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The Influence of Violent Victimisation on Police Officers’ Organisational Commitment

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Abstract

Previous research found job stressors and social resources to be consistent predictors of organisational commitment across occupations. Surprisingly, to date, stressors that are rather specific to police officers’ jobs have rarely been explored in this context. The present study addresses this topic by investigating the influence of directly experienced civilian-related violence on organisational commitment in police staff. As social resources are considered to buffer the negative effects of job stressors on organisational commitment, such an effect was also expected regarding violent victimisation. Additionally, the study raised the question of whether the same influence factors of organisational commitment can be found for male and female police officers. Data were collected from 1,931 German patrol police officers. Results indicated a decrease of organisational commitment following experiences of violent victimisation during the last 12 months. In line with expectations social resources (group cohesiveness, immediate supervisor support) were shown to have a commitment-enhancing effect with group cohesiveness also buffering experiences of violent victimisation. Additionally, evidence yielded that social support from immediate supervisors mediates the relationship between organisational stressors and organisational commitment. In case of gender-specific influence factors no significant differences could be found.

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Notes

  1. F = 4.943, p < .05 (R2 see Table 3). The interactions of social cohesion and organisational stressors or social cohesion and social stressors were excluded for this test, because they were not significant.

  2. This can also be calculated using direct effects: Regression analysis revealed a significant correlation between organisational stressors and self-esteem with β = –.10 (p < .001) and a significant relationship between self-esteem and commitment with β = .26 (p < .001); the product of β = –.10 and β = .26 is β = –.03.

  3. Mplus does not show the significance levels of p < .001 regarding bias-corrected bootstrapping

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  1. Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, Lützerodestr. 9, 30161, Hannover, Germany

    Karoline Ellrich

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Ellrich, K. The Influence of Violent Victimisation on Police Officers’ Organisational Commitment. J Police Crim Psych 31, 96–107 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-015-9173-6

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