Policing styles: Notes on an empirical synthesis of Wilson and Muir

The works of James Q. Wilson and William Ker Muir stand as classics in the recent but voluminous literature on police. The concept of style is central to both analyses. Wilson focuses on departmental approaches to law enforcement, while Muir examines individual police perspectives. Both emphasize, however, that style is a critical component of law enforcement policy.Scrutiny of the typologies constructed by Wilson and Muir reveals patterns of compatibility and conflict. Assuming that simple congruity of approach carries critical consequences for policing, the authors initiated an empirical extension and synthesis of the works of Wilson and Muir.Surveying police in eighteen departments across the country (72.2 percent of the 900 potential respondents returned completed questionnaires, leaving a sample of 650), the authors hypothesized that simple congruity of policing style along three lines of comparison (individual officer and supervisor, individual officer and squad, and individual officer and department) would be associated with attitudinal perspectives long thought to be part and parcel of the “police personality.” Additional hypotheses were advanced about the relationship between congruity of style and other officer perceptions—particularly job satisfaction and assessments of supervisor support, departmental discipline, and management.The results: indicate that style congruity is critical at the lowest levelsof the organization, reinforce the importance of the first-line supervisor in policing, extend and refine the concept of style as advanced by Wilson and Muir, and demonstrate the utility of replication and synthesis in social science.