NCJ Number
215315
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 73 Issue: 8 Dated: August 2006 Pages: 42-44
Date Published
August 2006
Length
3 pages
Annotation
After presenting a definition of police professionalism, this article summarizes findings from the research literature regarding criteria for measuring police professionalism, with attention to the link between professional performance and an officer's educational level.
Abstract
The authors present a table that lists the various performance measures used and the number of times each measure was used across the 19 studies. The authors advise that, taken together, these are valid measures of the level of professionalism of an officer. Comparing these measures with an officer's educational level should help determine whether education predicts police officer performance. The authors plan to do this in a study that will determine whether college-educated police officers perform better than officers with lesser educational achievement. Professionalism, by definition, involves belonging to a profession and behaving according to that profession's standards of conduct and performance. The authors reviewed 19 studies conducted between 1973 and 2005 that examined the link between educational level and police officer performance. Most of the studies examined the relationship between educational level and a number of performance measures. Most of the performance measures were objective, which means that they could be scored with a number. Some of the performance measures were the number of times the officer called in sick; the number of commendations, awards, or medals the officer received; and the number of citizen complaints against the officer. Some studies included evaluation measures, such as ratings of officer performance obtained from citizens, supervisors, peers, and officers themselves. 4 references