Expanding the Measurement of Police Integrity

• In Event: Current Issues of Police Integrity

Abstract

Klockars and colleagues use scenario methodology to measure perceived seriousness, level of discipline warranted, and willingness to report fellow officers engaged in various negative behaviors. These data are used to characterize the occupational culture of integrity in a given agency, relative to other agencies. What remains unclear is whether these agency-level findings mask important meso- and micro-level variation in the data that may contribute to a more complete understanding of an agency’s culture of integrity. This study replicates and extends Klockars et al.’s work using data from a survey administered to 499 Philadelphia police officers, with the goal of both validating their methodological approach and exploring the need for multi-level theory in the study of police integrity. We test for differences across officer demographics and explore variance in the willingness to report various behaviors at both the officer- and district-levels.

Authors

• Zachary Powell, University of Texas at Dallas

• Matthew John Hickman, Seattle University

• Alex R. Piquero, University of Texas at Dallas

• Jack R. Greene, Northeastern University