The present research investigates the productivity and performance of a large sample of police officers, beginning in the police academy and through their first 10 years of policing. Using longitudinal data and latent class growth analyses, we examine measures of productivity and performance over this time. Findings indicate that officers’ academy performance did not influence officer trajectories, but selected demographic variables were significantly related to performance across the career course. Among these, female and non-White officers were consistently rated lower in their performance evaluations. Overall, results suggest that factors predicting productivity and performance are dynamic, and there is no single combination of characteristics that predicts who will be a “good” officer.
AlpertG. P. (1991).
Hiring and promoting police officers in small departments: The role of psychological testing. Criminal Law Bulletin,
27(3), 261–269.
2.
AlpertG. P.MooreM. H. (1993). Measuring police performance in the new paradigm of policing. In AlpertG. P.PiqueroA. (Eds.), Performance measures for the criminal justice system (pp. 108–139).
Long Grove, IL:
Waveland Press, Inc.
3.
BarkerJ. (1999). Danger, duty and disillusion: The worldview of Los Angeles police officers.
Long Grove, IL:
Waveland Press, Inc.
4.
BayleyD. H.BittnerE. (1984).
Learning the skills of policing. Law and Contemporary Problems,
47, 35–59.
5.
BeutlerL. E.NussbaumP. D.MeredithK. E. (1988).
Changing personality patterns of police officers.Professional Psychology: Research and Practice,
19(5), 503–507.
6.
BrandlS. G.StroshineM. S.FrankJ. (2001).
Who are the complaint-prone officers?: An examination of the relationship between police officers’ attributes, arrest activity, assignment, and citizens’ complaints about excessive force. Journal of Criminal Justice,
29(6), 521–529.
7.
BrownM. K. (1988). Working the street: Police discretion and dilemmas of reform.
New York, NY:
Russell Sage Foundation.
8.
BurkhartB. R. (1980).
Conceptual issues in the development of police selection procedures.Professional Psychology,
11(1), 121–129.
9.
CohenB.ChaikenJ. M. (1972). Police background characteristics and performance: Summary.
New York, NY:
Rand Institute.
10.
CrankJ. P. (1993).
Legalistic and order maintenance behavior among police patrol officers: A survey of eight municipal police agencies. American Journal of Police,
7, 103–126.
11.
DavisR. C.OrtizC. W.EulerS.KuykendallL. (2015).
Revisiting “measuring what matters:” Developing a suite of standardized performance measures for policing. Police Quarterly,
18(4), 469–495.
12.
FieldingN.InnesM. (2006).
Reassurance policing, community policing and measuring police performance. Policing & Society,
16(02), 127–145.
13.
ForeroC. G.Gallardo-PujolD.Maydeu-OlivaresA.Andrés-PueyoA. (2009).
A longitudinal model for predicting performance of police officers using personality and behavioral data. Criminal Justice and Behavior,
36(6), 591–606.
14.
FriedrichR. J. (1980).
Police use of force: Individuals, situations and organizations. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
452, 82–97.
15.
FyfeJ. J. (1999). Good policing. In StojkovicS.KlofasJ.KalinichD. (Eds.), The administration and management of criminal justice organizations (3rd ed., pp. 113–133).
Prospect Heights, IL:
Waveland Press.
16.
GainesL. K.FalkenbergS. (1998).
An evaluation of the written selection test: Effectiveness and alternatives. Journal of Criminal Justice,
26(3), 175–183.
17.
GorbyD. M. (2013).
The failure of traditional measures of police performance and the rise of broader measures of performance. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice,
7(4), 392–400.
18.
GreeneJ. R.PiqueroA. R.HickmanM. J.LawtonB. A. (2004). Police integrity and accountability in Philadelphia: Predicting and assessing police misconduct.
Washington, DC:
National Institute of Justice.
19.
HarrisC. J. (2009).
Exploring the relationship between experience and problem behavior: A longitudinal analysis of offices from a large cohort. Police Quarterly,
12, 192–213.
20.
HarrisC. J. (2010).
Problem officers? Analyzing problem behavior patterns from a large cohort. Journal of Criminal Justice,
38(2), 216–225.
21.
HarrisC. J. (2016).
Towards a career view of police misconduct. Aggression and Violent Behavior,
31, 219–228.
22.
HensonB.ReynsB. W.KlahmC. F., IVFrankJ. (2010).
Do good recruits make good cops? Problems predicting and measuring academy and street-level success. Police Quarterly,
13(1), 5–26.
23.
KaneR. J. (2003).
Social control in the metropolis: A community-level examination of the minority group-threat hypothesis. Justice Quarterly,
20(2), 265–295.
24.
KaneR. J.WhiteM. D. (2009).
Bad cops: A study of career‐ending misconduct among New York City police officers. Criminology & Public Policy,
8(4), 737–769.
25.
KlahmC. F.TillyerR. (2015).
Rethinking the measurement of officer experience and its role in traffic stop searches. Police Quarterly,
18(4), 343–367.
26.
KlingerD. A. (1997).
Negotiating order in patrol work: An ecological theory of police response to deviance. Criminology,
35(2), 277–306.
27.
KochelT.WilsonD.MastrofskiS. (2011).
Effect of suspect race on officers’ arrest decisions. Criminology,
49(2), 473–512.
28.
LerschK. M.MieczkowskiT. (1996).
Who are the problem-prone officers? An analysis of citizen complaints. American Journal of Police,
15(3), 23–44.
29.
LoB. Y.MendellN. R.RubinD. B. (2001).
Testing the number of components in a normal mixture. Biometrika,
88(3), 767–778.
30.
MalouffJ. M.SchutteN. S. (1986).
Using biographical information to hire the best new police officers: Research findings. Journal of Police Science & Administration,
14(3), 175–177.
31.
McGloinJ. M.SullivanC. J.PiqueroA. R.BaconS. (2008).
Investigating the stability of co‐offending and co‐offenders among a sample of youthful offenders. Criminology,
46(1), 155–188.
32.
MeredithN. (1984).
Attacking the roots of police violence. Psychology Today,
18, 20–26.
33.
MetchikE. (1999).
An analysis of the” screening out” model of police officer selection. Police Quarterly,
2(1), 79–95.
34.
MuirW. K. (1977). Police: Streetcorner politicians.
Chicago, IL:
The University of Chicago Press.
35.
Nagin, D.S. (2010). Group-based trajectory modeling: An overview. In A.R. Piquero & D. Weisburd (Eds.), The Handbook of Quantitative Criminology (pp. 53–67). New York: Springer.
36.
NaginD. S. (1999).
Analyzing developmental trajectories: a semiparametric, group-based approach.Psychological Methods,
4(2), 139.
37.
NaginD. S.TremblayR. E. (2005).
Developmental trajectory groups: Fact or a useful statistical fiction?Criminology,
43(4), 873–904.
38.
NovakK. J.FrankJ.SmithB. W.EngelR. S. (2002).
Revisiting the decision to arrest: Comparing beat and community officers. Crime & Delinquency,
48(1), 70–98.
39.
OrrickW. D. (2002).
Calculating the cost of police turnover. Police Chief,
69(10), 100–103.
40.
PiqueroA. R. (2010). Taking stock of developmental trajectories of criminal activity over the life course. In LibermanA. M. (Eds.), The long view of crime: A synthesis of longitudinal research (pp. 23–78).
New York, NY:
Springer-Verlag.
41.
ReavesB. A. (2015). Local police departments, 2013: Personnel, policies, and practices.
Washington, DC:
Bureau of Justice Statistics.
42.
ReavesB.HickmanM. J. (2004). Law enforcement management and administrative statistics, 2000: Data for individual states and local agencies with 100 or more officers.
Washington, DC:
Bureau of Justice Statistics.
43.
Sanders, B. A. (2008). Using personality traits to predict police officer performance. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management,
31(1), 129–147.
44.
SarchioneC. D.CuttlerM. J.MuchinskyP. M.Nelson-GrayR. O. (1998).
Prediction of dysfunctional job behaviors among law enforcement officers.Journal of Applied Psychology,
83(6), 904–912.
45.
SkolnickJ. H.FyfeJ. J. (1993). Above the law: Police and the excessive use of force.
New York, NY:
Free Press.
46.
SmithD. A. (1986).
The neighborhood context of police behavior. Crime and Justice,
8, 313–341.
47.
Snipes, J. B. & Mastrofski, S. D. (1990).
An empiricaltest of Muir's typology of police officers. American Journal of CriminalJustice,
14(2), 268. 10.1007/BF02892069
48.
StinsonP. M.LiederbachJ.FreiburgerT. L. (2010).
Exit strategy: An exploration of late-stage police crime. Police Quarterly,
13, 413–435.
49.
SwitzerM. E. (2006). Recruitment and retention: Best practices update.
Sacramento, CA:
Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.
50.
TerrillW.MastrofskiS. D. (2002).
Situational and officer-based determinants of police coercion. Justice Quarterly,
19(2), 215–248.
51.
TerrillW.McCluskeyJ. (2002).
Citizen complaints and problem officers: Examining officer behavior. Journal of Criminal Justice,
30(2), 143–155.
52.
TerrillW.ReisigM. D. (2003).
Neighborhood context and police use of force. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,
40(3), 291–321.
53.
TillyerR. (2014).
Opening the black box of officer decision-making: An examination of race, criminal history, and discretionary searches. Justice Quarterly,
31(6), 961–985.
54.
TochH. (1995). The “violence-prone” police officer. In GellerW.TochH. (Eds.), And justice for all (pp. 94–112).
Washington, DC:
Police Executive Research Forum.
Van MaanenJ. (1974). Working the street: A developmental view of police behavior. In JacobH. (Ed.), The potential for reform of criminal justice (pp. 83–130).
Beverly Hills, CA:
Sage.
57.
WeisburdD.BushwayS.LumC.YangS. M. (2004).
Trajectories of crime at places: A longitudinal study of street segments in the city of Seattle. Criminology,
42(2), 283–322.
58.
WeitzerR. (1999).
Citizens’ perceptions of police misconduct: Race and neighborhood context. Justice Quarterly,
16(4), 819–846.
59.
WhiteM. D. (2008).
Identifying good cops early: Predicting recruit performance in the academy. Police Quarterly,
11(1), 27–49.
60.
WilsonJ. M. (2012).
Articulating the dynamic police staffing challenge: An examination of supply and demand. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management,
35(2), 327–355.
61.
WilsonJ. M.HeinonenJ. A. (2012).
Police workforce structures: Cohorts, the economy, and organizational performance. Police Quarterly,
15(3), 283–307.
62.
WilsonJ. M.WeissA. (2009). A performance-based approach to police staffing and allocation.
Washington, DC:
Community Oriented Policing Services, U.S. Department of Justice.
63.
WordenR. E. (1989).
Situational and attitudinal explanations of police behavior: A theoretical reappraisal and empirical assessment. Law and Society Review,
23, 667–711.
