Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9614-3529

Date of Award

10-7-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Criminal Justice

First Advisor

William J. Sabol

Second Advisor

Dean A. Dabney

Third Advisor

Jacqueline Drew

Fourth Advisor

Thaddeus L. Johnson

Abstract

ABSTRACT

EXAMINING THE IMPACTS OF EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS ON POLICE AGENCIES’ DIVERSITY AND MEASURING COMMUNITY-POLICE REFLECTIVITY

By:

DAVID THOMAS SNIVELY

Since Augustus Vollmer’s seminal call for college educated police officers in America, periodic attention has been given to police agencies’ education-related hiring standards. Most notably, both the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice (1967) and the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015) advocated requiring college degrees for police officers, a clarion call repeated with increasing vigor since the summer of 2020, when widespread interest in American policing rekindled. Among the expected outcomes of raising education requirements are agencies comprised of officers who are more emotionally intelligent, progressive thinking, and less prejudiced (Johnson et al., 2022a, 2022b). Simultaneously, nearly every national report on the police has since 1931 recommended increased employment of minorities and women (Walker, 1985). However, research assessing the effects of degree requirements on the workforce demographics of police agencies is limited. This is a crucial gap, particularly alongside intensifying calls for police departments to reflect the demographics of the communities they patrol (e.g.: Legewie & Fagan, 2016; Shusta et al., 2019). This study aims to fill that void by examining the degree to which education requirements influence workforce demographics in American police departments. Beyond descriptive statistics, the study employs several measures to compare agency demographics against population data and innovatively assess whether degree requirements impede agency-community reflectivity. These include measures of race, ethnicity, sex, degree earning, and community capital measures, as well as wage, labor, and workforce indicators. The study concludes with recommendations for policy makers and future research.

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