design/methodology/approachA survey of 15,236 sworn officers from a national sample of 88 agencies was used, as well as other agency- and community-level variables. Multi-level models assessed how four dimensions of organizational justice affected these outcomes.FindingsMore favorable perceptions of organizational justice were strongly related to increased commitment to the organization, job satisfaction and compliance with agency rules. Perceptions of organization-wide justice, leadership justice and diversity justice were especially important in predicting those outcome measures.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the sample of agencies was broad and diverse, it should not be considered representative of smaller municipal police departments and sheriff’s offices in the USA.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that “buy in” to reforms and police compliance with rules is much more likely when supervisors and leaders are fair, respectful, give officers input, provide growth opportunities and show concern for officers’ welfare. As such, agencies would benefit from leadership and leadership training that values the core principals of organizational justice.Originality/valueThe study provides clarity about how organizational justice is perceived by police officers, including women and officers of color, and provides an unprecedented test of organizational justice theory in diverse police agencies.

Monetizing the police: Corruption vectors in agency-managed off-duty work

Police departments in the United States have been increasingly involved in placing their sworn officers in off-duty jobs. Individual officers, commanders or union representatives in a number of police agencies earn commissions by brokering off-duty jobs for fellow officers, a practice the US Department of Jus tice characterized as an “artery of corruption” in the New Orleans Police Department. In response to actual or potential corruption by entrepreneurial officers and unions acting as employment brokers, many police agencies now directly place officers in off-duty jobs. Corruption has tainted agency-managed officer placements as well, leading to corruption charges against Pittsburgh's Police Chief and bringing into stark relief how departments generate business and account for commissions earned by placing fully uniformed officers in private employment via “police details”—as the practice is commonly called. This paper looks at “police details” in terms of the realized and potential types of corruption they engender, and the kinds of off-duty employment activities that pose integrity threats, both for the individuals involved and for their law enforcement agencies. The paper concludes by discussing public policy questions raised when police agencies and officers monetize taxpayer-funded training, symbols of office and equipment in order to command premium wages in off-duty employment.

Summer Cop: A Qualitative Study of Summer Police Officers

There are approximately 18,000 police agencies employing 750,000 police officers in the United States in order to police a population over 300 million citizens. In addition, sketchy estimates state there are 400,000 police reserves assisting full-time sworn officers in their duties. One major subgroup of these police reserves are summer police officers (“summer cops”) who serve full-time during the tourist season in mostly beach communities. There has been little to no research into this subpopulation of police officers and little is known about their background and reasons for becoming summer reserve officers. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this study used participant observation and in-depth interviews to assess 15 summer officers in a Maine police department. The study presents major findings about their backgrounds, motives, and goals for becoming summer police officers, as well as their experiences in becoming summer cops and perceptions of training.

Police weight-loss competition in the United States with gender, age, and job comparisons with health promotion recommendations

The purpose was to report body mass changes during a police weight-loss competition over a 12-week period with future implementation suggestions for health promotion practitioners. This second year competition was composed of 409 nonsworn employees and sworn officers in teams of three to four participants weighing-in every 2 weeks. Teams that met the weight-loss goal of 5% from starting mass qualified for awards. Data were analyzed with respect to differences between genders, repeat participants versus first-timers, nonsworn employees versus sworn officers, and age. A significant (p < 0.001) change in mean mass from 99.1 to 96.1 kg resulted in a loss of 3.1 kg, with a mean percent mass loss of 3%. Greatest mean mass change occurred over the first 4 weeks with significant (p < 0.001) differences between each weigh-in. Sworn officers had significantly (p < 0.001) greater percent mass loss, 4%, than nonsworn employees, 2%. Those ≥ 40 years experienced a significantly (p < 0.01) greater percent mass loss, 4%, versus the 3% loss experienced by those < 40 years old. Of all participants, 23% met the goal of 5% mass lost. Attendance was 100% for the first 6 weeks, with 1% absenteeism by week 8. Absenteeism increased at weeks 10 and 12, to 7% and 11%, respectively. The escalation in weeks 10 and 12 was substantially impacted by the absenteeism of nonsworn employees, 19% and 30%, respectively. Suggestions to improve efficacy include addressing apparent motivational differences between sworn and nonsworn participants and adding incentives to reduce end-of-program absenteeism.

Turnover, voluntary turnover, and organizational performance: evidence from municipal police departments

INTRODUCTION A traditional assumption of turnover studies is that turnover is an important organizational problem, and therefore, it should be reduced (Staw, 1980, p. 254). According to the human capital theory (G. Becker, 1962; Schultz, 1961), specific knowledge may impose particular costs on the employer if employees with specific knowledge quit. In the public sector, human resources and their expertise have also been emphasized for producing better organizational performance (Ingraham & Selden, 2002). A government that does not have the right people and expertise at the right time is likely to produce ineffective organizational performance (Government Performance Project Final Assessment, 2003, p. 9). (1) Based on the traditional assumption about turnover effects, most turnover studies have focused on why employees quit and how to prevent employee turnover, regardless of the sectors (e.g., Fields, Dingman, Roman, & Blum, 2005; Herrbach, Mignonac, & Gatignon, 2004; William H. Mobley, 1982; Price, 1977; Tourangeau, Cummings, Cranley, Ferron, & Harvey, 2010; Wagner, 2007). In fact, turnover had not been a big concern in the public sector until the brain drain issue was raised in federal agencies when baby boomers began to retire. Since then, most of the turnover studies have focused on identifying reasons regarding why employees quit, to prevent further resignation in the public sector (e.g., Lewis, 1991; McCabe, Feiock, Clingermayer, & Stream, 2008; Whitaker & DeHoog, 1991; Wilson, 1994). In the private sector, however, researchers have investigated the actual consequences of turnover (e.g., Alexander, Bloom, & Nuchols, 1994; Dalton, Krackhardt, & Porter, 1981; Johnston & Futrell, 1989; J. Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, 2005), based on the question that traditional assumption of turnover effects may be wrong (Abelson & Baysinger, 1984; Staw, 1980). No turnover-effect research on public sector was carried out until Meier and Hicklin (2008), and possible reasons for this neglect of turnover effects include difficulty in both measuring performance (H. Hatry, and Fisk, D., 1992; H. Hatry & Fisk, 1980) and agreeing upon performance measures in the public sector (Meier & Hicklin, 2008, p. 574), and lack of available data as a result. While employee turnover has been an issue in the U.S. in the past decade, not much is known about the turnover effects. Instead of taking the traditional assumption about turnover effects and trying to reduce turnover rates as much as possible, it is necessary for managers to understand how organizational performance will be affected by employee turnover before taking managerial actions to deal with turnover issues. If we just try to maintain turnover at a minimum level, it may cost too much to organizations due to high retention costs that include higher pay and better benefits, like high turnover rates would cost too much to organizations due to high replacement costs that include recruiting and training costs (e.g., Abelson & Baysinger, 1984; Glebbeek & Bax, 2004). The present study probes turnover effects on organizational performance in the public sector and tests the traditional assumption of turnover effects in law enforcement contexts. More specifically, this study focuses on the effects of turnover among sworn officers in municipal police departments after differentiating voluntary and involuntary turnover based on a suggestion of the turnover literature. According to the turnover studies (e.g., Abelson & Baysinger, 1984; McElroy, Morrow, & Rude, 2001; William H. Mobley, 1982; Price, 1977; J. D. Shaw, Delery, Jenkins, & Gupta, 1998), voluntary turnover needs to be differentiated from involuntary turnover before being examined, because treating these two kinds of turnover equally would result in overlooking their different etiologies and consequently mislead. TURNOVER EFFECTS The human capital theory can be a theoretical foundation for a traditional assumption about turnover effects, and for examining the relationship between turnover and organizational performance (J. …

Rainless West

This study seeks to test the capacity to measure individual agency integrity using the theoretical perspective and police integrity instrument developed by Klockars and colleagues. Specifically, sworn officers in a large U.S. municipal law enforcement agency evaluated 11 vignettes describing various forms of police misconduct, from police corruption and the use of excessive force to perjury and planting of evidence. Although our study in Rainless West yields a picture of police integrity that is largely similar to those reported for the three police agencies participating in the study by Klockars and colleagues, we detect substantial differences in the levels of integrity associated with the least serious forms of misconduct. Rainless West offers a lesson for institutions seeking to raise police accountability to explore integrity not only as it applies to the most serious forms of misconduct, but also as it applies to the least serious forms of misconduct.

Job-Related Burnout Among Civilian and Sworn Police Personnel

Employee burnout can affect workers’ health, motivation, and job performance, and speed staff turnover. In law enforcement, burnout has been attributed to a variety of job-related, organizational, and personal factors, ranging from the danger inherent to the job to the liabilities of late shift work, tension with supervisors, and gender relations in the organization. Overlooked in almost all of these studies has been the place of civilians in police work, and how their burnout experiences differ from—or resemble—those of their sworn counterparts. This study is based on surveys of both sworn and civilian employees of 12 police agencies from across the United States. In the survey they described their extent of emotional exhaustion, and reported on features of their lives and work that have been hypothesized to magnify or minimize this stress reaction. The study found that the burnout process is a universal one, driven by virtually the same factors among both civilians and sworn officers. Difficulties balancing work and life responsibilities, the support they receive from coworkers and supervisors, the fairness of personnel policies, and several personal factors contributed to burnout levels. The implications of these findings for both research and practice are also explored.

INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE IN U.S. METROPOLITAN AREAS: THE CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES OF POLICE AND SOCIAL SERVICES*

Although community responses to the problem of intimate partner violence typically focus on increasing and improving policing and social services, few studies have examined the relationship among police force size, social service providers, and women's safety at home. To address this issue, we use data from the National Crime Victimization Survey to examine patterns of intimate partner violence for 40 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) over a 16‐year period (1989–2004). We analyze the data using three‐level multilevel models, with individual respondents (N = 487,166) nested within years, nested within MSAs. Net of other important individual and contextual factors, the results show that women's likelihood of victimization is significantly lower in MSAs that employ more sworn officers per capita, whereas the states’ mandatory arrest laws are not found to have significant independent effects. Above and beyond the effects of police force size, we also find a significant negative relationship between the size of the social service workforce and intimate partner violence. Future research should develop collaborative data collection efforts to examine the specific activities of police and social service workers in dealing with intimate partner violence so that the mechanisms underlying these significant relationships can be understood more clearly.

The Comparative Technical Efficiency of Florida Campus Police Departments

Formal police departments comprising sworn officers have been increasingly utilized on college campuses, but to date there is little empirical research on their comparative performance outcomes. The present study is the first known to analyze the technical efficiency of these departments using data envelopment analysis. Using data from 2008 to 2010, the Florida university police departments are compared to their local municipal counterparts as well as the departments that comprise the North Carolina university system. The results reveal that Florida campus police departments are far less efficient than the municipal agencies they are modeled on, yet more efficient than the North Carolina campus departments on the same measures though efficiency has decreased in all three samples over the 3-year period. These results are used to analyze the security versus law enforcement functions of campus police in general. Specifically, these outcomes are intended to inform campus policy makers and show the need for th...

Officer Perceptions of Canada's ‘First Nations Policing Program’

This study examined the perceptions of service delivery and attitudes towards the First Nations Policing Program (FNPP) of 434 sworn officers working in Aboriginal communities. Officers working for self-administered police services (operated by First Nations) were less optimistic about both the effectiveness of service delivery and whether the goals of the FNPP were being met when compared with members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who provided contract policing to these communities. These results suggest that officer experiences in policing, where they work, their demographic characteristics, as well as their organisational affiliation may shape their perspectives on policing. Implications for future research on Aboriginal, Indigenous and Tribal policing are outlined.

(A28) A Matter of Degree: Teaching “Disaster” and “Emergencies” to Public Safety Executives

What is the difference between a “disaster” and an “emergency”? One can safely say that for the victim of an event, it is always a disaster. But what about the first responders who are tasked with returning conditions to normal as quickly as possible? What about the executives who must direct the first responders, as well as coordinate resources? The difference is a “matter of degree” because it depends on the amount of resources that are required to respond to the incident. For example, an overturned gasoline tanker truck may only be an emergency for a major metropolitan area, but a disaster in a more rural region. American public safety is a mirror image of the government system of federalism that developed during the founding of the United States. Public safety entities are attached to the various local, state, and federal government agencies. There are almost 18,000 local law enforcement agencies across the US. Only 47 agencies have more than 1,000 sworn officers, while almost 90 percent have less than 50. There are more than 30,000 fire departments, yet only about one-quarter of all firefighters are full-time professionals. The rest are volunteers. The author, a 30-year law enforcement veteran, has developed a college-level course for public safety executives to help them understand the “matter of degree.” The intent of the course is to challenge executives to conduct a careful self-examination of their own public safety agencies to determine what they are capable of doing in an event. An executive only gets one chance to do it right, so being able to distinguish between a disaster and an emergency response will be critical to success. When the event occurs, a public safety executive will be better prepared to make key decisions.

An Assessment of the Training and Resources Dedicated Nationally to Investigation of the Production of Child Pornography

The purpose of this article is to address the gap in the literature investigating law enforcement agencies' reactions to the growing occurrence of cyber crime, specifically, production of child pornography cases. This study investigated the prevalence of online child pornography production investigations and arrests by law enforcement agencies in the USA, as well as the training and resources dedicated to investigating cyber crimes. Results revealed that specialized task forces and an increased number of sworn officers in a law enforcement agency increased the number of production of child pornography investigations and arrests in a jurisdiction. These findings indicate a need for more resources and training for law enforcement to better handle the growing presence of child pornography online, as well as other forms of cyber criminality. Language: en

A Study on The relationship of Police Training and Job attitude - Focused on Newly Employed Sworn Officer Squad Members -

A Study on The relationship of Police Training and Job attitude - Focused on Newly Employed Sworn Officer Squad Members -

Factors Shaping Police Retention: Does Herzberg's Theory of Satisfaction Hold?

Little research explores factors that shape retention among police officers. This article reports on our work of testing how well the idea of intrinsic variables being related to job satisfaction and extrinsic variables being associated with dissatisfaction at work (Herzberg et al., 1959) holds in understanding workplace issues today. We explore how police officers express the positive and challenging aspects of their job. Responses from interviews with sworn officers have generally support Herzberg's proposition. We find four theme units related to intrinsic variables have emerged around the positive aspects of police work with impact on retention: helping others, seeing the work as interesting and challenging, having a degree of control in the work environment, as well as the team organisation of police work.

Minority threat and police strength: an examination of the Golden State

This cross‐sectional study examined the relationships between indicators of law enforcement spending, police strength, and minority threat in California in 2004. Controlling for economic conditions, crime, and indicators of social disruption we find that counties with higher populations of American Indians, Asians, or blacks and non‐English speakers employ a greater number of sworn officers, or have increased spending on law enforcement. Further, this study also revealed that counties with less ‘white flight’ were likely to have a greater number of sworn officers. Implications for the study of formal social control, conflict theories, and policing are outlined.

A case study of the effects of the service population on crime and the officer ratio in Orlando, Florida

Crime reflects the character of society and annual crime rates published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the uniform crime report (UCR) in the USA are a basic indicator of safety in a community. Additionally, the police-residential population ratio is the traditional measure of the level of police protection in a community. Although these historical measures are widely accepted, the literature is void of one very important dimension that influences these measures in many communities: service population. Succinctly, service population considers several characteristics outside of a community's residential population such as homelessness, tourism, and daily commuting of workers into a city. In one of the top tourist destinations in the USA, Orlando, Florida, the service population has a profound effect on annual crime rates and the sworn officer ratio. This article highlights and discusses Orlando's service population formula while illustrating the significant differences between residential population and service population measures. The scientific confirmation of the population's effects on police organisations is illustrated in a structural equation model and a strong argument is made for the necessity to begin the discussion of a standard service population formula when analysing crime rates and officer ratios.