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Career stage theory suggested that workers progress through career stages, each marked by unique work attitudes. Little evidence exists, however, about the influence career stages have on the work activities of criminal justice agents. Using a sample of 401 police officers from 23 individual police departments, the present study examined the influence of employee career stage on three measures of work productivity, and the constructs of expectancy motivation theory. The results revealed curvilinear declines in productivity with progression through the career stages. The predictive values of opportunity, ability, and instrumentality on work activities varied with career stage and type of work output. Only performance-reward expectancy retained predictive value across all career stages and outputs. The findings emphasize the importance of intrinsic and informal extrinsic rewards for the management of experienced criminal justice agents.

For years, there has existed a gap in academic research on county sheriffs in their role in rural law enforcement. However, the image of the county sheriff has been caricatured perennially on the silver screen, ie, in films. This study, rooted in cultivation theory, uses qualitative film analysis in an attempt to identify common themes and heuristics in media portrayals of the sheriff. After identifying these themes, we explore the implications of these portrayals for public perceptions of the sheriff as a professional law enforcement officer and as an elected official. We argue that the sheriff serves as a symbol of rural America — and conclude by discussing the implications of this phenomenon and how it might be ameliorated by more intense research focused on the sheriff.

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This study focuses on one arena of public administration in which the balancing act between various accountability considerations is especially visible: local law enforcement management, and one of the many accountability conflicts that law enforcement CEOs face: the intersection of political and professional accountability streams. There are two guiding questions in this study. First, when faced with a choice between political and professional accountability, how do county sheriffs and municipal police chiefs act? Next, what factors do these managers believe to be crucial in the development of their officers' use of professional discretion? This study provides a preliminary glimpse of local law enforcement managers' responses to these questions. Consistent with the literature on officer discretion, these managers' responses cite five factors that affect the development of discretion for new recruits: (1) experience, (2) formal training, (3) community norms, (4) external systemic actors, and (5) peer influence and mentorship conducted in the context of the informal organisation. Analysis of these managers' responses indicates that, in the aggregate, professional autonomy is more highly prized than political deference in each type of department. These findings question the conventional wisdom that suggests sheriffs are less professionally accountable than their police chief counterparts.