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The purpose of this study is to explore factors correlated with police cadets' perceived commitment to the police profession – whether or not personal attitudes and demographic characteristics can make a difference.

The study used two-year longitudinal data collected from a population of 207 Chinese police cadets. Survey research based on pre-designed instruments was employed to collect the data.

The results from panel data analysis found that personal interest in adolescence and attitudes toward styles of policing were significant predictors. Specifically, attitudes toward community policing were positively related to the cadets' commitment to the police profession.

Police occupational commitment is essential since the commitment is closely linked to voluntary retention and organizational effectiveness. However, limited empirical research has been available regarding the factors associated with officers' identification and commitment to the occupation. This study provides insight into police officer training and recruitment and offers suggestions for future research.

Drawing upon the police accountability model, the purpose of this paper is to advance the research on public attitudes toward the police (PATP) by examining the effects of reported disorder incidents at the micro level on the two dimensions of PATP.

This study uses two waves of random sample telephone survey of 2,393 residents in Houston, Texas. The disorder data were provided by the Houston Police Department. Disorder incidents surrounding each respondent’s residence were extracted by using geographic information systems technology. Structural equation modeling was used for the analysis.

The main findings suggest that while the observational measure of disorder exerts no direct impact on residents’ general attitudes toward the police; it has a significant impact on specific attitudes toward the police measured by using the neighborhoods as the principle geographical context. In addition, documented disorder incidents are found to be a robust predictor of perceptions of disorder in both models.

The measurement of PATP was ambiguous in the research literature and scholarly attention to the observational factors such as reported disorder incidents has been lacking. This study fills the gap of the relevant literature by measuring PATP as a two-dimensional concept and incorporating reported disorder incidents into the analysis.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect and duration of supervised field training on police cadets' worldview of police work in China.

The four-wave longitudinal data were collected from graduate students who were pursuing their master's degree in a national Chinese police university from 2016 to 2018. Independent variables including demographic characteristics and knowledge along with experience gained from the internship were used to explain police cadets' attitudes toward police work. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression models were used in the current study.

Findings derived from multiple regression analyses suggest that police cadets' attitudes toward police work are conducive to the “shock” of the real-world experience after three-month field training. However, the effect of the field training on police cadets' attitudes toward police work is temporary, not enduring.

The data for this study were collected from one national police university, and the findings reported here may not be generalized.

Police field training is important for cadets to develop positive view of police work. It provides practical knowledge for police training and socializes cadets before entering into the law enforcement filed, avoiding the financial cost of resignation. However, the influence of field training is temporal. Hence, it is more appropriate for police administrators to arrange police cadets' field training close to their graduation date, the third year of their college education.

This study can be considered as an extension of relevant research on law-enforcement-related field training reported in the United States. However, it goes beyond the existing literature by using longitudinal data to answer a long-overdue question: Does supervised field training change the worldview of cadets concerning police work?

Explains Inglehart’s theory that in advanced industrial societies, individual values have moved from materialism to a greater emphasis on freedom, self‐expression and the quality of life, or “postmaterialism”, and observes that postmaterialists want to work with people they like and to do interesting work rather than have a high salary or job security. Applies Inglehart’s theory of societal value change to assess a police organizational reform. Conducts a survey of the Washington State Police. Finds that command staff show the highest profession of postmaterialist values and troopers show the lowest. Believes leadership turnover is more likely than conversion to new values to bring about management commitment to community policing.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the research on citizen participation in police work by attempting to disentangle the difference between volunteers and general citizens.

Independent variables including the demographic characteristics, victimization experiences, fear of crime, neighborhood disorders, and satisfaction with the police services were used to explain the volunteers’ attitudes toward the police. A random sample of general citizens was used as a comparison group. Using two data sets derived from a survey of 324 citizen volunteers in community policing programs and a random telephone survey of 1,197 general citizens in Houston, TX, two structural equation modeling models for general citizen sample and citizen volunteer sample were tested.

The results revealed that satisfaction with the police services was the only factor having a direct impact on attitudes toward the police in volunteer group. In addition, volunteers’ attitudes toward the police and satisfaction with the police services were higher than general citizens even though their victimization experiences, fear of crime, perceived neighborhood disorders were higher than general citizens.

The authors argue that there is a strong diffused support, first raised by David Easton (1965), among the volunteers. This exploratory study would be a reference for future studies.

Over the course of the past 40 years Wilson's theory of local political culture has influenced many students of policing. Wilson argued that variation in structural arrangements in police organizations can be explained largely by the form of municipal government structure in place. For example, police departments using a strict law enforcement style of policing tend to work within a more bureaucratic structure (e.g. hierarchically differentiated) than their counterparts employing a watchman style of policing. The purpose of this study is to test the application of Wilson's theory of local political culture in today's police organizations.

Longitudinal agency survey data for 280 police departments collected through the 1990s were analyzed using a random‐effects panel technique.

The findings observed suggest that there was only a very limited relationship between local political culture and the five principal dimensions of organizational structure — formalization, centralization, functional differentiation, specialization differentiation, and occupational differentiation derived from Peter Blau's measures among these police agencies during the 1990s.

The theory of local political culture may have limited utility in the analysis of the structural arrangements in contemporary police organizations. At the same time, a longer period of time is required in the study of local political culture.

The identification of key determinants of structural arrangements in police organizations is an important issue because there is a lack of consensus on the role of local political culture. The research used two approaches and found that organizational structure in police agencies is largely determined by socioeconomic factors.

The study represented an original study of police organization, using panel data collected by the authors during the 1990s.

“Community policing” has become the watchword for organizational change among law enforcement agencies across the USA over the past several years. In particular, concerted efforts to internalize this new policing philosophy have intensified with the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, and since the strong endorsement of the community policing concept by the Clinton administration. Our analysis of data collected from a representative sample of 281 American police agencies in 1993 and again in 1996 permit a compelling examination of the community policing movement in this country over time. Our findings suggest that there has been a significant increase in community policing activities in recent years. Further, the level of interest in community policing training has intensified and impediments to the adoption of the community policing philosophy have become more easily identifiable. In addition, the results reported here also suggest that this change process has been quite dynamic, but the ultimate and widespread institutionalization of community policing still remains somewhat uncertain.

This paper examines evidence of value change among police officers in a medium‐sized police department which has been selected as a demonstration site for community‐oriented policing (COP). Relying primarily upon two survey data collections with a period of three years’ separation, the aim of this paper is to provide a follow‐up to a previously published article in this journal to investigate two issues. First, was there a change in the value orientations among police officers between 1993 and 1996?; and second, was any change noted favorable to the COP organizational culture that the department is attempting to promote? The primary findings of this paper strongly suggest that the value orientations among police officers did indeed change over this time period. However, the direction of the change noted may not be consistent with the goal of enhancing COP organizational culture. These findings help explain how the institutionalization of COP is properly seen as a very difficult, long‐term task facing American police today.

This paper explores the relationship between community‐policing and grants provided by the Office of Community‐Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) in the US Justice Department. Community policing data were gathered via a survey of 700 municipal and county law enforcement agencies employing more than 100 full‐time sworn officers/deputies. Grant data were gathered on the same agencies via a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the COPS Office. Census data were used for control purposes. General findings suggest that COPS funding is strongly associated with community‐policing. Specific findings are: first, hiring grants were more associated with community‐policing than grants designed to promote innovative programs and second, agencies with several COPS grants were more likely to report community‐policing programs than agencies with fewer COPS grants.

Reviews the rise of community‐oriented policing (CP) in the USA. Analyses data from a survey of police chiefs across the USA which investigated the extent of organizational change and CP implementation. Explores the extent of current CP training and identifies some facilitators and impediments to its implementation, e.g., education; training; middle‐management resistance; maintenance of adequate response time to calls for service while pursuing CP goals. Calls for further study on strategies for balancing the outcomes of a traditional approach against the expected benefits of CP; identification of agencies which have achieved this balance; comparison of employees’ value orientation over time. Notes that successful CP requires a change in officers’ values.