NCJ Number
197807
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 69 Issue: 11 Dated: November 2002 Pages: 44-47
Date Published
November 2002
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article examines the factors that should be used in comparing police officer salaries across jurisdictions, with attention to population size as being a weak salary predictor.
Abstract
This article describes an analysis that shows population is not a good predictor in producing a mean that is sufficiently representative of the overall distribution of police officer salaries. Even when the analysis is applied to cities in the same State, there is too much variability in salaries to permit any practical application in comparing salaries. Numerous academic studies have developed sophisticated models that have identified variables other than population that attempt to explain police salaries. The following variables have been cited as possibly affecting the levels of police salaries: agency size, collective bargaining, population density and growth, workload, crime rate, fiscal capacity, region, public opinion about the scope of government, and private-sector salaries. Population as a weak predictor of salaries should not be used to compare how well a particular city is doing relative to another city; however, other city attributes might be used to select a group of cities to conduct a comparison survey if the attributes have proven to be good predictors. Selecting a group of cities with similar wealth would produce a salary distribution that might be narrow enough to make a judgment about how close the target or comparison city is to the mean of the other cities in the sample. City wealth can be measured in a variety of ways. One study measured it by using property values, because the bulk of municipal taxes are raised through property taxes. Median housing value data, which are available from the Census Bureau, are clearly much better than population as a predictor of salaries. 3 notes