Police culture: An empirical appraisal of the phenomenon

Abstract

Although police culture is a widely researched topic, not much is known about the nature of the relationships among the various components and the degree to which they are critical in the make-up of police culture. In this study, we revisit the concept of police culture and explore the nature and directions of the relationships among the various elements that constitute police culture. Drawing data from a survey of 1970 Turkish National police officers we identify six commonly recognized dimensions of police culture based on the existing literature. The results from the four different confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) indicate that of the six dimensions, the first-order CFA with five factors best fit the data. Further, the results suggest that police culture did not account for the covariation among the six first-order factors. These findings suggest that police culture is a more complex and multifaceted concept than the prior literature suggests.

Is the blue wall of silence a fallacy in cases of police sexual misconduct?

“…In previous misconduct and corruption research using or based on Klockars’ research, the scenarios do not explicitly identify the relationship between the participant and the officer in the scenario. This is important to explore, because collegial loyalty is one of the cornerstones of the blue wall of silence (Demirkol and Nalla, 2020; Paoline et al, 2000). However, it may not be correct to assume that police officers feel the same loyalties towards a colleague within a different force area whom they have never met and a colleague with whom they are regularly crewed.…”

“…Sexual misconduct in these other fields is accounted for by the ingrained cultural and societal equality towards women, which normalises the behaviour and, in turn, exacerbates its prevalence in male-dominated working environments (Sundaram and Jackson, 2018). Therefore, the problem in using police culture as an explanation is that it will always, to some extent, assume that all police officers think and act in the same way, when it is far more likely that officers’ individual backgrounds, personalities and experiences both before, and after joining the police, shape their beliefs (Demirkol and Nalla, 2020). It is possible that the non-reporting officers who minimised the behaviour in these scenarios did so because of the combined effects of the societal norms, for example, sexually inappropriate language is really only banter, and their own beliefs, for example, sex on duty is no more serious than taking a meal break because ‘what I do in my break time is my own business’.…”

Promoting the police: A thematic analysis of the New Zealand Police recruitment campaigns and the construction of officers’ identities

“…Despite there being evidence that NZ Police officers are unique, equally, a prevailing or common police identity is also constructed to bind the group together. As Demirkol and Nalla (2019) suggest, the common police identity provides officers with guides or prototypes that help to establish a unified understanding of the police in-group, and this can then lead to identity statements that reinforce sacrificing for the job, being fit, working hard, and lacking a work/life balance. Not only was the police role of many officers salient, but it dictated parts of their off-duty lives.…”

Dynamics of an American countermovement: Blue Lives Matter

“…Police exist as a subculture and are socialized to believe they occupy a unique position that separates them from a potentially hostile public (Lynch, 2018). Police also assume that they are constantly made vulnerable by non‐police that will never comprehend the police role (Demirkol & Nalla, 2020). Blue Lives Matter offers a unique opportunity to the study the intersectionality of police, countermovements on the political right, and the state's role.…”