| Purpose. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine if police officers' attitudes toward community policing and traditional crime control policing were congruent with their attitudes toward women officer effectiveness and safety, and women in the workplace.; Methods. A self-administered, attitudinal survey of sworn police officers at three police departments was conducted. The officers were asked to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement to statements relating to traditional crime control policing, community policing, women police officers' competency at various police tasks, women police officers' safety, and women, in general, in the workplace. Of the 1,505 officers employed by the three agencies, 879 (58%) returned surveys. The responses were combined to test the hypotheses.; Findings. (1) Police officers who perceived female officers as effective and not a safety risk were more likely to support community policing than traditional policing. (2) Police officers who perceived females in the workplace more positively were more likely to support community policing than traditional policing. (3) Supervisors were more likely to support community policing than were police officers. Black/African American officers were also more likely to support community policing. When examining police officers only, Black/African American officers, younger officers, and female officers were more likely to support community policing than were their counterparts. Hispanic/Latino officers reported higher support for traditional crime control policing. |
