An empirical analysis of depolicing behavior

ABSTRACT

Depolicing is a behavior that occurs when law enforcement officers disengage from proactive police work. Despite the term’s more recent popularity, these behaviors have been identified in policing literature for decades. Scholars have primarily tried to quantify the depolicing phenomenon through the lens of public scrutiny and the Ferguson Effect. However, there are currently no quantitative studies that have attempted to examine the multitude of reasons as to why depolicing behavior could potentially occur. The current inquiry uses survey data retrieved from eight municipal law enforcement agencies to further examine potential predictors of depolicing. The predictor variables consisted of public scrutiny, liability concerns, organizational unfairness, burnout, physical danger, COVID-19, and years of experience. Our results indicate that public scrutiny, liability concerns, COVID-19, and years of experience are all significant and positive predictors of depolicing. We also found that agency location and rank significantly impacted depolicing behavior. The findings and limitations are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Depolicing
• public scrutiny
• liability concerns
• COVID-19
• proactivity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Due to pandemic related restrictions on travel, Topeka, Vernon Hills, and Smyrna data were collected via an online survey that was available from 3/15/21–3/30/21. The remaining sites were visited, with surveys conducted during roll call, or with scheduled visits to groups that do not participate in roll call (e.g., investigations). The dates for those locations are as follows: Biloxi (6/3–6/5/21), Frederick (7/26–7/29/21), Thornton (8/9–8/12/21), Bryan (9/20–9/22/21) and Portland (11/7–11/12/21).

2. Note that when analyzing exclusively patrol officers the relationship between burnout and depolicing was positive and statistically significant. The negative relationship between depolicing and the dummy variables for both Smyrna and Frederick persisted but were not statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacob T. Foster

Jacob T. Foster is a doctoral student at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. He received both his B.S and M.S in Criminal Justice Sciences from Illinois State University. His research interests primarily consist of law enforcement training, police use of force, and police proactivity.

Michael T. Rossler

Michael T. Rossler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences at Illinois State University. He completed his Ph.D. in from the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His primary research interests involve police-citizen encounters, police responsiveness, police strategies, and police organizational development. He is also the recent author of the book Conservation Law Enforcement.

Charles Scheer

Charles Scheer is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at The University of Southern Mississippi. He earned his Ph.D. in from the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research interests include police recruitment and retention strategies, civil liability, and police recruit attitudes towards police careers.