The Promise of a Network Approach for Policing Research

Abstract

Considerable attention has been devoted to understanding police socialization and the resulting culture, yet only recently have scholars turned to a network approach to understand the social relationships between officers. We extend these efforts with results from a pilot study of officer networks in a large US police department. Network data are collected from 88 front-line officers to examine officers’ informal working relationships. Our findings shed light on the connected nature of officer relationships, showing how personal support networks intersect and diverge from more formal advice and mentorship networks. The study provides an alternative starting point for understanding socialization as a vehicle of officer attitudes, values, and behaviors. Likewise, it demonstrates the applicability of a network approach for understanding departments’ social and structural organization. We conclude with a discussion on how officer networks can inform meaningful policy initiatives, including shifting organizational climate, enhancing retention, and curbing abuses.

Keywords:

• Police networks
• informal relationships
• socialization

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Martin Bouchard and Andrew Papachristos for their comments on the network research design, the reviewers for their detailed recommendations, and the officers who volunteered their time for the study.

The authors would also like to thank Professor Carlo Morselli for his mentorship, encouragement, and academic generosity. We hope this works carries on the tradition that he did so much to establish.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For more extensive treatment of social network analysis and its conceptual and technical applications see Wasserman and Faust (1994), Scott (2017), and Scott and Carrington (2011).

2 To provide safeguards and alleviate concerns about potential coercion, we developed specific protocols for administering the survey. First, when introducing the research project, we emphasized that the survey was voluntary. Second, we collected the surveys and consent forms after the designated survey administration period so that it was not apparent which officers elected to participate and which officers did not. In addition, should officers’ further desire to conceal their non-participation, we equipped all survey tablets with a game application so that officers were free to click on it rather than the survey. All protocols were approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board.

3 Specifically, we asked officers to nominate i) “up to five colleagues that you have their personal phone numbers and are likely to call or text regarding personal matters,” ii) “up to five colleagues that you turn to for professional advice,” and iii) “one colleague that you would consider an informal mentor (i.e., a more experienced member of the department who counsels you on broad issues, such as career planning, navigating departmental politics, and becoming a better police officer.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marie Ouellet

Marie Ouellet is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University. Her research applies a network approach to better understand delinquent peer groups, co-offending, and illicit markets.

Sadaf Hashimi

Sadaf Hashimi is a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University. Her research is primarily focused on peer influence and crime, social networks, policing, and criminal justice policy.

Jason Gravel

Jason Gravel is an assistant professor of Criminal Justice at Temple University. His work focuses on the role social networks play in facilitating and generating crime and violence, the social structure of street gangs, and the effectiveness and design of interventions and policies to reduce violence and injuries.

Dean Dabney

Dean A. Dabney, Ph.D. is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State University. He received his doctorate in sociology from the University of Florida in 1997 and has been on faculty at GSU since then. His research agenda is principally focused on the study of police culture and their efforts to combat violent crime. In recent years, he has studied the operation of homicide units, the use of confidential informants, police response to gun violence, and officer use of discretion. These projects have yielded a number of peer reviewed journal articles appearing in criminological and sociological serials. Dr. Dabney is the author of 3 books, including the recently published monograph entitled Speaking Truth to Power: Confidential Informants and Police Investigations (University of California Press, 2016), which provides an in-depth view into the use of informants in law enforcement operations. He has also consulted extensively with police metro-Atlanta departments in an effort to evaluate and improve training and operations.