Law Enforcement Organization (LEO) Survey

• NCJ Number: 253935
• Author(s): William P. McCarty; Wesley G. Skogan; Megan Alderden; Gary Cordner; Lorie Fridell; Steven D. Mastrofski; Jack McDevitt; Dennis P. Rosenbaum
• Date Published: October 2011
• Length: 13 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2008-DN-BX-0005
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Survey; Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored)

Annotation

Findings and methodology are presented for the third Law Enforcement Organization Survey (LEO C), which involved 89 U.S. law enforcement organizations operating from October 2014 to February 2015.

Abstract

The LEO C was composed of questions and items that had already been field-tested in one of the previous two surveys. Agencies participating in the LEO C were recruited from a random sample of police and sheriff's offices listed in the 2007 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics database. Agencies with 100-3,000 sworn police personnel were eligible for participation. It was intended that organizations surveyed be located in the northeastern, midwestern, southern, and western parts of the United States. All sworn and civilian employees were invited by email to participate in the survey. A total of 13,146 sworn officers from the 89 agencies responded to the LEO C. Approximately 13 percent of respondents were female, and about 48 percent had a college degree or higher. White respondents composed 63 percent of respondents; African-Americans, 7 percent; Hispanic-Americans, 8 percent; and Asian, 1 percent. Survey findings address satisfaction with job assignment, views of community relations, views of treatment of minority employees, views of organization head, organizational commitment, ratings of supervisor, burnout, and prioritizing procedural justice. Regardless of agency size, officers expressed high levels of satisfaction with their work and a commitment to making the organization effective. Officers also expressed high levels of satisfaction with their immediate supervisor. There was less uniformity on other measures, with agency size apparently influencing perceptions of community relations, treatment of minority employees, and example-setting by the head of the organization. Type of agency in which officers worked apparently influenced feelings of burnout and perceptions of the importance of procedural justice in the organization. 8 figures