This article reports on a study that measured the attitudes held by police officers toward community policing, with a set of sub-scales designed to measure different dimensions of the attitudinal construct.
These findings are based on a survey of police officers in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1997. The study examined six attitudinal sub-components of a community policing model: organizational structure, community policing substations, relationship between supervisors and subordinates, community policing concepts, the Community Policing Unit and specific community policing programs. Education had little relationship with community policing overall, yet education related positively to four of the six aspects of community policing examined. Years of service related positively to one aspect and age related positively to three aspects. Patrol officers had a more favorable attitude toward community policing than did detectives. There may be a problem in relationships between supervisors and subordinates from the perspectives of patrol officers and detectives. Fewer supervisory staff or layers of supervisory staff might alleviate the problem. Tables, references