Ecological explanations for differences in aggregate-level officer activity across districts within a police agency have been tested within the context of municipal police agencies, but have yet to be tested at the state police level. Using data publicly available from the Indiana State Police Department and the US Census Bureau, district ecological factors such as crime rate, social disorganisation level, calls for service, supervisor span of control, perceived danger, and proportion of probationary officers were investigated for their relationship to several district-level outputs. Unlike similar studies involving municipal law enforcement agencies, the factors with the highest predictive value of district outputs were the level of calls for service, crime rate, and supervisor span of control. The potential research differences between municipal and state police agencies are also discussed.
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