“It's a Constant Juggling Act”: Toward Coherent Priorities for U.S. Policing

Abstract

Democratic police reforms have reduced the isolation of officers from the public, putting recent public demands for changes to U.S. policing into stark relief with existing practices of police agencies. This qualitative study examines role conflict related to negotiating external expectations for policing among 48 U.S. police officers. Findings suggest that role conflict related to incoherent policing priorities is a robust feature of officers’ experiences and results from operational processes that are poorly aligned with agency or officer priorities, and public expectations that are incompatible with officers’ work realities. Given the legitimacy crisis facing U.S. policing, policymakers and practitioners should develop strategies that directly address this incoherence by (1) assessing and reflecting public priorities in the generation of public safety, and (2) developing organizational resources and processes that strategically support valued activities. Doing so may strengthen the foundation for improving police-community relations as public priorities are incorporated into police practice.

Keywords:

• Role conflict
• policing
• law enforcement
• police-community relations
• qualitative methods

Acknowledgements

My deepest appreciation goes to the research participants of this study. I also wish to thank Dr. Lucy Guarnera, Dr. Marvin Swartz, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and guidance on improving this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Role strain derives from role theory, one model for understanding how individuals organize their behaviors in social contexts to meet social expectations (Merton, 1957). Role theory defines a role as “a set of norms and expectations applied to the incumbent of a particular position” (Banton, 1965, p. 29). A consequence of such role expectations is that the “values, ideals, and role obligations of every individual are at times in conflict” (Goode, 1960, p. 484). Role strain can result from several circumstances (Creary & Gordon, 2016); however, this study focuses on role conflict.

2 E.g., Are you a current or former police officers? Do you want to help us understand your work better? We are looking to speak to officers as part of a research study about officer experiences on the job.”

3 To increase the demographic diversity of the sample, ten national associations targeting specific demographic groups of officers (e.g., officers of color or female officers) were contacted and provided details of the project.

4 Police survivors hold a special status in the law enforcement community. I have developed relationships with police survivors tied to police agencies across the U.S. through the national non-profit Concerns for Police Survivors. Recruitment information was posted to private social media pages associated with the organization with the request that it be passed to eligible officers.

5 The first set of questions assessed officers’ occupational environment (i.e., organizational, supervisory, and community contexts), and their job-related duties and goals for police work. Officers’ perceptions of competing priorities for police work were explicitly addressed. Officers were also asked about routine challenges and high-stress events they have experienced on-duty, how they managed each and how their agency supported them in doing so. Finally, officers described meaningful aspects of their job, including positive interactions with the public.

6 Questions assessing work demands and conflict between duties were examined with the following prompts: (1) Tell me about the typical responsibilities you have to handle during a given shift. (2) Tell me about the call volume/case load you usually have. (3) How do you prioritize these different demands? (4) Do you find it challenging to manage all the things you’re expected to do? (5) Can you think of a specific time when you felt that it was challenging to manage all the things that you had to handle? If officers indicated such an instance, they provided a description of the event, details on how they handled the situation, their perception of what aspects of their duties were conflicting at that time, the frequency of such events and the stress level elicited by them.

7 The questions included: (1) On your [recruitment] survey you indicated that the job has you feeling [level of] stressed. Can you explain that rating? and (2) What aspects of the job are most stressful for you?

8 Please note that findings are not presented based on the type of role conflict. Instead, they are organized by broader cross-sectional themes common to officers’ narratives. This approach helps to avoid cumbersome descriptions of closely related issues appearing in narratives as different types of conflict. For example, officers may describe role conflict related to the receiving contradictory policing directives from one supervisor (i.e., intra-sender conflict) or multiple supervisors (i.e., inter-sender conflict); however, for ease of readability, such instances are captured under a broader theme of “incoherent policing directives.”

Additional information

Funding

Support for this research was provided by internal grants from the University of Virginia and by the Duke University Wilson Center for Science and Justice. There are no known conflicts of interest to disclose.

Notes on contributors

Meret S. Hofer

Meret S. Hofer is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine and a fellow of the Wilson Center for Science and Justice. Her research examines organizational and contextual influences on policing, police officer mental health, police interactions with individuals experiencing serious mental illness, and the legal socialization of youth. Dr. Hofer’s work has been published in journals such as Journal of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice and Behavior and the Journal of Community Psychology.