Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education

Advisor

Marcelo Castro

Committee Member

Grace Telesco

Committee Member

James Nardozzi

Keywords

job satisfaction, law enforcement, organizational stress, police, use of force

Abstract

This applied dissertation was designed to examine whether relationships existed between self-reported job satisfaction, organizational police stress and attitudes toward the use of force among urban non-supervisory local law enforcement patrol officers in North Carolina. A quantitative study of patrol officers (N = 137) from across North Carolina was conducted over a one-month period in the summer of 2018.

The researcher administered a combined survey instrument measuring job satisfaction, organizational police stress and use of force attitudes to local law enforcement patrol officers in North Carolina. The researcher administered the survey to participants at six different local law enforcement agencies across the state. Only non-supervisory patrol officers from local municipalities within the state were included.

The survey instrument utilized in this study was a combination of the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS), the Organizational Police Questionnaire (PSQ-Org), and items examining use of force attitudes obtained from previous research studies.

The results indicated a strong relationship existed between job satisfaction and organizational stress. Additionally, a weak relationship existed between job satisfaction and use of force attitudes. No statistically significant relationship existed between use of force attitudes and organizational stress among the study’s sample. A discussion of the findings as they relate to police agencies was included.

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