Scholars and practitioners in criminal justice and public administration have long debated the proper terminology that should be used in describing the residents in a jurisdiction who fund and receive services from local law enforcement agents. This debate is not simply one about semantics. Nor, at its heart, is it about street-level outputs. Instead, this debate encapsulates core normative questions about the relationship law enforcement agencies ought to develop with those they serve and protect. The current article argues that identified differences between elected county sheriffs and appointed police chiefs should appear in the responses of street-level deputy sheriffs and police officers, leveraging evidence from a large N survey of thousands of deputies and officers. The findings do not support theoretical expectations, reaching statistical significance and, given the sample size, substantive meaningfulness, but in the opposite direction than the researchers expected. A discussion of these results is provided. Recommendations are offered for subsequent avenues of future research on this timely and important topic. (Publisher abstract modified)
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