THE POLICE PERSONALITY: FACT OR FICTION?

This article examines the controversy over the police mentality and suggests a sociological alternative to current speculation about the nature of police personalities. Only a few studies used adequate control groups and some did not use a control group at all. While it is very impressive to learn that 72 percent of the policemen in one study were prejudiced-or that 71 percent were unprejudiced in another--these figures are meaningless until how they compare to some nonpolice control group, is known. In addition, the methods of study and measuring instruments may not be comparable. In the studies mentioned in the article, three different measures of authoritarianism were employed. Prejudice has been "measured" by the subjective accounts of participant observers as well as by paper-and-pencil tests. These divergent methods may account for some of the apparently inconsistent results. Finally, most of the results are subject to a "social desirability" interpretation. The police mentality, as described in the literature, does not develop at the top of the police hierarchy and filter down to the underlings.