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Evaluating the role of training in police socialization: A British example
Author(s) -
Fielding Nigel G.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6629(198607)14:3<319::aid-jcop2290140311>3.0.co;2-n
Subject(s) - socialization , agency (philosophy) , training (meteorology) , relevance (law) , affect (linguistics) , work (physics) , psychology , public relations , service (business) , sample (material) , social psychology , political science , criminology , applied psychology , sociology , law , business , geography , engineering , mechanical engineering , social science , chemistry , communication , chromatography , marketing , meteorology
Socialization into an occupation proceeds through both formal and informal channels. In the case of the police, the formal agency is the training school, and the informal process results from assignment to operational service. In the UK, the latter begins early in the training period and occupies the bulk of the 2 years that a Police Constable is on “probation.” It is important to know how police training and the experience of policing affect the views of recruits if one is to assess the relevance of efforts at improvement and reform. There is a need to assess how the recruit acquires a “realistic” understanding of the police role. This article seeks to document in detail the evolution of the recruit's attitudes during socialization into the police role. The measures of attitude change gathered on a sample of recruits who were moving through the probationary period demonstrate a movement toward increasingly pragmatic conceptions of policing as work.