Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
An empirical analysis of attitudes of American law enforcement officers toward affirmative action
Abstract
American law enforcement organizations have witnessed major changes during the last two decades. One of the changes is in reference to the personnel. Historically, law enforcement has been a strongly safeguarded white male occupation. This, however, has changed as racial minorities and women have won appointments to the ranks of this bureaucracy. African Americans, in a few cities, have attained numbers that are comparable to their representation in the city population. Women have surmounted major obstacles that served to question their competency and performance. The major impetus to change for these two groups has been affirmative action. White males have generally opposed this remedy and have sought to preclude its use. Partly because of this attitude, law enforcement agencies may be slow to implement affirmative action programs to increase the representation of blacks and women. This study examines the attitudes of law enforcement officers toward affirmative action. It specifically seeks to determine if attitudes vary with the socio-demographic background of officers. It was hypothesized that American law enforcement officers' attitudes would vary according to race, gender, age, education, rank and region. These hypotheses are tested with data collected in 1981 evaluating the responses of criminal justice employees to affirmative action. The results of the study suggests that attitudes do vary with officer's characteristics. Specifically, black and women law enforcement officers are statistically significant more likely to support affirmative action. Additionally, it was found that officers that were younger, better educated, non-management, and residing outside the South, were supportive of affirmative action, though not statistically significant.
Subject Area
Public administration|Criminology|Minority & ethnic groups|Sociology|Womens studies
Recommended Citation
Turner, K. B, "An empirical analysis of attitudes of American law enforcement officers toward affirmative action" (1996). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9715988.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9715988