NCJ Number
188457
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 29 Issue: 2 Dated: March-April 2001 Pages: 107-117
Date Published
March 2001
Length
11 pages
Annotation
A 1998 survey of the members and nonmembers of the association of Florida criminal justice public information officers (PIOs) gathered information about their demographic characteristics, job tasks, job-related attitudes, and factors related to their professional association membership.
Abstract
Results revealed that a typical PIO is a middle-aged, sworn, college-educated male. In addition, PIO’s have shifted away from criminal justice and communication degrees to reflect a broader and more diverse set of academic areas. Civilian PIO’s, especially those from larger agencies, concentrated I the States professional association, whereas sworn PIO’s, particularly from smaller agencies, dominated the nonmember ranks. Professional association member PIO’s also \tended to be assigned a greater range of job tasks and to spend more time on those tasks than did nonmembers. Findings suggested that a civilian/sworn dichotomy reported in prior research remains significant for PIO’s and has come to overlap with a professional association member/nonmember division. Findings suggested that the member/nonmember division will come to be more important than it is currently, that more PIO’s will apply external standards and look to outside professional groups for behavior guidelines, and that this trend will be associated with more agency executive/PIO conflict and more PIO job stress. The analysis concluded that the process of civilianization of the PIO function in law enforcement remains as the most important trend and will have significant implications for the future development of the PIO profession and the status and use of PIO’s within criminal justice agencies. Tables, notes, and 36 references (Author abstract modified)