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ABSTRACT: Collective bargaining between police management and unions is an important process that determines many aspects of police
work, particularly the monetary benefits for line officers like salary and fringe benefits. Working with limited budgets,
police administrators who engage in collective bargaining are obligated to negotiate with union representatives over wage
benefits while attempting to maintain adequate financial resources toward other police operations. Though students of policing
learn that police unions try very hard to increase economic reward for their members there is limited research on the effectiveness
of their efforts. Since economic benefits are the primary focus of police unions, it is important; therefore, to evaluate
the impact that collective bargaining has on salaries earned by police personnel. This study examines this issue by combining
four waves of the Law Enforcement Management and Administration Statistics for the period 1990–2000. Pooled time series analyses
reveal that large organizations that engaged in collective bargaining had higher minimum wages for officers during the period.
As predicted, collective bargaining did not affect minimum chief’s salaries.
American Journal of Criminal Justice 04/2012; 31(1):19-34.
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ABSTRACT: In research on policing, James Q. Wilson was among the first scholars to suggest that local political culture constitutes a significant factor in explaining variation among law enforcement agency practices. Almost forty years after the publication of Varieties of Police Behavior, a classic study of police organizational behavior, Wilson’s monograph remains the basis of a widely held theory used to explain variation in police agency behaviors. More specifically, Wilson (1968) identified three distinctive styles of policing: the legalistic, the watchman, and the service styles. In his empirical work with these styles of policing, Wilson argued that local political culture was the major determinant of variation in policing styles. The purpose of this study was to retest the validity of Wilson’s argument in today’s policing environment. Using panel data collected among police agencies across the U.S. surveyed in 1993, 1996, and 2000, the authors found that there was little evidence to support the application of Wilson’s theory to the practices of contemporary police organizations.
Journal of Criminal Justice. 02/2006;
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ABSTRACT: This article examines factors hypothesized to be associated with the employment of female police officers in US municipal law enforcement agencies. Female officer representation is investigated within three primary racial or ethnic groups—Caucasians, African Americans, and Hispanics. This study utilizes data collected from a representative sample of police departments serving populations over 25,000 residents across the US during the period of 1993 to 1996. The primary findings of the research suggest that a small but noteworthy increase in the number of female officers occurred during this three-year period. In addition, it was found that variation in the proportion of female police officers hired in each racial or ethnic group was influenced by different sets of external and internal explanatory variables. Previous research treating female officer representation as a single aggregate group is misleading to the extent that it hides the observed cross-racial and ethnic differences observed here.
Journal of Urban Affairs 06/2001; 23(3‐4):243 - 257. · 0.84 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This paper examines evidence of value change among police officers in a medium-sized police department which has been selected as a demonstration site for community-oriented policing (COP). Relying primarily upon two survey data collections with a period of three years’ separation, the aim of this paper is to provide a follow-up to a previously published article in this journal to investigate two issues. First, was there a change in the value orientations among police officers between 1993 and 1996?; and second, was any change noted favorable to the COP organizational culture that the department is attempting to promote? The primary findings of this paper strongly suggest that the value orientations among police officers did indeed change over this time period. However, the direction of the change noted may not be consistent with the goal of enhancing COP organizational culture. These findings help explain how the institutionalization of COP is properly seen as a very difficult, long-term task facing American police today.
Policing An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 05/1999; 22(2):152-170. · 0.55 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This paper examines the value orientation of American police officers in a major municipal police department. Relying primarily on survey data, the aim of this paper is to utilize Milton Rokeach’s theory of human values to investigate the following three issues: What are the value orientations of police officers today? Have such value orientations among police officers changed over time? Is there a consensus on values among officers? The primary findings of this paper strongly suggest that value orientations among American police officers have remained relatively stable over recent decades. Moreover, there is a high degree of consensus on value priorities among police officers across years of service, level of education and gender.
Policing An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 02/1998; 21(1):22-37. · 0.55 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Analyzes the impact of collective bargaining on the supplemental compensation of employees in large police departments across the nation. Suggests that collective bargaining does make a difference in terms of economic benefits; hazardous duty pay, differential shift pay and educational incentive pay are all more likely to be present when the collective bargaining process is available, and merit pay (a more likely management prerogative policy) is less likely to be present. The correlation between collective bargaining and personnel policy varies greatly, however, when controls for fiscal capacity, organizational size, and region are added to the analysis. Geographic region turns out to constitute an important contextual variable deserving primary attention in future analyses of police personnel policies and practices.
Policing An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 08/1997; 20(3):508-518. · 0.55 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: Explains Inglehart’s theory that in advanced industrial societies, individual values have moved from materialism to a greater emphasis on freedom, self-expression and the quality of life, or “postmaterialism”, and observes that postmaterialists want to work with people they like and to do interesting work rather than have a high salary or job security. Applies Inglehart’s theory of societal value change to assess a police organizational reform. Conducts a survey of the Washington State Police. Finds that command staff show the highest profession of postmaterialist values and troopers show the lowest. Believes leadership turnover is more likely than conversion to new values to bring about management commitment to community policing.
American Journal of Police 11/1995; 14(3/4):151-171.
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ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of social control and social support policies associated with conservative and liberal political ideologies with respect to violent crime in large U.S. cities during the 1990s. Eighty-five cities with populations of 150,000+ were included in the analysis; these cities accounted for fifty-two million urban area residents of the U.S. The use of the two-way, fixed-effect panel data method of statistical analysis enabled the authors to assess the relationship between change in local government expenditures for police and court services (social control) and expenditures on community development and park/recreation (support policy) and corresponding changes in crime rates documented within these cities. The findings indicated that expenditure on both police services and community development initiatives had significantly suppressive effects on crime in these cities during the period of the 1990s. It appeared that both conservative and liberal policies had their merits as effective countermeasures to crime.
Journal of Criminal Justice. 36(4):316-325.
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ABSTRACT: The current study attempted to expand the understanding victimization of police by examining the impact of a variety of factors related to community and aggressive policing styles on injurious assaults rates across 267 large municipal police departments. Regression analyses indicated that policing styles related to community meetings are associated with low levels of assault rates. Second, policing styles related to aggressive enforcement of drug laws has an aggravating effect on police victimization. Finally, departments that had high police-to-citizen population ratios also had lesser rates of injurious assaults.
Journal of Criminal Justice. 36(5):461-468.
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ABSTRACT: Only limited research was available on the important question of the likely determinants of changes in budgetary allocations to municipal police agencies over time. Within that rather limited set of studies, three distinct perspectives on hypothesized key determinants of funding levels for police could be identified--namely, the local political culture, the nature of socioeconomic conditions, and the prevalence of incremental budget decision-making processes. This study employed a longitudinal data set derived from municipal clerk surveys administered in four waves to the same cross-section of U.S. cities in 1993, 1996, 2000, and 2003. The authors examined the relative utility of these three hypothesized determinants through the use of a two-way random-effects panel model. The findings for 188 U.S. municipal governments suggested that the incremental budgeting aspect of annual budgeting in municipal governments largely explained the variation in share of allocation to police agencies in these cities, with political culture and socioeconomic conditions demonstrating only weak effects at best.
Journal of Criminal Justice. 38(3):266-275.
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ABSTRACT: The interactive effects of race and gender in a multi-dimensional assessment of police occupational stress were examined in this study. The sample from a large urban police department was divided into four subgroups: White males, African-American males, White females, and African-American females. Comparisons were carried out to assess group differences in three major domains of stress process: stressors, coping mechanisms, and multiple psychological manifestations of stress. Specific attentions were paid to observe any similar or dissimilar interactive effects of race and gender on the stress process. The results showed that dynamic factors such as measures of work environment and coping mechanisms contributed more in explaining police stress than static factors such as race and gender. Additionally, destructive coping and work-family conflict (spillover) were the most stable correlates of police stress across all subgroups included in the analysis. The impacts of negative exposure and camaraderie on police stress were conditional on the subgroup statuses. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.
Journal of Criminal Justice.
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ABSTRACT: This paper attempts to identify and empirically test the important factors broadly assumed to be associated with the noteworthy increase in African American officers in U.S. municipal police agencies. Using data collected on a representative sample of police departments serving populations of 25,000+ residents across the country (N = 281), a path analysis statistical method was employed in order to assess both the direct and indirect influences of these hypothesized explanatory variables. The primary finding is that the size of the African American population is the predominant contributor to a statistical model accounting for substantial variation in the representation of African American officers in U.S. cities. Other hypothesized factors are far less important than generally believed.
Journal of Criminal Justice.
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ABSTRACT: Using panel data collected on a representative sample of police departments serving populations of 25,000+ residents across the country in 1993, 1996, and 2000 (N = 281), fixed-effect panel models were used to assess the influence of environmental and institutional variables on the hiring of African American and Latino officers. The primary findings were that the presence of a substantial minority population was among the most important predictors of minority officer employment in city police departments. The presence of a Latino mayor and the presence of an African American or a Latino police chief were also significantly associated with increased minority police officer employment. Additionally, no evidence was found to suggest a detrimental impact caused by different minority groups competing with each other for limited police employment resources. Implications for future research are discussed in some detail.
Journal of Criminal Justice.
