NCJ Number
150286
Journal
American Journal of Police Volume: 12 Issue: 2 Dated: (1993) Pages: 101-118
Date Published
1993
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This research examined the relationship of educational level to the perception of job satisfaction among police patrol officers.
Abstract
The researchers chose to use a purposive sample of police officers. To date, five police agencies from Illinois, Texas, and California have provided data. Agency size ranged from 41 to 960 sworn personnel. Two of the agencies required only high school for recruits, one agency required 30 hours of college, and two required college degrees (since 1985). All sworn personnel in each agency were given the opportunity to respond to the questionnaire; however, only the data from patrol officers is reported in this article. Of the 535 usable questionnaires, 87 percent were male, 62 percent were female, 72 percent were white, 8 percent were African-American, 17 percent were Hispanic, and 1 percent were "other." The questionnaire developed for this research solicited demographic data and information on job satisfaction. Findings show that officer educational level does apparently affect the perception of job satisfaction in patrol officers. The higher the educational level, the more satisfied officers were with the items linked to job satisfaction; however, the caveat is that this was true only for patrol officers with up to 5 years of experience. The findings suggest that police officers with higher education are satisfied with their jobs in the first years of work, but may become dissatisfied if certain job expectations are not met. Agencies may address this problem by providing more promotional opportunities, job enrichment, transferability within the agency, leaves of absence, or inservice training. 6 tables and 42 references