Police Quarterly

The purpose of this article is to describe a strategic methodology, which is developed from learning organization theory and used to assess a Western Sheriff ’s Office. The authors use learning organization theory to augment four programmatic innovations carried out by the Ada County Sheriff ’s Office in Idaho. The learning model is mixed method: Quantitatively, it makes use of a stratified citizen survey and a deputy survey. Qualitatively, citizen and sheriff ’s deputy focus groups provide meaning from the point of view of environmental actors. The primary products of this method are presented here as narratives that present a comprehensive perspective on the way in which environmental actors viewed programs carried out by the Sheriff ’s Office.

This study captured and compared significant predictors within each of Hall’s professionalism subsets. Questionnaires mailed in one southern state to all municipal police departments with 50 or more sworn personnel (N = 21) produced 1,114 responses (57% response rate) from 16 participating departments. Analysis revealed that officers identified with all five components of professionalism even though policing, in general, is not yet universally recognized as a profession. Regression findings indicated that rank was a significant predictor in all but the public service model. Age, education, marital status, and hours worked also played a significant role in varying professionalism models.

This article examines the police discipline process of a large police department for patterns of disparity in the treatment of minority officers.The analysis is based on 5 years of data collected from the internal affairs division of the department, which captures information on formally documented complaints, determinations of allegations of guilt, and penalties applied. The analysis reveals that minority officers are overrepresented in formally documented complaints, specifically in complaints initiated by other department officers and supervisors. However, analysis utilizing logistic regression finds that officer race is not a significant factor in determining guilt or degree of penalty applied. The implications of these findings and considerations for future research are discussed.

Reform efforts in many police departments have diversified the workforce, especially with regard to race, sex, and sexual orientation. Research, however, has demonstrated that the assimilation of these officers has not been problem-free. Using data collected from a large, municipal police department, this article examines the workplace experiences of patrol officers and a potential consequence of those experiences: stress. We find that being female and being a racial/ethnic minority brings with it substantially different experiences on the job compared to male and White officers. Our findings also confirm previous research that workplace climate has an effect on workplace stress.