Maybe there’s no such thing as a “good cop”: Organizational challenges in selecting quality officers

The qualities which make a good police officer are often difficult to identify. Traits such as intelligence, common sense, dependability, and honesty appear more frequently than others in the police literature. This issue is complicated by two matters. First there is the difficulty in measuring job performance and linking job tasks to personality characteristics. Second is the importance of the police organization in influencing officer behavior, sometimes despite personal characteristics. This review of the literature examines the personality traits thought to be characteristic of a good police officer and discusses the difficulties of measuring as well as predicting good police performance.