Street Cop Culture and the Aging Police Force

auteurs Antonio Vera
  Katharina Koelling
tijdschrift EJPS (ISSN: 2034-760X)
jaargang Volume 1
aflevering Issue 1
onderdeel Articles
publicatie datum 23 augustus 2013
taal English
pagina 64
keywords street cop culture, demographic change, health management, leadership, aging, Organizational culture
samenvatting

The purpose of the present study is to explore the relationship between aging, organizational culture, leadership and police officers’ performance, and in particular to examine the difficulties in handling age-related physical limitations in police forces. We investigate this topic empirically on the basis of quantitative and qualitative data using the example of a German police organization. Our results indicate that organizational culture plays a fundamental role in understanding the effects of an aging workforce. Police officers tend to suppress, ignore or deny their age-related physical deficits, which they perceive as incompatible with their cultural self-conception as police officers. Therefore, measures to cope with the challenges of demographic change cannot be successfully implemented in police organizations unless they explicitly take account of the organizational culture of the police.