Volunteer Use as a Service Delivery Alternative: The Case of Law Enforcement Agencies

Abstract

Few studies have explored the question of why public agencies use volunteers in service provision. Using data from a survey of law enforcement agencies in the United States, this study explores the factors associated with volunteer officer involvement. Key findings suggest that resource deficiency is strongly associated with the degree of using volunteer officers, while the presence of an active collective bargaining agreement is somewhat mixed. Agencies that encourage officers to engage in collaborative problem-solving with the community are more likely to use volunteer officers. The results provide important insight regarding the factors associated with volunteers in public services.

Don’t You Want My Help? Volunteer Involvement and Management in Local Government

“…Limited empirical research analyzes factors that may explain volunteer use by local governments in general (Ferris, 1988; Ivonchyk, 2019; Kang et al, in press; Nesbit & Brudney, 2013) or in individual service domains, for example, policing and law enforcement (Kang, 2019, 2020) and fire protection (Bice & Hoyt, 2000; Brudney & Duncombe, 1992; Brunet et al, 2001). In several studies, the demographic variables that researchers include to explain the level of volunteer involvement in local government services are used as control variables rather than as primary independent variables, to investigate other issues regarding volunteer use, such as the effectiveness of volunteer services (Kang, 2019), the costs and benefits of public sector volunteer programs (Ivonchyk, 2019), the choice between paid versus volunteer delivery of local government services (Brunet et al, 2001), and the associated costs (Brudney & Duncombe, 1992).…”

“…The literature evinces three categories of explanatory variables: sociodemographic characteristics, such as population, educational attainment, income, unemployment, owner-occupied housing, and urban status; county government-specific characteristics, such as public employment, tax expenditures and revenues, and fiscal stress; and political variables, such as the political orientation of the populace (Bice & Hoyt, 2000; Brudney & Duncombe, 1992; Brunet et al, 2001; Ferris, 1988; Ivonchyk, 2019; Kang, 2019, 2020; Kang et al, in press; Sundeen, 1988). Statistical studies attempting to explain why individuals volunteer either for local government (e.g., Sundeen, 1988) or more generally (e.g., Grimm & Dietz, 2018) likewise incorporate such explanatory variables.…”

“…The table reports two categories of explanatory variables, sociodemographic and government-specific characteristics, which are found to be statistically significant predictors of volunteer involvement (although not always consistently across studies). Empirical scholarship has only begun to examine political climate and nonprofit presence as predictors of volunteer involvement: Kang (2020) finds that political conservatism measured as percentage of citizens who voted Republican in the 2012 Presidential election is associated positively with the involvement of volunteer officers in law enforcement. Kang and colleagues (in press) investigate the effects of the number of registered nonprofits in a county, but their study does not find a statistical relationship between nonprofit presence and volunteer involvement in service delivery.…”

“…As shown in Table 1, extant studies provide inconsistent results regarding the relationship between sociodemographic characteristics of a jurisdiction and volunteer involvement in the delivery of government services. With respect to population size, some studies report a positive association (Ferris, 1988; Nesbit & Brudney, 2013), whereas others report a negative association (Kang, 2020; Kang et al, in press). Educational attainment appears to have a negative association with volunteer involvement (Brunet et al, 2001; Kang, 2020).…”

“…Scholars recognize a wide range of alternative arrangements, including in-house public delivery, intergovernmental cooperation, contracting-out to for-profit and/or nonprofit providers, franchises/concessions, subsidies, and volunteers (Bel et al, 2013;Brown & Potoski, 2006;Hefetz & Warner, 2012;ICMA, 2012ICMA, , 2017aMohr et al, 2010;Warner & Hebdon, 2001). Our study focuses on the use of one of these modalities by local governments to continue and bolster service delivery: volunteers (Alford, 1998;Brudney, 1984Brudney, , 1993Ferris, 1988;ICMA, 2012ICMA, , 2017aKang, 2020;Musso et al, 2019;Nesbit & Brudney, 2013).…”