Since its original publication in 1968, James Wilson’s Varieties of Police Behavior and the introduction of political culture has dominated the policing literature as an explanation of the relationship between community characteristics and police behavior. Three archetypal styles were identified: legalistic, watchman, and service. Wilson posited that a community’s policing style can be predicted by their form of local government. While support was found in his initial test, subsequent tests have been unable to garner support. This dissertation starts by using Wilson variables with data from a systematic social observation (SSO) study and measures policing style by frequency and formality of contacts rather than arrests. The study was conducted in 20 suburban communities in southwest Ohio.
Alternative variables were introduced and their hypothesized relationship with frequency and formality discussed. The data on encounters were broken out into three subgroups: number of all, full and full encounters with probable cause and each were analyzed accordingly. Associations were found for crime indicator, non-residential land use and assessed value per capita in the alternative models using chi-square. There was no overwhelming support for either the Wilson or alternative variables to predict style.
Next, variables representing both Wilson and alternatives were used to predict ratio level measures of frequency and formality. The Formality/Frequency Index represents the amount of formality exhibited in each respective community. In the end, political culture was not found to support the frequency of contacts (# of encounters) or formality (# arrests and/or citations). Crime indicator was the only variable to be a significant predictor of the Formality/Frequency Index (full encounter model) in any of the alternative models presented. This relationship is tenuous at best due to the small sample size.
It is important to note that this dissertation was not centered on testing Wilson’s theory of political culture – the focus was on explaining the relationship between community characteristics and police behavior. However, it did use the theory as a benchmark, as a point of reference in the quest to identify these characteristics. This dissertation also discussed the state of the research which has addressed Wilson. It also has given plausible explanation as to why political culture may have been an appropriate measure in its day, but may no longer have explanatory power. Alternative community-level variables were presented that were hypothesized to explain variation in police behavior vis-à-vis frequency and formality of police-citizen encounters in suburbs. Some support for these alternative hypotheses was found, though the effect was not consistent. Ultimately these hypothesized relationships did not hold utilizing higher level statistical analyses. There is work to be done in addressing the variation found in police-citizen contacts between communities. The challenge for future research is to tie the acknowledgement that policing varies by community with characteristics that explain why.