Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

First Advisor

Okpala, Comfort

Abstract

The emergence of African American police officers derived from consequences of urban unrests during the 1960' s as a probable resolution to frayed police-community relations in predominately African American communities. African American representativeness in policing was theorized to progress a racially charged police culture that was permeating the police profession. Yet, recent media reports of police involved homicides in Staten Island, New York, Ferguson, Missouri, and Glendale, Arizona have evidenced shortcomings of African American representativeness in shaping police cultures. Since African American police representativeness has come short of its objective of affecting police cultures, what has been the impact of police cultures in shaping the work experiences of African American officers? The current study correlates anomie and double consciousness to explain the organizational adaptation strategies specific to African American police officers that define police ethnicity. Police ethnicity was conceptualized to contain five categories of personality types to include conformist, innovationist, ritualist, retreatist, and rebellion police behaviors. Ordinary Least Squares Regression modeling was used with a sample of 84 African American law enforcement officers from across the United States. The results revealed that double consciousness is a statistically significant predictor of ritualist, retreatist, and rebellion officer behavior. The findings further suggest that race remains a significant factor in police organizations and cultures–although it is desirable for police executives to believe minority representation has resolved the issue of race in policing.

Download

Share

COinS