Shedding Light on Police Culture

An Examination of Officers’ Occupational Attitudes

Bibliographic Data

ID23382199
AuthorsEugene A Paoline (0000-0001-9483-8629, University of Central Florida, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume7
Issue2
Pages205-236
Publication date2004-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolice Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1098-6111 • E-ISSN: 1552-745X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1098611103257074
OpenAlexW2157901453
LanguageEN
Citations received78
References cited19

Research on police culture has generally fallen within one of two competing camps—one that depicts culture as an occupational phenomenon that encompasses all police officers and one that focuses on officer differences. The latter conceptualization of police culture suggests subcultures (or at least segmentation) that bound or delimit the occupational culture. Using survey data collected as part of the Project on Policing Neighborhoods (POPN) in two municipal police departments, the research reported here examines the similarities and differences among contemporary police officer attitudes in an effort to locate some of the boundaries of the occupational culture of police. Seven analytically distinct groups of officers are identified, suggesting that officers are responding to and coping with aspects of their occupational world in different ways. The findings call into question some of the assumptions associated with a monolithic police culture.

Conceptualization · Criminology · Officer · Organizational culture · Phenomenon · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Law · Policing Practices and Perceptions · Psychology · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies · Social Psychology

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