Attitudinal Differences between Police Supervisors and Line Officers

• In Event: Police Organization: Leaders and Organizational Practices

Abstract

Little evidence pertains to whether police supervisors and line officers think alike. Drawing on a sample of U.S. and U.K.-based police personnel (N = 376), the current study compares the attitudes of police supervisors and line officers in two domains: police-community relationships (public safety, community cooperation, and citizen respect) and organizational effectiveness (procedural justice, administrative efficiency, and organizational policy implementation). At first glance, supervisors and line officers differ in their attitudes in five out of six areas, such as that supervisors are more optimistic about procedural justice and administrative efficiency in the organization, and line officers are more confident about public respect towards the police. Upon further investigation, we report that such differences also vary across respondents’ race, gender, and tenure status. We argue that supervisors and policymakers must thus listen to the voices of frontline officers when designing and implementing organizational policies that impact them.

Authors

• Yang Vincent Liu, Oakland University

• Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovich, Michigan State University

• Marijana Kotlaja, Justice System Partners

• Ivan Sun, University of Delaware

• Yuning Wu, Wayne State University

• Peter Neyroud, University of Cambridge

• Jon Maskaly, University of North Dakota