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Police Occupational Culture: Testing the Monolithic Model

NCJ Number
251782
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 35 Issue: 4 Dated: June 2018 Pages: 670-698
Date Published
June 2018
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This article reports on the empirical testing of a theoretical model that has been constructed to depict the ways in which the stressful features of the police work environment produce coping mechanisms and outcomes.
Abstract
In foundational work in the 1950s, researchers described a variety of dimensions of the occupational culture of police. The theoretical model examined in this article attempted to integrate the disparate works. Path analyses of officer survey data provided support for several of the propositions in the monolithic model, although the magnitude of the statistical associations was not very powerful and overall model fit was marginal. The implications of these findings are especially relevant given recent concerns over police-community relations and the renewed interest in the police occupational culture expressed by the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. (Publisher abstract modified)

Date Published: June 1, 2018