Introduction
Law enforcement is an underappreciated career and it is no secret that police officers’ compensation reflects that. The New York City police department (NYPD) continues to be the one of the most storied institutions in America. Yet, the officers still have the same issues as other large city agencies. Police officers’ salary is not simply the money they earn, but also a reflection of what the citizens believe those services are worth. In the past, police officers formed labor unions to assist in compensation issues and other personnel matters. Even with the existence of labor unions, police officers have continued to struggle with financial burdens which in some cases led to misconduct and even criminal activity. All these actions and reactions are the cornerstone to a critical issue facing the NYPD today. The issue involves the recruitment and retention of NYPD officers.
Main body
Most police would, at least, have discussed morale with their mates at some stage during their careers. This morale has been directly linked to compensation. Bowman, Carlson, Colvin, and Green (2006) contend:
The implications for state and local law enforcement leaders are clear. In order to retain officers such as these, leaders must ensure equity. Equity must be broad-based in organizations and this is a challenge; it is generally difficult to individualize outcomes and inputs in order to ensure equity. Leaders must ensure that there is enough flexibility built into the personnel system to ensure that officers perceive equity. That will involve careful consideration of comparison to others. Not only must leaders consider the comparison to others within the organization, but they must also consider the comparison to others outside the organization such as in neighboring police agencies.
These comparisons take place many times over between agencies and individual officers.
More recently, research has found that the way officers look at law enforcement itself is also important. So, by definition, morale has two components: response and focus. Therefore, it is possible to measure morale by measuring a person’s satisfaction with and commitment to their workgroup, organization and job. Haarr (2005) states, “A review of the limited literature on police resignation and turnover reveals four lines of inquiry, including job satisfaction, “burnout” theory, confluency theory, and cognitive dissonance theory. The earliest studies of police resignation theorized that police officer who is dissatisfied with their job voluntarily resign from police work, whereas officers who have high levels of job satisfaction remain.” NYPD officers’ response to the focus, job satisfaction, would be their resignation.
Law enforcement is a career field that will always be in demand. However, this career field does not pay an individual an amount that shows their importance to society. Day after day, police officers are in the community-solving problems, protecting the public, and enforcing the laws that govern our nation. In order to understand this situation, Donahue and Miller (2005) reveal, “Our findings show that for police services, citizens’ exposure to service providers, either through direct contact or television news reports, influences their preferences and willingness to pay. If television has direct and indirect impacts on citizen demand for services, municipal governments have much at stake in the type of stories being told. One implication of the relationships we find here is that policymakers may be able to affect voter support for public budgets by shaping how the television media portray local services or modifying the way service providers treat citizens in their direct interactions with them.” The citizens are becoming more involved in these situations so that they are aware of the different aspects of the issue before funding is made available.
Labor unions have sought means to remedy the current state of NYPD recruitment and retention that is a revolving door. Wilson, Zhao, Ren, and Briggs (2006) explain:
The most important function of a union is the representation of its members in collective bargaining. In the process of collective bargaining, employer and employee union representatives negotiate over two primary areas of focus: conditions of employment and employees’ economic benefits such as wages, salaries, and working hours. Collective bargaining introduces an employee advocate to the process who represents workers’ interest in fiscal decision-making. Negotiations take on the character of intense and tough “battles” between management and public employee unions to settle issues connected primarily to the economic interests of employees.
The establishment of labor unions has created more commensurate compensation for NYPD officers, yet the fight still continues.
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of the City of New York (PBA) serves as the largest union representative to the NYPD. (Rauch, 2006). The primary purpose of the trade union is to conclude a collective agreement and then overhaul employment relations between police officers and employers. Financial aspects are frequently discussed, such as police officers’ social benefits applicable to general civil servants. Employee associations today are vehicles in which police express their demands through political processes and attempt to gain pay raises and improve conditions in the workplace through collective bargaining. (Wilson, Zhao, Ren, & Briggs, 2006). As a result of its activities, the PBA hopes to stop police officers resigning from their positions to work for private security companies or to go abroad in search of jobs. The goal is to create a situation in which professional and experienced police officers return to the service, while new recruits continue to answer the call to law enforcement.
There are various adverse effects of police labor unions losing arbitration. Mas (2006) says, “Police performance declines sharply when officers lose arbitrations. The per capita number of crimes cleared (solved) by arrest is 12 percent higher in the months following arbitration when arbitrators ruled in favor of the police officers, relative to when arbitrators ruled for the municipal employer. Felony arrests in cities where police unions lost are also associated with lower incarceration probabilities and shorter jail sentences, even after conditioning on detailed charged crime categories, suggesting that police may reduce their cooperation with prosecutors following arbitration losses. Additionally, I show that union losses are associated with a 5.5 percent increase in reported crime rates in the months following arbitration decisions.”
Critical to this research are the findings that officers who are very committed to their fellow officers and less committed to their organization are more likely to act unethically and ignore or condone the unethical behavior of their fellow officers. (Haarr, 2005). These crimes are commonly known as corruption since the officer is using their position to see that justice does or does not get done for reasons that are not mercenary. These actions and inactions stem from dissatisfaction from the police department. In the history of law enforcement, many things have changed with the advancement of technology. However, two things have remained the same, the low income of a regular police officer and crime committed by police officers. The most common motive for an officer committing a crime, while in the line of duty, is to gain profit. (Davison, 2004). Considering this, it is proper to propose the idea that police corruption may be minimized if the pay of an officer was to increase.
Police officer salary issues and the social impact do have a substantial effect on new recruits. Furthermore, these levels increase rapidly as soon as they are exposed to real-world scenarios and continue doing so with experience in the police organization. (Rauch, 2006). For the recruits, the decrease in commitment results from exposure to police work and the organizational commitment they find in their more experienced co-workers. The most common examples of organizational support, or lack thereof, would be lack of advocacy from senior management against unsubstantiated allegations in the media, lack of communication, and lack of recognition of performance and experience. (Mason, 2007). Central to the issue of recognition of performance and experience is an officer’s salary level. Retention in law enforcement is doubly dependent on the satisfaction of employees and therefore commensurate compensation allows all parties to move on to more pressing issues in subsiding criminal activity.
Conclusion
Achieving a balance in this relationship will generate a sense of community, rather than disempowerment within police organizations. As a result, experienced officers and non-sworn staff will not only be committed to their jobs and their workgroups but also the organization. In reality, there are certain experiences that cause people to feel either positive or negative about policing. Recognizing which of these things has most influenced attitudes is the first step to being able to do something constructive about the problem. This fulfillment will not only allow the recruitment goals of the NTPD to reach all-time highs; retention will also witness new levels.
References
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Davison, C. (2004). Police Discipline and Investigations. Law Now, 28(6), 21-27.
Donahue, A. K., & Miller, J. M. (2005). Citizen Preferences and Paying for Police. Journal of Urban Affairs, 27(4), 419-435.
Haarr, R. N. (2005). Factors Affecting the Decision of Police Recruits to “Drop Out” of Police Work. Police Quarterly, 8(4), 431-453.
Kadleck, C. (2003). Police employee organizations. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 26, 341-351.
Mas, A. (2006). Pay, Reference Points, and Police Performance. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 21(3), 783-821.
Mason, K. (2007) Justice by the Numbers. Courts Today, 5(1), 12-17.
Rauch, M. (2006). New York’s Poorest: NYPD Recruiting Shortfall Blamed on Low Salaries. Incentive, 180(9), 84-89.
Wilson, S., Zhao, J., Ren, L., & Briggs, S. (2006). The Influence of Collective Bargaining on Large Police Agency Salaries: 1990-2000. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 31(1), 19-34.