Police Occupational Culture: Testing the Monolithic Model

In foundational work in the 1950s, researchers described a variety of dimensions of the occupational culture of police. The theoretical model examined in this article attempted to integrate the disparate works. Path analyses of officer survey data provided support for several of the propositions in the monolithic model, although the magnitude of the statistical associations was not very powerful and overall model fit was marginal. The implications of these findings are especially relevant given recent concerns over police-community relations and the renewed interest in the police occupational culture expressed by the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. (Publisher abstract modified)