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Assessing Similarities and Differences in Self-Control between Police Officers and Offenders

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Abstract

Research provides consistent evidence that non-offenders have greater self-control than offenders. While such differences exist across a range of samples, the ability of measures of self-control to discriminate between different groups merits additional attention. We advance research on this topic by comparing the self-control of police officers to offenders. Results indicate police officers score higher than offenders do on global self-control. Results also indicate that, when analyzing differences across the six dimensions of self-control conceptualized by Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), police officers consistently score lower in impulsivity, self-centeredness, and anger than offenders. At the same time, police officers have a greater preference for physical activities than offenders do, and the risk-seeking and simple tasks dimensions are inconsistently associated with being a police officer relative to an offender across the different models estimated. Discussion centers on the implications of these findings for theory and for the screening of potential police recruits.

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  1. In previous research, the determination of differentiating ‘offenders’ from ‘non-offenders’ has been based, for the most part, on the participant’s own self-reported involvement in crime and delinquency. For example, Turner and Piquero (2002), using NLSY data of adolescents, categorized ‘offenders’ as those who self-reported engaging in at least one of 14 delinquency items within the preceding 3 years. Similarly, Winfree Jr et al. (2006), using adolescent self-report data from a national evaluation of the GREAT program, classified ‘offenders’ as those who self-reported engaging in at least one of 17 delinquency items within the preceding year.

  2. Authors of the current study played a principal role in the design and collection of the data for each of the four data sources. With regard to the selection of these four specific data sources, they were included in the current study because they each contained the Grasmick et al. (1993) self-control scale. To our knowledge no other data sources outside of the two we utilize in the current study exist that include data on the self-control levels of police officers for each of the six dimensions included in the Grasmick et al. (1993) scale. Similarly, very few datasets on prisoners exist that include the Grasmick et al. (1993) scale other than the two data sources used in the current study (e.g., Mitchell & MacKenzie, 2006). Existing relationships among the authors of the current study facilitated the utilization of the two offender datasets and two police officer datasets.

  3. Following the IRB protocols of the original study, the name of the state is blinded.

  4. All memoranda were generated by the individual prisons, which in addition took on the responsibility for scheduling data collection within each prison (the principal researcher and assistants were present for all data collection). Questionnaires were self-administered in the visitation rooms of the two prison facilities.

  5. Low-to-moderate response rates are not uncommon in policing research, especially given the online methodology and the sensitive nature of some of the survey items (e.g., Bishopp & Boots, 2014; Gould, 2000).

  6. Both race and education were originally measured as categorical variables across each of the four datasets. Yet, the coding scheme differed between the datasets. Thus, in order to create uniform measures for race and education when combining the four datasets, the dichotomous measurement approach was employed.

  7. Prior to this, we examined whether mean differences in global self-control existed between (1) the two separate samples of police officers and (2) the two separate samples of offenders. A t-test for mean differences in global self-control between the two samples of police officers indicated the sample of police supervisors scored slightly lower (μ = 0.27) than the non-supervisory sample of officers (μ = 0.54) based on a t-value of −2.80 (p < .01). Likewise, a t-test for mean differences in global self-control between the two samples of offenders indicated the sample of offenders from Oklahoma scored lower in self-control (μ = −0.38) than the other sample of offenders (μ = 0.13) based on a t-value of −5.21 (p < .001). Given the exploratory nature of this study, we elected to pool together the two officer samples and the two offender samples for the analysis. Because both the officer and offenders are drawn from larger populations of each, we have little reason to believe that any one of the four samples included in our analyses represents an extreme outlier. The fact that the visual distribution of scores for global self-control (presented in the results section) provides little evidence of a bimodal distribution for both the officer and offender sample reinforces this belief.

  8. As a further consideration, it should be pointed out that the visual overlay of the histograms only represents the relative distribution of scores for the two samples (i.e., offenders and officers). It does not take into account the fact that the distribution of scores for the offenders is based on a larger sample size (N = 457) than that of the officers (N = 174). This should be kept in mind when considering what the distribution of scores would look like for the combined sample of offenders and officers that is examined in the subsequent multivariate regression models.

  9. Education appears to be mediating the effect, as when education is removed from the model, the standardized effect of being a police officer (β = 0.16) is statistically significant (p < .001).

  10. At the suggestion of an anonymous reviewer, we also examined interactive effects between race and status (Officer vs. Offender) for each of the seven models presented in Table 2. After applying a bonferroni correction for multiple testing (.05/7), only in the model for not preferring physical activities (i.e. preferring mental activities) did the interaction between race and status achieve statistical significance. Specifically, the interaction indicated that while police officers in general are more likely to prefer physical over mental activities than offenders, this association is particularly evident among non-white participants. We also examined potential interactive effects between education and status (Officer vs. Offender) for each of the models, finding no evidence of a moderating effect.

  11. We first estimated the model using OLS regression to obtain variance inflation factors (VIFs) and tolerance statistics for each of the predictors. There was no evidence of problematic multicollinearity among the predictors; all VIFs were below 2.0 (max VIF = 1.87) and all tolerance statistics were above 0.40 (min = 0.53).

  12. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this issue. The exploratory nature of our study, combined with the relatively small sample size, lead us to examine average differences between all offender types and all police officer types. However, as we comment, future research based on large random samples of offenders and officers could compare the self-control levels of different types of offenders to different types of officers.

  13. This possibility is perhaps supported by the observation that a handful of police officers in the sample scored below the offender mean on global self-control (see Fig. 1).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida International University, Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    Ryan C. Meldrum

  2. Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60660, USA

    Christopher M. Donner

  3. School of Criminal Justice, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK, 73034, USA

    Shawna Cleary

  4. Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

    Andy Hochstetler & Matt DeLisi

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Meldrum, R.C., Donner, C.M., Cleary, S. et al. Assessing Similarities and Differences in Self-Control between Police Officers and Offenders. Am J Crim Just 45, 167–189 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-019-09505-4

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