The Impact of Higher Education of Police Officer Attitudes toward Abuse of Authority
Article Type: Perspectives on policing From: Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Volume 35, Issue 1
Cody W. TelepJournal of Criminal Justice Education2011Volume 22pp. 392-419
An ongoing debate in the field of policing is the educational requirements that police officers should have prior to entering policing. Some feel that it is necessary for police officers to have a four-year degree in hand to expand their problem solving abilities and increase levels of cultural sensitivity;while others feel that the requirement is unnecessary. This same debate is nothing new in the field and has been expressed by policing scholars as early as August Vollmer in the early 1900s, the President’s Crime Commission in the 1960s, and even as recently as 2004 by the National Research Council. The belief is that officers with a college degree will be less likely to engage in the kinds of problematic (e.g. abuse of authority) behaviors largely responsible for the rifts between the police and the communities they serve.
This study by Telep, seeks to determine whether attaining a college degree significantly alters police officers attitudes regarding abuse of authority. The author also examines potential differential effects for officers that earn their degrees prior to entering law enforcement versus those that attain degrees after they are already employed. The thought is that police officers finishing their degrees after become employed by the department may not receive the same benefit as those completing their degrees prior to employment due the socialization effects of the police subcultures. The data utilized in this analysis came from a national study of law enforcement personnel conducted by the Police Foundation. The author examined the effects of a number of independent variables on an indexed value depicting an officer’s belief in the acceptability of the abuse of authority. The analyses examined the effects of: a four year degree prior to becoming employed as a police officer, obtaining a four year degree after becoming a police officer, and having at least some college education amongst a multitude of others.
The results indicate that a pre-service college degree reduces officers’supportive attitudes towards abuse of authority; however the size of this effect is relatively small. Interestingly, a similar effect is noted for officers attaining their degrees after becoming employed in law enforcement. Furthermore,and contrary to the expectations of some, officers with any amount of college education (including Associate’s Degrees and some college but no degree)also hold less favorable attitudes toward abuse of authority than officers with only a high school diploma. The author suggests that although the evidence from this study is far from conclusive, the results suggest that increasing the educational entry requirement for law enforcement would help diminish attitudes supportive of abuse of authority. Although the size of the effect on individual attitudes is small, policy changes mandating college education for police officers nationwide (currently only required in 18 percent of agencies) could potentially make a substantial impact.
Jon MaskalyUniversity of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA
