Elsevier

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 38, Issue 4, July–August 2010, Pages 520-530
Journal of Criminal Justice

Motivations for becoming a police officer: Re-assessing officer attitudes and job satisfaction after six years on the street

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.04.022Get rights and content

Abstract

Few studies had examined the stability of motivations for becoming a police officer over time, especially among minority and female officers. Moreover, research had not explored the links between original motivations and job satisfaction, a likely proxy measure of motivation fulfillment. The current research was a follow-up to Raganella and White (2004) who examined motivations among academy recruits in the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Using the same survey and analysis, this study re-examined motivations among officers from the same NYPD recruit class after six years on the job, and explored both motivation stability and the relationships among motivations and job satisfaction. Results suggested that motivations have remained highly stable over time, regardless of officer race/ethnicity and gender. Findings also suggested that White male officers were most likely to report low job satisfaction, and that there is a link between low satisfaction and unfulfilled motivations. Moreover, dissatisfied officers were much less likely to have expressed strong commitment to the profession through their original motivations, suggesting that low commitment up front may lead to low satisfaction later on. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for police departments, particularly with regard to recruitment and retention practices and efforts to achieve diversity.

Introduction

Despite a recent emphasis on promoting diversity, policing is still very much an occupation for White males. For example, in 1987, 15 percent of all local police officers in the United States were racial or ethnic minorities; by 2003, minority representation among police had increased only slightly – to 23 percent (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004). Even in large urban police departments, racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented by 15 percent (Taylor, Kubu, Fridell, Reese, Jordan, & Cheney, 2005). Moreover, while females account for nearly half of the U.S. population, by 2000 only 14 percent of police officers were women (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004). The pressure to increase minority and female representation in policing has come from a number of different areas, including activist groups, professional police organizations (e.g., Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies), and the communities that police serve. There are a number of reasons why diversity in police departments is emphasized, most notably the perceived link between under-representation and long-term tense conflict between police and minority communities (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993), perhaps best exemplified by the persistent negative attitudes of police held by young African Americans (Alex, 1969, Huang and Vaughn, 1996, Kappeler et al., 1998). Moreover, many believe that increasing the diversity of the police force so that it reflects the community demographic trends will enhance police legitimacy, which will ultimately increase community cooperation and police effectiveness (e.g., Skogan & Frydl, 2004).

As a result, departments have been forced to think about innovative ways to draw a more diverse applicant pool. One potential avenue for drawing larger numbers of female and minority applicants is to build recruitment strategies that are informed by motivations for becoming a police officer, and more specifically, to tailor those strategies to resonate among minority and female applicants. There are three problems associated with this approach, however. First, much of the research on motivations for entering police work was conducted more than twenty years ago, and few studies – old and recent – had focused on motivations among females and minorities. Second, there were few studies that had examined how motivations may change over time. Motivations may change because of faulty memory, officers’ integration into the police subculture (which could alter perceptions through the onset of cynicism, etc.), or simply because the motivations have not been fulfilled (and as a result, they have been jettisoned). The stability of motivations over time would speak to the strength of those driving influences and highlight their importance for recruitment efforts.

The third problem is that research had not sufficiently explored the link between motivations for entering the profession and later job satisfaction – a likely proxy measure of motivation fulfillment. The relationship between motivations and job satisfaction may have important implications for officer retention, as officers whose original motivations go unmet may be more likely to leave the profession. Issues surrounding motivation fulfillment (or not) may also have important implications for departments’ efforts to achieve diversity, as the relationships between motivation stability and fulfillment and officer race/ethnicity and gender have not been explored. That is, are minority and female officers more likely to experience motivation un-fulfillment than their male and White counterparts? If so, are they more likely to leave the profession as a result?

This article seeks to address these questions by examining whether police officer motivations for entering the profession have changed after six years on the street, as well as how those original motivations may or may not have been met (i.e., job satisfaction). The study is a follow-up to Raganella and White's (2004) Journal of Criminal Justice article which examined motivations among New York Police Department (NYPD) academy recruits. For the follow-up study, the authors examined the same recruit class, employed the same survey (a modified version of Lester, 1983), and replicated the analysis from the earlier Raganella and White (2004) article. The authors first examined motivations among officers (n = 187) overall and across race/ethnicity and gender categories for the current study – after six years in the profession. Second, results from the current study were then compared to results from the earlier study to explore stability in motivations overall and by race/ethnicity and gender, over time. Third, the authors examined job satisfaction as a measure of motivation fulfillment across officer race/ethnicity and gender; and then explored the relationships between original motivations and both low and high job satisfaction. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for police departments, particularly with regard to recruitment and retention practices and efforts to achieve diversity.

Section snippets

The rationale for a representative police force

There are a number of reasons why representativeness in police departments is seen as important. First, police departments that lack in diversity have, in many cases, experienced long-term tense relationships and conflict with minority and disadvantaged communities. Skolnick and Fyfe (1993) suggested that the lack of minority representation among police departments in Los Angeles and Milwaukee, in combination with populations that had become heterogeneous quickly, may have contributed to the

Research design

The current study is a follow up to Raganella and White (2004), targeting the same population of officers: New York City police officers who started at the academy in July 2001 (with graduation in June 2002; N = 1,463). In the earlier study, Raganella and White (2004) visited academy classrooms the month prior to graduation and distributed surveys to the recruits. Participation was voluntary and anonymous, and classrooms were not systematically selected. This process was repeated until more than

Demographics of the sample

Table 1 shows a demographic breakdown of the entire July 2001 recruit class (population), the original Raganella and White (2004) sample (n = 278), and the current study sample (n = 187). For the current study, three-quarters of the sample was male, and 57 percent were White. One-fifth was Hispanic, with an additional 20 percent Black.9

Discussion

This research added to a small number of recent studies (Foley et al., 2008, Moon and Hwang, 2004, Raganella and White, 2004, Ridgeway et al., 2008) that had explored motivations both more recently and across race/ethnicity and gender lines. Importantly, this recent work – the current study included – had mostly confirmed findings from prior research (Cumming et al., 1965, Harris, 1973, McNamara, 1967, Reiss, 1967). Additionally, the current study sought to extend this work by examining the

Michael D. White is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. Dr. White's primary research interests involve the police, including use of force, training, misconduct and performance measurement. Dr. White's recent work has been published in Criminology and Public Policy, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Experimental Criminology, and Crime and Delinquency.

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    Jon Cooper is a doctoral student in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. His primary criminal justice research interests include the ecology of policing and police use of force.

    Jessica Saunders is an Associate Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation. Her research interests include innovative research methodology and statistics, program evaluation, and immigration.

    Anthony J. Raganella is a decorated 14-year veteran lieutenant with the New York City Police Department and is currently completing his Master Degree in Public Administration at Marist College. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Behavioral Science from New York Institute of Technology, an Associate Degree in Criminal Justice from Nassau Community College and is a graduate of the FBI National Academy.

    This paper was accepted under the Editorship of Kent Joscelyn.

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