There are several different types of police officers, such as the new PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers) were introduced by English and Welsh Police Forces in 2002. PCSOs are civilians who are allowed to exercise limited police powers. Their introduction was quite controversial and met with opposition by the Police Federation, the organisation which represents police officers. As well as the more traditional Police roles. The policing of the United Kingdom is not the responsibility of a single national police force. In England and Wales, there are 43 police forces which undertake territorial policing on a geographical basis.
In Scotland there are eight regional police forces whilst in Northern Ireland there is a single force. In the U.S. most police departments use psychologists to administer pre-employment psychological screenings to candidates for recruitment in order to ensure that only the best psychologically fit candidates are selected. Use of the CPI (California Personality Inventory) revealed significant differences between successful and non successful applicants for police recruitment. Whilst the unsuccessful applicants were reasonably sound in terms of personal effectiveness there were significantly different on nine out of the nineteen CPI scales. These were: Police officers were more assertive (dominance)
Police officers had more potential for social mobility (capacity for status)
Police officers had more social poise (social presence) Police officers had a more pronounced sense of self worth (self acceptance) Police officers had a need for autonomous achievement (achievement via independence) Police officers had more functional intelligence (intellectual efficiency) Police officers had more psychological mindedness
Police officers had more masculinity (femininity)
Police officers possessed greater social acuity (empathy).
Putwain and Sammons (2008) report slightly different results for the testing of a sample of British police officers, but this should not be surprising since the research conducted by Gudjonsson and Adlam (1983) used the Eysenk personality questionnaire. They found that police scored higher on measures of extroversion but lower on measures of psychoticism, indicating that police tend to be outgoing and relatively lacking in coldness and aggressiveness. Further testing showed that officers tended to have lower scores on measures of empathy.
There is a conflict here with the American research, but this could possibly be explained by the fact that the American research was conducted on successful applicants for the police service. They had yet to serve as police officers. The British research involved experienced officers so the lower scores on empathy need not imply that the British police officers were unfeeling individuals, but possibly, that they have developed strategies for not becoming emotionally involved and in coping with the more unpleasant aspects of their work. It seems that there is strong evidence to link to the fact that most people that apply for the police force are born to join the police, having a very certain personality type, which suits them to police work.
However the counter argument is that does the police service mould its personnel to the ideal personality make up? Work by Austin et al (1987) which studied individuals who had left the police service showed that their personality traits remained relatively stable, supporting the nature or dispositional view. However, some characteristics such as cynicism increased with service, supporting the socialisation view and suggesting that some characteristics are learned. In conclusion, This appears to suggest that people with a certain personality profile are drawn to careers with a degree of similarity in structure, role, objectives, etc. whilst also pointing to the idea that the development of other characteristics may well be due to learning. So a person may be 'born' to be a police officer, However someone can also learn to adapt to be the perfect officer.
