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Police Corruption or Police Productivity? Officers Perceptions of Moonlighting in U.S. Agencies

NCJ Number
237439
Journal
Critical Issues in Justice and Politics Volume: 2 Issue: 2 Dated: June 2009 Pages: 87-104
Author(s)
David A. Jenks, Ph.D.
Date Published
June 2009
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This paper reviewed police officers' perceptions of moonlighting behavior using multinomial logistic regression in an attempt to flesh out nonlinear relationships.
Abstract
Moonlighting in law enforcement involves sworn peace officers working second jobs while off-duty. While some agencies allow this, others cite fatigue, liability issues, and conflicts of interest and consider the behavior corrupt. Likewise, no clear line has been drawn regarding how acceptable moonlighting is among officers in general. While previous studies have examined officers' attitudes toward varying degrees of corruption, none have explored moonlighting specifically nor used an analytical strategy that explores variation between categories within variables. Following the work of Micucci and Gomme (2005), this paper reviewed police officers' perceptions of moonlighting behavior using multinomial logistic regression in an attempt to flesh out nonlinear relationships. The study found that agency size, rank, type of assignment, and supervisory position all had a significant effect on varying aspects of officers' perceptions of moonlighting, with evidence that rank and type of assignment were nonlinear. (Published Abstract)