Work Assignments and Police Work: Exploring the Work World of Sworn Officers in Four New Mexico Police Departments

• NCJ Number: 171264
• Journal: Policing Volume: 20 Issue: 2 Dated: (1997) Pages: 419-441
• Author(s): L T Winfree Jr; D Guiterman; G L Mays
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 23 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, 1995, Boston

Annotation

Work assignments and workplace perceptions of police officers serving in four medium-sized New Mexico police departments were examined to explore reported levels of job satisfaction and job-related stress.

Abstract

The target population consisted of 355 police officers who worked in police departments that ranged in size from 60 to 125 certified police officers. They were given self-administered questionnaires in late 1993 and early 1994 by a research team that visited each participating police department. Three measures of the police work world were assessed: perceptions of the work environment, organizational attitudes, and perceptions of management support for police officers. Six hypotheses were tested: (1) female police officers would have less positive workplace perceptions than male police officers; (2) workplace perceptions would be less positive with more education; (3) mid- career police officers would have less positive workplace perceptions than those in early or late career stages; (4) supervisory police officers would have more positive workplace perceptions than police officers in patrol and detective ranks; (5) workplace perceptions would be more positive among police officers with a greater number of different tasks; and (6) police officers involved in high levels of paperwork and public safety activities would have less positive workplace perceptions than police officers involved in high levels of law enforcement activities. Many of these hypotheses were not supported. Female police officers did not report a more hostile work environment, and police officer education did not matter in determining job satisfaction. Job satisfaction levels began low in the early career stage and rose in mid-career and late career stages. Police officers in supervisory ranks expressed higher levels of job satisfaction than police officers in patrol and detective ranks. Police officers who performed more tasks were less satisfied with the workplace. Police officers who did a lot of paperwork and public safety activities expressed negative perceptions of the workplace, but police officers who performed high levels of law enforcement activities also expressed similarly negative perceptions of the workplace. An appendix tabulates data on police attitudes toward the work environment. 40 references, 3 notes, and 3 tables