Are police and security personnel warming up to each other? A comparison of officers' attitudes in developed, emerging, and transitional economies

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of police‐security relationships in three different continents that are unique in their economic, political, and social culture. These countries include a developed economy (USA), an emerging economy (South Korea), and a transitional economy (Slovenia). More specifically, it compares the views that private and public police personnel in a diverse set of countries hold about one another on various issues relating to their working relationships and their efforts to improve them.

Design/methodology/approach

Data for the paper came from 1,158 police and security officers from the USA, South Korea, and Slovenia. All three studies employed survey methodology. The English language instruments are translated into the Korean and Slovenian languages and both instruments are back translated from the respective languages into English to check for validity.

Findings

While the findings for all the three countries vary in terms of the degree of personnels' positive attitudes toward one another, the overall levels of support from security professionals toward police officers appear positive in all the three countries. Among the police, personnel from the USA relative to other countries appear to have the most progressive and accepting attitude toward security personnel's role as partners. The varying degree of differences between South Korea and Slovenia may be a reflection of the centralized police structures, cultural and historical characteristics, and variations in the levels of economic liberalization policies. Findings suggest that in all the three countries security personnel are trying to reach out to the police to play their part in community policing compared to the police reaching out to the private sector.

Research limitations/implications

There is a time lag in data collection (seven‐year period) as the data for this paper were not collected at one point in time in these countries. Despite this limitation, the use of many identical questions in surveys in all the three countries offers an opportunity for this comparative research.

Originality/value

Most research on police officers' job satisfaction has been done in relation to individual factors while ignoring the role of organizational culture and environmental factors. Further, this setting offers an opportunity to test if democratization of police organizations influences job satisfaction.

Citation

Nalla, M.K., Johnson, J.D. and Meško, G. (2009), "Are police and security personnel warming up to each other? A comparison of officers' attitudes in developed, emerging, and transitional economies", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 508-525. https://doi.org/10.1108/13639510910981635