UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIALIZATION PROCESS OF POLICE OFFICERS AND JOB SATISFACTION Polisin Sosyalleşme Süreci ve İş Memnuniyeti

Abstract

Understanding police socialization is significant not only for understanding the officers themselves but for understanding the transformation of police in his/her career. There are many studies regarding the socialization process of officers and its outcomes. However, these studies focus more on large, urban police departments and ignore the socialization process of officers in small police departments, and the influence of community policing philosophy and increasing diversity of police officers on the socialization and its outcomes. A small type police organization in the USA is analyzed in this study. Nine interviews were conducted with police officers in this inductive study. The results of this study show that the work environment (i.e., crime rates, crime diversity, neighborhood, and target population) and policing approaches such as community policing influence the socialization process of the police. In addition, police officers attach more importance to problem solving, partnership, and public relations in this new environment which, in turn, positively affect the job satisfaction of the police officers. These results are also meaningful for the Turkish National Police which has departments with different crime rates and size and is increasingly adapting community policing or similar policing approaches.