NCJ Number
103151
Journal
Police Studies Volume: 9 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1986) Pages: 163-173
Date Published
1986
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study examines the loyalty of police officers against three 'ideal type' response models: radical, authoritarian, and autonomous.
Abstract
The evidence gives strongest support to the autonomous model -- a feeling among many officers that their autonomy has diminished, causing personal frustration and harm to the service. The autonomous response is compatible with either of the other two, and for a minority is accompanied by the radical response, involving an awareness of (potential) conflict between the roles of officers as 'police' and as individual citizens. A similar minority display an authoritarian response, though among our sample this took the form more of passive compliance with policies that were thought too relaxed, rather than the strenuous assertion of 'traditional values.' There was evidence that some officers harboured misgivings that remained unvoiced, silence which could be misinterpreted as concurrence. On the other hand, most officers, to whichever model they approximated, expressed loyalty to the police service in general. (Publisher abstract)