Andreea I. Alecu and Silje Bringsrud Fekjær
Do female police recruits drop out of police education and/or leave the profession more often than men, and has this changed over time? Can gender differences be explained by the…
Abstract
Purpose
Do female police recruits drop out of police education and/or leave the profession more often than men, and has this changed over time? Can gender differences be explained by the background characteristics and family obligations of the recruits?
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs administrative registry data covering all individuals admitted to the police academy (1995–2010, N = 6570) and all academy recruits employed in the Norwegian police (1992–2014, N = 7301). The paper analyses the data using discrete-time logistic regression and coarsened exact matching.
Findings
The levels of dropout and attrition are generally low. However, female recruits have a somewhat greater tendency both to drop out of education and to leave the force. The gender differences are quite stable, although the percentage of female recruits has risen sharply. Family obligations do not seem to explain female attrition from the police force.
Research limitations/implications
Because women tend to leave the police more often than men, further research is suggested in investigating female police recruits’ experiences. However, the relatively low level of dropout and limited gender differences also provide a reason to question whether stories of the police as a male-dominated profession not adapted to women are valid across time and in different settings.
Originality/value
This study provides exhaustive and detailed longitudinal data not previously available in studies of police careers. This study also tracks attrition in a period that has involved both increased numerical representation of women and changes in police culture, while accounting for other observable differences between male and female police officers. Contrary to common explanations, there is limited importance of family obligations and altered gender composition.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to compare the social background of Norwegian and Swedish police students. Are there differences in the students’ social background, and if so, are…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to compare the social background of Norwegian and Swedish police students. Are there differences in the students’ social background, and if so, are such differences reflected in different attitudes and career plans among the students?
Design/methodology/approach
The questions are explored on the basis of survey data on all Norwegian and Swedish police students who started their education in 2009 (n=737). The methods employed are cross-tabular analysis and multivariate linear regression.
Findings
The results show that a larger proportion of Norwegian police students have highly educated parents, compared to the Swedish. However, students’ social background does not seem to be important for their orientation towards theory and knowledge or their plans for doing operational police work.
Practical implications
An important question for the future's police educators is whether a study with a formal bachelor status will attract a different type of students. These results show that the Norwegian police education with a formal bachelor degree attracts more students with highly educated parents, but the importance of attracting students with a given social background to the police profession seems to be limited.
Originality/value
There are no previous comparative studies on recruitment to police education, or studies of police recruitment that focus especially on the importance of social background.