DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03789.v1
title: Impact of Community Policing Training and Program Implementation on Police Personnel in Arizona, 1995-1998
title: Version 1

description: This study examined the impact on police trainees of the
 Phoenix Regional Training Academy's curriculum. The academy's basic
 training program integrates community policing and problem-oriented
 policing across the curriculum. A multiple-treatment single-case
 design was used to study 446 police recruits from 14 successive
 academy classes that began basic training classes between December
 1995 and October 1996. The Police Personnel Survey, adapted from
 Rosenbaum, Yeh, and Wilkinson (1994), Skogan (1994, 1995), and Wycoff
 and Skogan (1993), was administered to officers in the study on four
 separate occasions. This instrument was designed to take repeated
 measures of police officer attitudes and beliefs related to various
 dimensions of the job, including job satisfaction, community policing,
 problem-solving policing, traditional policing, the role of the
police, relations with the community, and multicultural sensitivity.
description: In 1995, the Phoenix Regional Training Academy
 revised its basic training curriculum and implemented a 606.5-hour,
 16-week basic training program that integrated community policing and
 problem-oriented policing across the curriculum. The revised
 curriculum was designed to provide a range of supportive concepts and
 skills, including teaching officers how to develop positive
 police-community relations and the ways in which community policing
 techniques are helpful in dealing with crime. The curriculum also
 placed substantial emphasis on enhancing individuals' sensitivity to
 and awareness of cultural and ethnic differences. This study aimed to:
 (1) evaluate the extent to which the academy's basic training program
 produced desired changes in officers' attitudes and beliefs related to
 community policing, problem-oriented policing, and police-citizen
 interactions, (2) track a panel of academy graduates through the first
 year of their police careers in their respective police agencies to
 evaluate the effects of field training, occupational socialization,
 community policing, and different work environments (e.g., department
 size and constituencies with different needs and demands) on officers'
 attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors related to traditional policing,
 community policing, and police-citizen interactions, and (3) track
 academy dropouts and determine if and how their attitudes and values
differed systematically from non-dropouts.
description: A multiple-treatment single-case design was used
 to study 446 police recruits from 14 successive academy classes that
 began basic training classes at the Phoenix Regional Training Academy
 between December 1995 and October 1996. The Police Personnel Survey,
 adapted from Rosenbaum, Yeh, and Wilkinson (1994), Skogan (1994,
 1995), and Wycoff and Skogan (1993), was administered to officers in
 the study on four separate occasions. This instrument was designed to
 take repeated measures of police officer attitudes and beliefs related
 to various dimensions of the job, including job satisfaction,
 community policing, problem-solving policing, traditional policing,
 the role of the police, relations with the community, and
 multicultural sensitivity. The first administration (pretest) of the
 survey took place on police recruits' first day at the academy.
 Training academy administrators provided researchers with one hour of
 class time during which the survey was administered and collected
 immediately upon completion. A 16-week lag existed between the pretest
 (time one) and the first post-test (time two), which was conducted
 during the final three days of the basic training academy. The second
 post-test (time three) occurred 12 weeks after the first post-test,
 between June 1996 and March 1997, at or near the end of the recruits'
 field training process. To conduct the second post-test, each recruit
 was tracked to his or her respective police agency. A third post-test
 (time four) occurred at the end of officers' one-year probationary
period, between March 1997 and February 1998.
description: Background variables include gender,
 race/ethnicity, age, prior military experience, prior law enforcement
 experience, marital and family status, education, previous work
 experiences, hobbies/non-work activities, occupational history of
 parents, agency hired by, and Myers-Briggs personality type. Other
 variables focus on job description, interest in job challenges and
 personal growth through work, receptivity to change, job satisfaction,
 patrol responsiveness to community, to what extent the
 agency's/department's resources should be committed to
 community-oriented policing, hours spent in an average week on
 different policing activities, what sources of information contribute
 to officers' recognition of a problem, orientation to
 community-oriented policing, assessment of police-public relations,
 familiarity with community-based and problem-solving policing,
 problem-solving capability, rating of different types of training in
 respective departments, orientation toward problem-solving policing,
 multicultural awareness and knowledge, coworker support for community
policing, and coworker support for traditional policing.
description: Response Rates: not available
description: Presence of Common Scales: Scales include Myers-Briggs personality type and several
Likert-type scales.
description: Twenty-five police agencies across the state of Arizona
 had recruits in the final sample, and each academy class had
 representatives from several different police agencies. Police
 agencies included metropolitan police agencies, small town/rural
 police agencies, sheriff offices, Indian tribal police agencies, and
 university police agencies. More information about sampling procedures
was not provided.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Impact of Community Policing Training and Program Implementation on Police Personnel in Arizona, 1995-1998
description: Members of 14 successive classes at the Phoenix Regional
Training Academy that began between December 1995 and October 1996. Smallest Geographic Unit: none
description: (1) Data from the open-ended questions from time three
 and time four interviews, field training officer interviews, and
 dropout interviews conducted as part of this study are not available
 in this collection. (2) The user guide, codebook, and data collection
 instruments are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF)
 files. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated
 and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe
 Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat
Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.