Police Attitudes and Behavior

Amanda L. Robinson

Social science research has long been concerned with the relationship between people's attitudes and their behavior. Early theories of learning, for example, regarded positive attitudes as the key link that enables knowledge to influence behavior. Later psychological research showed that it also is possible for persons' behavior to influence their attitudes. Much of the scholarly work on police has focused on this relationship as well, seeking to describe police attitudes and to understand any resulting impact on officers' behavior on the job. Early works on the police, such as Jerome Skolnick's (1966) Justice Without Trial , William West-ley's (1970) Violence and the Police , and William Ker Muir's (1977) Police: Streetcorner Politicians , are richly detailed accounts of police attitudes and behavior within a particular police department. These early works were instrumental in identifying the existence of a police subculture—the norms and values that arise out of the police work ...

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