Authoritariansim as indicated by measures of acceptance of authority and directiveness among police officers,students and townspeople

Conclusion Recently theory and scales measuring authoritarianism and cynicism of police have come into close scrutiny. In particular, Langworthy (1987:28,33) has concluded from his review of 21 empirical studies that police cynicism appears to have several different dimensions and that the “failure to detect cynicism or a factor closely related to it is a product of reliance on a very flawed instrument the Niederhoffer index.” To address that criticism of a faulty instrument, this research has utilized scales measuring directiveness and proauthority. For reasons of alpha coefficients, only the scores on the pro-authority scale were analyzed. Mean scores on the pro-authority scale between law officer, students, townspeople and police officers were not significantly different. When investigating variables relating to the high scores of proauthority of police officers, rank was statistically significant while age was not. For future research, separate population should be continued as well as random sampling. In addition, variables of age, sex, ethnic, rank and departmental/organizational dimensions should be explored.     

An empirical assessment of Niederhoffer's police cynicism scale

For some time there has been an intensive effort among police scholars to determine the attitudes of law enforcement personnel. Their efforts have focused particularly on the determinants of police cynicism. However, to date, there has only been one attempt to construct an index estimating that attitude—Niederhoffer's in 1967. Thus, all discussions of police cynicism rest on that index.This paper examines for the first time the reliability and validity of that instrument on a separate population of police personnel. The results were significant. First, it is shown that the index has an extremely low reliability and validity. Then, it is revealed that the index is tapping at least five separate dimensions of cynicism—not one, as police scholars so frequently assert.The implications from this research are great. The most obvious is that it is time to stop discussing the “cynical cop.” Instead, social scientist can begin specifying toward which dimensions of the occupation officers with particular traits are likely to become cynical. Second, the findings indicate the need to develop additional measures of police cynicism that are more reliable and valid than the sole existing index.     

Using composite measures in police cynicism research: An application of canonical factor regression

In this paper, a new analytical strategy, the canonical factor regression method (CFRM) is introduced as a tool for constructing indices and measuring reliabilities of those indices from items derived from Niederhoffer's police cynicism index. Data for the project were derived from the survey responses of 574 Illinois police chiefs. Analysis of the data in the present project suggests that CFRM is a useful tool for constructing composite indices. CFRM allowed us to provide a more powerful test of hypothesized relationships between dimensions of cynicism and theoretically salient predictor variables than has previously been possible.     

Cynicism and job satisfaction in policing: Muddying the waters

Since Niederhoffer’s (1969) pioneering work, police cynicism has been a staple in research on police officers and police work, various typologies of police officers and definitions of the police subculture or police personality rely to a greater or lesser degree on conceptions of cynicism and suspicion. More recent research has questioned both the validity of measures of cynicism and typologies of police officers. The present study examines the link between cynicism and job satisfaction which is implicit in the literature. Findings indicate not only that these two factors are correlated, but also that relationships reported between cynicism and other factors in policing are mirrored by correlations between those factors and a measure of job satisfaction. The question which arises is, to what degree are correlations reported in the literature spurious, resulting not from cynicism, as was thought, but from a more generic measure of job satisfaction?     

Anxiety and cynicism: Companions of the police officer

The work of enforcing the law has inherently aerated anxiety and cynicism among police officers. Through the use of Neiderhoffer’s Police Cynicism Scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the levels of anxiety and cynicism were measured in a random sample of peace officers from the Attanta area. The authors found, through the use of a single-factor analysis of variance, that when anxiety decreased, cynicism decreased. One conclusion, contrary to earlier studies, was that cynicism is higher among new police officers than among veteran officers.     

Evaluating the shared and unique predictors of legal cynicism and police legitimacy from adolescence into early adulthood

In different theoretical traditions, negative social conditions, attachments, and interactions shape the way individuals view the law and its agents. Although most researchers acknowledge the conceptual distinction between different legal attitudes such as legal cynicism and police legitimacy, it remains unclear to what extent these attitudes stem from the same social sources. In the current study, therefore, we evaluate the social and individual factors that influence trajectories of legal cynicism and police legitimacy using a diverse community sample of youths in Zurich, Switzerland. Latent growth curve models were employed to examine patterns of change in legal cynicism and police legitimacy between 13 and 20 years of age. The findings show that legal cynicism and police legitimacy both decline into early adulthood and exhibit high rank-stability over time. Furthermore, we find that legal cynicism is closely related to individual characteristics that reflect one's inability to recognize or abide by their internal rules. By contrast, police legitimacy is shaped by socialization influences, particularly teacher bonds and police contacts. These results indicate a need to assess the measurement and interpretation of legal cynicism critically in relation to broader legitimacy beliefs and to investigate the shared and distinct sources of these different constructs.     

POLICE CYNICISM RECONSIDERED An Application of Smallest Space Analysis

Niederhoffer, following Durkheim, proposed a linear causal model to explain police anomia. Using data from an availability sample of New York City police, he breaks into the chain of variables at frustration and terminates the analysis with cynicism measured by a twenty-item scale. This study replicates Niederhoffer's research with a population of urban police, examines the nature and incidence of cynicism, and tests the relationships between various indices of frustration, cynicism, and anomia. Contrary to Niederhoffer's expectations, cynicism is not prevalent among police outside New York City; cynicism my be described adequately only with reference to three dimensions; most indices of frustration do not significantly correlate with two subscales of cynicism; and cynicism does not intervene in the relationships between a number of independent variables and anornh. An alternate model based on Merton's conceptualization of anomin as the result of a discrepancy in cultural values and institutionalized means for attaining such goals was tested. It was found that perceived means-goals discrepancy vis-à-vis legal norms and goals intervened in the relationships between rank and anomia and years on force and anomia.     

Neighborhood climates of legal cynicism and complaints about abuse of police power†

Research findings show that legal cynicism—a cultural frame in which skepticism about laws, the legal system, and police is expressed—is important in understanding neighborhood variation in engagement with the police, particularly in racially isolated African American communities. We argue that legal cynicism is also useful for understanding neighborhood variation in complaints about police misconduct. Using data on complaints filed in Chicago between 2012 and 2014, we show that grievances disproportionately came from racially segregated neighborhoods and that a measure of legal cynicism from the mid-1990s predicts complaints about abuse of police power two decades later. The association between legal cynicism and complaints is net of prior complaints, reported crime, imprisonment, and other structural factors that contribute to the frequency and nature of interactions involving police and residents. Legal cynicism also mediates the influence of racially isolated neighborhoods on complaints. The mid-1990s is the approximate midpoint of a half-century of police scandals in Chicago. Our research findings suggest that contemporary complaints about police misconduct in highly segregated Chicago neighborhoods are grounded in collectively shared historical memories of police malfeasance. They also suggest that persistent complaints about police misconduct may represent officially memorialized expressions of enduring racial protest against police abuse of power.     

Cynicism: A factor in corrections work

Cynicism has long been known to be a characteristic in police work. A research study was undertaken to determine levels of cynicism commonly found among corrections workers. A twenty-question cynicism test, based on the one used by Niederhoffer in his study of New York City police officers, was used, but it was modified to fit the correctional setting. Results indicated a moderátely high level of operating cynicism in corrections officers, especially in those who work in “treatment” institutions.     

Police drinking behavior and organizational deviance: An exploratory approach

Contemporary literature on police officer subculture has focused on correlates of cynicism while ignoring behavioral manifestations within law enforcement organizations. This paper explores the relationships between trouble due to drinking, cynicism, absenteeism, rank and deviation from police officers. Antecedent variables examined by regression analysis are observed to explain forty-eight percent of the total variance in police officer drinking scores and is highly significant. The relationship between a modified version of the Niederhoffer cynicism scale and the trouble due to drinking scale [r=−.22] is in an opposite direction than expected from anomie theory and seems to suggest that drinking behavior is an alternate adaptation to the stresses and strains of policing for older, higher ranking officers.     

Work-related well-being in the South African Police Service

The objective of this study was to assess whether background variables, job stress, and personality traits could predict the work-related well-being (burnout and work engagement) of police members. A cross-sectional survey design was used. Stratified random samples (N = 1,794) were taken of police members of eight provinces in South Africa. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, Police Stress Inventory, and Personality Characteristics Inventory were administered. The results showed that age, gender, and race explained a small percentage of the variance in exhaustion, cynicism, and vigor/dedication. Stress because of job demands and a lack of resources predicted exhaustion and cynicism. Emotional stability and conscientiousness inversely predicted exhaustion and cynicism, while emotional stability, conscientiousness, and extraversion predicted vigor and dedication. Stress because of job demands predicted only a small percentage of the variance in vigor and dedication.     

Cynicism among juvenile probation officers: A study of subverted ideals

Since Niederhoffer's pioneering work with police, much attention has been paid to cynicism in several criminal justice settings. This research has led to a concept of cynicism as multidimensional. Based on these research findings, this study investigated cynicism in a new setting—juvenile probation. The specific focus was cynicism toward the rehabilitative ideal in juvenile justice. The study found that professionalism and longevity had effects that were opposite to what has been found in other settings. Moreover, this study found that idealistic cynicism is independent of perceptions of procedural efficacy, delinquency etiology, and, importantly, JPO role performance. We take these results to be in keeping with a general conclusion that cynicism is a judgment that varies within and across settings, audiences, and philosophical ideals, which calls for continued research refined by greater appreciation of situational specificity.     

Lilac? ‘Ten years of blue nurtured nature’

Abstract

The paper seeks to determine whether indicators evincing attitudes of police culture themes of solidarity, isolation and cynicism amongst SAPS officials are gender neutral as well as change in relation to Van Maanen’s and Manning’s stages of police culture socialisation. Using a survey format, the researcher employed a longitudinal design. The study established that SAPS cadets that commenced their basic training at the six SAPS basic training institutes in January 2005, entered the organisation with predispositions in furtherance of solidarity, isolation and cynicism. The period of ‘college/academy training’ (January to June 2005) did not significantly counteract these tendencies, neither the subsequent ‘field training’ (July to December 2005). Nine years on, and these attitudes intensified. The study further found that for the duration of the project (10 years), female trainees and their conversion to fully-fledged police officials had mostly stronger values exhibiting solidarity, isolation and cynicism, compared to their male counterparts.     

An attestation of the spatiality and saliency of police culture: a cross comparison study of croatian and cypriot novice law enforcers

It is often maintained that factors such as the multifarious and exigent nature of the police profession, the diversity of police personnel, and the dissimilar socioeconomic and political settings which surround the sphere of policing, fragment the shared values, beliefs, and norms of police officers. As a result, the spatiality and saliency of such values (police culture), is doubted, if not denied. Such being the case, the article sets out to examine whether or not police culture, as documented to exist in Anglo-American police organisations, is reflected in two disparate settings, namely the Croatian and Cyprus Police. For attesting the foregoing, quantitative research was undertaken in these two settings. Upon analysing the responses of novice law enforcers (n = 185), it was found that the core constituents of police culture (isolation, suspicion, brotherhood, and cynicism), besides cynicism – which was partially supported – manifested in both police organisations.     

CYNICAL STREETS: NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL PROCESSES AND PERCEPTIONS OF CRIMINAL INJUSTICE*

Studies have found that African Americans are more likely to perceive racial biases in the criminal justice system than are those from other racial groups. There is a limited understanding of how neighborhood social processes affect variation in these perceptions. This study formulates a series of hypotheses focused on whether perceived racial biases in the criminal justice system or perceptions of injustice vary as a function of levels of moral and legal cynicism as well as of adverse police–citizen encounters. These hypotheses are tested with multilevel regression models applied to data from a sample of 689 African Americans located in 39 neighborhoods. Findings from the regression models indicate that the positive association between structural disadvantage and perceptions of injustice is accounted for by moral and legal cynicism. Furthermore, adverse police encounters significantly increase perceptions of injustice; controlling for these encounters reduces the strength of the association between cynicism and injustice perceptions. Finally, the findings reveal that cynicism intensifies the association between adverse police encounters and perceptions of criminal injustice. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for research regarding perceived biases in the criminal justice system and neighborhood social processes.     

The validity of Niederhoffer's cynicism scale

Arthur Niederhoffer's (1967) Behind the Shield is widely regarded as a classic in the policing literature, yet problems associated with measurement of the key latent trait, cynicism, have limited the extent to which conclusions may be drawn from Niederhoffer's work, as well as some subsequent police cynicism research. In this article, Niederhoffer's research is revisited using survey data recently collected from a random sample of 499 Philadelphia police officers. The analysis begins by examining the validity of Regoli's (1976) modified cynicism scale from the perspective of Item Response Theory (IRT), using Rasch modeling techniques in an effort to more fully understand the scale's measurement properties. Then, Niederhoffer's primary research hypothesis is revisited. Three main findings are drawn: (1) the Likert response categories are being used by respondents as intended; (2) some of the scale items exhibit gender and race bias; and (3) the scale can be improved by dropping several items. Once the scale is adjusted, the findings indicate that the relationship between officer cynicism and years of service is slightly stronger than when the scale is used in its original form. Further, regression analyses yield theoretically consistent findings for the relationship between cynicism and one job-related measure (departmental disciplinary charges).     

Comparison of the MMPI-2 and Niederhoffer Cynicism Scales for a Sample of police academy trainees

This study compared the Niederhoffer Cynicism Scale, as a less costly alternative, to the MMPI-2 measure of cynicism. Data were collected on both scales from a sample of male and female police academy trainees to compare reliability and construct validity. Subgroup analyses by race and sex yielded comparable Cronbach alpha estimates for minority (.71) and majority (.83) males to MMPI-2 norms. The Niederhoffer reliability values were marginally smaller (.73 to .77) but within the acceptable range. Construct validity correlations between both scales were significant for minority and majority males. However, sample size was too small for both minority and majority females groups to use appropriate statistical techniques to determine reliability or validity. Continued use of the Niederhoffer is recommended for minority and majority males. Author's Note: This paper was presented at the 44^th Annual Meeting of the Western Social Science Association in Albuquerque, NM, in April of 2002.     

Validating Niederhoffer's Cynicism Scale: The Case for Black Officers

Previous methodological reports in the literature about cynicism have concluded that the Niederhoffer Scale is unreliable and meaningless in predicting police officer behavior. The entire research has rested on small samples of white officers, despite the increasing presence of black officers in urban departments.

Past literature has examined the relationship between the cynicism scale and other attitudinal constructs. Despite the fact that the scale is intended to predict behavior, correlations between the scale and behavioral criterion variables have not been reported.

In this paper we present the results of conventional reliability analysis on a sample of black police union activists. The twenty item scale is resubjected to a five factor varimax solution. Only eight items are observed to reload on factors initially observed by Regoli (1976) and indicate little stability within internal factor configurations.     

A Multidimensional View of Legal Cynicism: Perceptions of the Police Among Anti‐harassment Teams in Egypt

In Egypt in 2012, several anti‐harassment groups were established to respond to an increase in sexual violence in public spaces and to the failure of the state to tackle the issue. Anti‐harassment groups organized patrol‐type intervention teams that operated during demonstrations or public celebrations to stop sexual assaults. This article examines how activists perceived the police in five anti‐harassment groups between 2012 and 2014, and the role these perceptions played in groups' decisions about cooperating with the police, and on‐the‐ground strategies of action. I argue for a multidimensional view of legal cynicism that conceptualizes legal cynicism as composed of three dimensions: legitimacy (a sense that law enforcement agencies are not entitled to be deferred to and obeyed), protection (a perception that the law fails to protect rights and provide public safety), and threat (a perception that the law represents a threat). This approach helps uncover the various meanings that legal cynicism takes for different actors in different contexts, and how actors justify their strategies of action based on their specific perceptions of the police's legitimacy, protective role, and threat.     

Perceptions of police-juvenile contact predicts self-reported offending in adolescent males

ABSTRACT

Evidence suggests that positive experiences with the police can foster attitudes of respect towards the justice system that can reduce an adolescents’ propensity to commit later illegal behaviors. To advance prior work, we tested whether this association might be stronger for those adolescents who associate with deviant peers. Additionally, we tested whether the link between attitudes towards police and the justice system, and the influence of peer delinquency, would be weaker for those with elevated callous–unemotional (CU) traits. These predictions were examined in a prospective study using a sample (N?=?1,216) of adolescent males who were followed prospectively for 2 years following their first official contact with the juvenile justice system. Positive experiences with the police following the youth’s first arrest were associated with less self-reported delinquency 2 years later, which was partially mediated by reductions in adolescents’ cynicism about the legal system. However, this link was only significant for youth with low levels of peer delinquency. Although CU traits were related to less positive perceptions of experiences with the police and greater cynicism about the justice system, CU traits did not moderate the associations among experiences, attitudes, and later illegal behavior nor did they moderate the influence of peer delinquency.