Does Community Policing Matter for Police Integrity?

Abstract

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between police integrity and community policing, an issue unexplored in prior studies. A stratified representative sample of 1,315 Croatian police officers participated in a police integrity survey and evaluated seriousness of police misconduct, assessed appropriate and expected discipline, and expressed their willingness to report such behaviour. In addition, the respondents provided their attitudes toward community policing. About one-quarter of the respondents were employed in community policing, while the rest performed more traditional policing roles. Our multivariate models of police misconduct seriousness show that police officers' assignment- be they employed in community policing or in more traditional police roles- was rarely related to their level of police integrity. Similarly, their support for community policing was not significantly related to their evaluations of misconduct seriousness. On the other hand, recognising a behaviour as rule-violating, assuming that other police officers would report the behaviour, and expecting dismissal for the behaviour increased the odds that the respondents would view the behaviour as serious. In addition, gender and supervisory status were not relevant predictors of the evaluations of seriousness, while the length of service was.