Community hierarchy of needs and policing models: toward a new theory of police organizational behavior

This study explains the influences of environmental variables on the emergence of varying policing models. It empirically tests a new perspective on the influences of community variations to police organizational behaviours and practices among local police departments in the U.S. Using the U.S. Census, the Uniform Crime Reports and the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics data, the study tests a perspective suggesting that community hierarchy of needs influences the degree level of the implementation of different models of policing, particularly community policing. The study presents constructs to operationalize hierarchy of needs. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the relationships of hierarchy of needs, organizational factors, and other control variables to police departments’ pursuit of different policing models. Findings suggest that community hierarchy of needs and organizational factors significantly constrain the departments’ implementation of policing models. Lower hierarchy of needs tends to be associated with pursuit of traditional policing while a community with higher level needs tend to pursue community policing. Similarly, organizational complexities influence the implementation of different policing models.