National commissions studying police have urged the hiring of college educated police officers, many experts in the field have urged the hiring of college educated police officers, and numerous police agencies have actually hired college educated police officers--but little is known of the effects of hiring college educated police officers. Most of the arguments made for and against hiring college educated police officers are based more on conjecture than on hard empirical facts. / To help fill this information void, the present study entails a study of the education and work performance of police officers from two Southeastern United States police departments (a sample of 603 officers from one department and a population of 137 officers from the other department). / Numerous educational and other background variables were used as independent variables, and the following were used as the dependent, work performance variables: Awards and Commendations; Suspensions; Reprimands, Complaints to Internal Affairs Department; Evaluations; Sick Leave; Discharge of Firearms; Promotional Test Scores; Felony Arrests; Felony Arrest Filing Rates; and Misdemeanor Arrests. Multiple regression was used as the statistical means to determine the relationships among these variables. / The data revealed that college education made a difference in ten of the eleven dependent variables. Only in the case of the dependent variable Discharge of Firearms did college education not make a difference in performance. Moreover, based on a paradigm formulated for the study, college education was found to be a factor in the superior work performance for the following dependent variables: Sick Leave; Awards and Commendations; Reprimands; Promotional Test Scores; Felony Arrests; Felony Arrest Filing Rates; Misdemeanor Arrests; and Performance Evaluations. College education made no difference in the dependent variables Suspensions and Discharge of Firearms; and there was some evidence that college education was a factor in more Complaints to the Internal Affairs Department. Implications for future research and for deployment of college educated officers were discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-03, Section: A, page: 0935. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74789 |
| Contributors | MURRELL, DAVID BRUCE., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 302 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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