How does police culture shape officers' support for community policing?

The focus of this article is to examine the relationship between police culture and community policing (CP) and the extent to which this culture is an obstacle or enabler of the successful implementation of CP. Drawing data from a sample of 1970 officers assigned to three distinct police functions (...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Policing & society 2019-07, Vol.29 (6), p.692-705
Main Authors: Demirkol, Ismail Cenk, Nalla, Mahesh K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alienation
Assignment
Attitudes
Authoritarianism
Autonomy
Community policing
Culture
Cynicism
Law enforcement
Loyalty
Police
police culture
Social cohesion
Structural equation modeling
Transportation
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Summary:The focus of this article is to examine the relationship between police culture and community policing (CP) and the extent to which this culture is an obstacle or enabler of the successful implementation of CP. Drawing data from a sample of 1970 officers assigned to three distinct police functions (patrol, plainclothes, and airports in Turkey), we employed structural equation modelling to examine two issues: the relationship between six identified dimensions of police culture (authoritarianism, cynicism, social cohesion, loyalty, work alienation, and autonomy) and assessing possible noninvariance in their attitudes toward CP among officers assigned across the three police functions. Findings suggest that while social cohesion, loyalty, and cynicism are positively related to support CP, autonomy and alienation are negatively related to support CP. The multigroup analyses indicated that, overall, police officers' departmental assignment does not affect their attitudes toward CP.
ISSN:1043-9463
1477-2728
DOI:10.1080/10439463.2017.1410149