A Typological Approach to Understanding Police Agency Trajectories, 1993-2013

• In Event: Police Organizations (Organized by Division of Policing)

Abstract

Police agencies in the United States have exhibited much change over the past quarter century. Building upon our previous research (Simpson & Hipp, 2017), we use multiple waves of data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) series to identify and interpret trajectories of within-agency change from 1993 to 2013. We first employ factor analyses to develop indices for six important policing dimensions: (1) officer diversity, (2) community policing, (3) patrol strategy diversity, (4) militancy, (5) technology, and (6) staffing rigor. Using such indices, we then employ latent class analysis to identify typologies of agency trajectories over time. As part our presentation, we highlight the relationships between our trajectories and several different outcomes, including crime. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings from both theoretical and practical perspectives.

Authors

• Rylan Simpson, University of California, Irvine

• John Hipp, University of California, Irvine