NCJ Number
100199
Journal
American Journal of Police Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Dated: (Fall 1985) Pages: 167-186
Date Published
1985
Length
20 pages
Annotation
The present exploratory-descriptive study examined, heuristically, the conceptual and theoretical implications of three variables for their relevance to the study of police work: (1) respondents' decisions to major in Police Science and Administration (2) respondents' self-reports about factors Administration (2) respondents' self-reports about factors of value in their on-the-job performance, and (3) respondents' curriculum preference.
Abstract
The population under study were police science graduates from a university in the Southwestern United States. An eighty-one item questionnaire was mailed to 571 graduates of the program; two hundred and thirty-eight (47 percent) of the graduates responded and were included in the analysis. Conceptual and theoretical implications were developed for the major findings: (a) a significant proportion of the respondents (43.1 percent) made an early decision (during or prior to the junior year in high school) to enter law enforcement, (b) a substantial proportion of the respondents (41.1 percent) cited personal traits of the individual as an important factor in their on-the-job performance, and (c) most respondents (72.1 percent) preferred a balance between traditional police functions and social service functions in the curriculum; the comments of 89 respondents were judged to be supportive of a social service (criminal-justice-as-professional-education) model. (Publisher abstract)