Gender equality has been a marginalised topic within policing studies, with a very small pool of academics conducting work on this subject in recent years. This thesis aims to make a contribution to this at both a theoretical and empirical level. This is done by refining and extending theoretical models proposed by previous researchers, in the light of new data on policewomen's and their male colleagues' perceptions of gender equality in policing. Key theories, themes and findings in the thesis relate to organisational change, power and social control, masculinities and exclusion. Some of these concepts have not previously been systematically applied to policewomen's experiences. Other themes which have been applied to women in organisations more generally and on occasion, specifically to women in policing, include: stereotyping, visibility, isolation, sisterhood, double standards, the work-home balance and sexual harassment. These concepts are analysed, reflected in the findings, and extended in the concluding chapters. Previously, where empirical studies have been conducted, these have rarely, if ever, been the subject of follow-up studies using either the same research instruments or the same police service. Such follow-ups are an important method of measuring change over time. This study is thus partly a follow-up study of Jones' (1986) survey of one police service in England and Wales and also, that of Brown's (1991) and Anderson, Brown and Campbell's (1993) studies. Methods employed include a questionnaire survey, interviews and a focus group, using the same police force as Jones (1986), and many of the same questions. Anderson et al's (1993) questionnaire is also drawn upon, with amendments and additions. The study thus synthesises the methods used in two pivotal empirical studies (Jones, 1986; Anderson et al, 1993) on gender equality in the UK in the last two decades, as well as using grounded theory methods to explore emerging priorities in this area. As well as following up earlier work, therefore, the study sets a new baseline for further work. Whilst I found evidence of some improvement in women officers' position since the studies by Jones (1986) and Anderson et al (1993), women are still a marginalised group within policing and experience a range of discriminatory behaviour, some of which may have become more covert in recent years, but some of which is still quite openly expressed and tolerated.

In the current dissertation, the relationship between police officer selection procedures and officer performance during the first year of employment was investigated within a metropolitan law enforcement agency. Ninety-two officers were followed during their first year of employment including the hiring process, academy and field training, and yearly evaluations. Data on education, aptitude, physical agility, personality, academy performance, supervisor ratings, and terminations were collected. The results reveal that the psychologists' recommendations predict whether or not an individual will leave the department before the completion of their first year as an officer. In addition, the aptitude test administered by the municipal human resources department accounted for the most variance in academy scores. Weak predictions were demonstrated for field training ratings and yearly evaluations. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Wichita State University, College of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Psychology. / "December 2006." / Includes bibliographic references (leaves 72-77)

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Research has demonstrated that the general public accepts many rape myths and that rape attitudes are strongly connected to other deeply held and pervasive attitudes. However, it has not been clear whether police officers reflected similar attitudes. This research attempted to ascertain if police share the same antecedents of rape myth acceptance as the general public. Using officers from two police departments, it was demonstrated that attidudes regarding sex role stereotyping, sexual conservatism, acceptance of interpersonal violence, and adversarial sexual beliefs were significantly correlated with acceptance of rape myths. However, police were more pro-victim (p < .01) in their attitudes as compared to the general public. Officers who received specialized rape-related training were not significantly different in rape attitudes from those officers who had not received training.

Forskning har visat att människor i allmänhet har positiva attityder till polisen. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka ungdomars attityder till den svenska polisen. Det undersöktes om polisens olika grad av våldsamt agerande påverkade deltagarnas uppfattningar och om attityderna skilde sig gentemot kvinnliga respektive manliga ordningspoliser. En egenkonstruerad enkät innehållande fyra olika berättelser delades ut i tre gymnasieskolor. Deltagarna var 88 unga kvinnor och 42 unga män som studerade på föreläsningsbaserade program. Resultatet visade att de flesta deltagare hade en positiv attityd. Resultatet visade även att ju mer våldsamt agerande desto mindre professionell, hänsynstagande och mer känslostyrd uppfattades polisen som. Det fanns inte någon skillnad mellan attityderna till kvinnliga respektive manliga poliser. För hänsynstagande och affekt visade dock resultatet en tendens till en interaktionseffekt mellan polisens kön och våldsamhet. Detta kan bero på att det fortfarande kan finnas stereotypa könsuppfattningar hos deltagarna för vissa attribut hos polisen.

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This research seeks to understand how public police officers phenomenologically construct and conceptualize their occupational role. Most research has overlooked officers’ intimate constructions of reality. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by presenting an inductive analysis of how police officers define their role, capturing officers’ intimate constructions of their life-world, while acknowledging the contradictions and tensions that characterize this role construct. My interview data indicates that officers define their role in terms of an ideal construct that is oftentimes at odds with their lived reality. Moreover, the data suggests that there is a discontinuity between officers’ definition of reality, the nature of their lived experienced, and the institutionalized definitions of reality espoused by the media, the public and the courts which, ultimately, fosters feelings of powerlessness among the officers. I conclude with discussion about the implications of holding onto this role construct and offer potential policy initiatives.

Recent decades have witnessed a wealth of research into the concept of career stages and the relationship between these stages and the needs, attitudes and behaviours of individuals in the workforce. This high level of research interest has been fuelled by the belief that the human factor is the most critical factor in the success of organisations today and if organisations are to remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment they need to better understand the development needs, work-related attitudes and career concerns of their employees. Whilst a diverse range of career stage models have been put forward over the past fifty years, the models proposed by Super, Crites, Hummel, Moser, Overstreet and Warnath (1957) (psychological fit) and Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson and McKee (1978) (age) have received considerable research attention and are generally considered to be the most useful in explaining the needs, attitudes and behaviours of individuals over the course of their career. Research into career stages has been conducted using a wide range of occupational groups. Only a limited number of researchers, however, have sought to test the utility of career stage concepts using a police sample. Despite their popularity and strong theoretical and empirical grounding, there is no known research that has tested the utility of Super et al. (1957) and Levinson et al.’s (1978) models of career stage using a police sample. The purpose of this study therefore was to contribute to the literature on career stage theory by testing the utility of these models of career stage in explaining the job satisfaction and work commitment of Queensland police officers. The study also explored the influence of other background variables that may also impact on job satisfaction and work commitment. The sample consisted of 246 police officers from the Metropolitan South Region of the Queensland Police Service. A cross sectional design was used to gather the data for the study. The Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI) was used to group respondents into a career stage according to Super et al.’s conceptualisation of career stage. Respondents were also grouped into age-based career stages according to Levinson et al.’s conceptualisation of career stage. The study used established survey instruments to collect data on five facets of job satisfaction, these being satisfaction with pay, promotion, supervision, co-workers and work and five facets of work commitment, these being organisational commitment, job involvement, Protestant work ethic, career commitment and union commitment. Data was also collected on the background variables of organisational and occupational tenure, rank, gender, education level and type, type of duty performed, marital status, completion of the Queensland Police Service’s Management Development Program and membership of an Equal Employment Opportunity target group. A series of MANOVAs were used to explore the relationship between the career stage and other background variables and the various facets of job satisfaction and work commitment. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine if the results were being confounded by relationships with other independent variables. The current study failed to find any evidence to support the utility of Levinson et al.’s model in explaining job satisfaction and work commitment for Queensland Police officers. Whilst some significant differences in job satisfaction and work commitment between Levinson et al.’s age groupings were identified, none of the findings were consistent with the assumptions of their model. In fact, there was some evidence of differences in job-related attitudes across age groupings that directly contradict the assumptions of the Levinson et al. model. The current study also found no support for the utility of Super et al.’s model in explaining the job satisfaction of police officers. Some limited support, however, was found for the utility of Super et al.’s model in predicting work commitment, most notably with respect to organisational commitment, job involvement and career commitment. Differences in mean organisational commitment, job involvement and career commitment scores generally supported the propositions of Super et al., however, only the results for the exploration and disengagement stages reached statistical significance. Statistically significant relationships were found for the background variables of organisational tenure, rank, gender and type of duty. Statistically significant relationships were found for several facets of job satisfaction and work commitment. Work-related attitudes were generally found to peak in the first two years of a police officer’s tenure and then decline as tenure increased. The reason for this decline is complex and not completely clear, but may be at least partially explained by: the structural characteristics of police services; the distinct lack of support and confidence in officers; the influence of the police sub-culture; and the existence of a phenomenon known as police ‘bullshit’. Commissioned officers were found to be significantly more satisfied with promotions and constables were found to have significantly higher levels of organisational commitment than senior constables and sergeants and significantly higher levels of career commitment than sergeants. Other statistically significant relationships found in the current study include female officers reporting significantly higher levels of satisfaction with promotions than male officers and general duties officers reporting significantly higher levels of satisfaction with promotions than officers performing specialist duties and significantly higher levels of loyalty to the union than plain-clothes officers. The study concluded by highlighting the pioneering nature of the current study. It was suggested that considerably more research is necessary in order to clarify and refine the conceptualisation and measurement of police career stages and the relationship between these stages and work-related attitudes. It was recommended that future research should verify and extend the results of the current study, particularly with respect to the influence of tenure as a career stage variable and the nature and role of disengagement in any conceptualisation of career stage for police.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / The focus of this study was to examine the controversial issue of racial profiling. This study examined the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of 112 police officers from four separate police departments. The study began with the premise that racial profiling was a widespread issue in law enforcement. It looked to identify attributes, similarities, and differences of contrasting police agencies that would explain why some groups engage in racial profiling and others do not. The research was also undertaken to determine what might mitigate racial profiling practices. This study examined the issue from three different positions. The first step was to determine whether police officers believed that racial profiling was problematic in their respective departments. The cohort overwhelmingly reported that they did not believe racial profiling was a serious problem. The second goal of the study was to determine if a department's organizational culture (attitudes, values, and behaviors) contributed to racial profiling attitudes and practices. This study found, through an examination of organizational commitment, that organizational culture did affect racial profiling practices. Police departments with more committed officers showed lower search disparity rates between minority and majority motorists. Finally, racial profiling attitudes and practices were examined controlling for training. Police departments where a majority of officers received racial profiling training showed lower search rate disparities between majority and minority motorists. They also showed higher levels of commitment to the organization. A statistical analysis found that training and Organizational Commitment were shown to have a statistically significant effect on racial profiling practices. Attitudes, however, appeared to be unaffected. Quantity of training appeared to be the critical factor; quality of training was not examined as a part of this research. Police departments that committed to department-wide training showed lower search rate disparities between minority and majority motorists. Further research is needed to identify the connection between training, organizational culture, and officers' individualized behavior.

Management education for police officers has played a significant role in the desired transformation of police services around the world from vocational to professional status. This thesis reports research that employed qualitative and quantitative data collection methods to investigate the factors affecting participation and performance of Queensland Police Service officers who undertook the Management Development Program by distance education mode. Three phases of data collection were employed. The first phase involved interviews with facilitators of the program about their perceptions of factors that affected participation and performance of officers enrolled in the program. Data from this phase were used to develop a questionnaire with seven internally consistent scales. This questionnaire constituted the second phase of data collection and was completed by officers at the ranks of senior constable, sergeant and senior sergeant who had successfully completed at least one unit of the Management Development Program. Data gained from the questionnaire were used to investigate the relationship between an officer's characteristics and the factors that influenced participation and performance in the Management Development Program. An analysis of these data provided the basis for the development of a schedule for interviews that were conducted with the manager of the program and the head of the School of Management. Central to these two interviews were implications for the delivery of the Management Development Program as part of the Queensland Police Service's continuing education and professional development program. These interviews constituted the third phase of data collection for this study. This study found factors that influenced the participation and performance of officers undertaking the program were their attitude to in-service professional development, how they perceived professional development, issues about their success potential, the level of personal, professional and academic support they received, the impact of aspects related to program delivery, and discourse with facilitators of the program. A model that provides a comprehensive representation of the relationships among the variables was developed. Key recommendations derived from this study have implications for the clinical delivery of the Management Development Program. Recommendations focus on the need to market the benefits of the program to individual officers, to provide enhanced student support services, to ensure the appropriateness of the learning materials, and to establish orientation programs and assignment-writing workshops for officers. Recommendations for the Queensland Police Service include the need to market the program’s importance to continuing education and professional development for officers as well as the program’s contribution to ensuring officers possessed sound management skills. Recommendations focussing on human resources include ensuring that numbers of facilitators are adequate to meet the learning needs of officers and that all facilitators possess appropriate postgraduate qualifications. It is also recommended that the postgraduate level of the Management Development Program be reviewed to determine if it is the most appropriate for the needs of officers and the service.