Ingram, J. Terril, W. Paoline E. 2018. Police Culture and Officer Behavior.

POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICER BEHAVIOR:
APPLICATION OF A MULTILEVEL FRAMEWORK∗
JASON R. INGRAM,1 WILLIAM TERRILL,2

and EUGENE A. PAOLINE III3
1
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Sam Houston State
University
2
School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University
3
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central Florida
KEYWORDS: police culture, police use of force, police misconduct, occupational

attitudes, multilevel theory
Although recent advancements have been made in the understanding and studying of
police culture, several significant gaps remain, including deficiencies in theoretical de-
velopment and the lack of research on culture’s influence on police practice. In the cur-
rent study, we apply a multilevel theoretical framework to the examination of officers’
cultural attitudes and behavior to help bridge these gaps. In doing so, police culture
is treated as a collective feature of patrol groups as opposed to as an individual-level
attribute. Furthermore, we extend previous work by introducing the concept of culture
strength as a moderator of the culture–behavior relationship. After drawing on survey
and behavioral data from a national multimethod project, we then test this framework
with two empirical examples from each of the primary work environments (i.e., street
and organization) in which police culture originates and operates. The findings reveal
that workgroup culture is associated with officers’ behaviors, representing a collective
effect, and that the relationship between culture and behavior may not always be lin-
ear. The results provide support for incorporating a multilevel approach to the study
of police culture and officer behavior.
In an effort to address the vagueness associated with the term “police culture,” schol-
ars have recently worked toward modeling the precise mechanisms (i.e., environments,
prescriptions, and outcomes) that are part of the occupational culture of police (Paoline,
2003; Paoline and Terrill, 2014). Despite such advancements, work is still needed in the
theoretical development of the concept and, perhaps more importantly, in identifying
the extent to which culture relates to police behavior (Manning, 2005; Mastrofski, 2004;
∗ Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online
Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2018.56.issue-4/issuetoc.
This article is based on data from the Assessing Police Use of Force Policy and Outcomes Project,
supported by Grant No. 2005-IJ-CX-0055 by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice
Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The points of view expressed in this article are those of the
authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of
Justice.
Direct correspondence to Eugene Paoline, Department of Criminal Justice, University of Central
Florida, P.O. Box 161600, Orlando, FL 32816-1600 (e-mail: Eugene.Paoline@ucf.edu).

C 2018 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12192
CRIMINOLOGY Volume 56 Number 4 780–811 2018 780
POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICER BEHAVIOR 781
National Research Council, 2004; Waddington, 1999). Although the results of a few
studies (McCluskey, Terrill, and Paoline, 2005; Paoline and Terrill, 2005; Terrill, Paoline,
and Manning, 2003) have demonstrated an empirical link between cultural attitudes and
officer behaviors, two significant issues remain.
First, researchers have not yet fully accounted for the shared nature of culture (Paoline,
2003), which should influence the relationship between the substantive nature of culture
and behavior. Second, researchers have mainly portrayed police culture as an attribute
of individual officers instead of as a collective property. Culture is an emergent concept
derived from individuals interacting with one another, through a socialization process
(Van Maanen, 1974), and so measures should reflect the combined influence of all those
who shape culture (Kozlowski and Klein, 2000). Collectively, both of these issues have
limited the theoretical development, in general, as well as have limited the ability to assess
culture’s impact on behavior, in particular.
In addressing these issues, we draw on a multilevel theoretical framework that has re-
cently been adapted to the study of police culture from an attitudinal perspective (Ingram,
Paoline, and Terrill, 2013) and apply it to the study of officer behavior. Additionally, we
add to this framework by incorporating the concept of culture strength, defined as the
degree to which officers within groups share cultural views, to determine the extent to
which such cohesion might also relate to behavior. By using survey and behavioral data
from a national multimethod use-of-force project, we test this framework with illustra-
tive empirical examples that rest at the core for understanding the primary internal and
external work environments in which police culture operates.
POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICER BEHAVIOR

Research aimed at examining the influence of police culture on officer behavior has
generally fallen into one of two areas. The first area comprises officers grouped into
cultural types based on their adherence to a host of occupational attitudes that are
collectively referred to as the “traditional” view of police culture (Paoline and Terrill,
2014).1 The most prevalent attitudes include a suspiciousness or distrust of citizens
(Manning, 1977; Rubinstein, 1973; Skolnick, 1966; Westley, 1970), aggressive policing
tactics (Bittner, 1970; Brown, 1988; Van Maanen, 1974; Worden, 1995), negative views
of supervision (Reuss-Ianni, 1983; Van Maanen, 1974; Worden, 1995), selective enforce-
ment of the law (Brown, 1988), and prioritization of the law enforcement role over order
maintenance or service roles (Bittner, 1970; Manning, 1977). These views are transmitted
and shared among officers to cope with the common strains of their occupational (i.e.,
street-level interactions with citizens) and organizational (i.e., departmental interactions
with supervisors) work environments (Paoline, 2003). Terrill, Paoline, and Manning
(2003) found that officers who subscribed to more traditional views of culture were more
likely to use higher levels of force. Similarly, Paoline and Terrill (2005) reported that
1. These attitudes have been derived from early ethnographic studies of the police in which offi-
cers’ work environments were characterized as dangerous, authoritarian, uncertain, and ambiguous
(Bittner, 1970; Manning, 1977, Rubinstein, 1973; Skolnick, 1966; Van Maanen, 1974; Westley,
1970). For a more detailed description of the nature and content of the traditional view of police
culture, see Paoline (2003).
782 INGRAM, TERRILL, & PAOLINE
traditionally oriented officers were 2.5 times more likely to conduct searches during
traffic stops compared with their culturally divergent counterparts.
The second research area comprises examination of how individual cultural atti-
tudes are related to a variety of behaviors. The results of these studies have produced
mixed findings. For example, although some study findings have shown that officers’
views toward citizens were related to improper force (Worden, 1996) and traffic stops
(Worden, 1989), others have revealed null effects on severity of force (Terrill and
Mastrofski, 2002), improper force allegations (Terrill and Paoline, 2015), and engag-
ing in comforting behaviors (DeJong, 2004). In several studies aimed at examining
officers’ subscription to a narrow, crime-fighting role orientation, scholars have found
no significant effects on force, traffic stops, or improper search behaviors (Terrill and
Mastrofski, 2002; Worden, 1989, 1996) and weak effects on suspicion stops (Worden,
1989) but significant effects on the number of citizen complaints generated (Terrill and
Paoline, 2015). Similarly, officers’ attitudes toward selective enforcement of the law and
aggressive patrol have been found to be unrelated to stops (Worden, 1989) but somewhat
related to use of force (McCluskey, Terrill, and Paoline, 2005). Finally, although some
scholars have failed to find a link between officer attitudes toward community policing
and their search behavior (Gould and Mastrofski, 2004), others have found that officers
with more positive views toward community policing were significantly less likely to
make arrests (Mastrofski, Worden, and Snipes, 1995).
LIMITATIONS
Prior police culture research has had at least two key limitations. First, in such work,
scholars have not fully incorporated the extent to which officers share cultural attitudes
(Ingram, Paoline, and Terrill, 2013; Paoline, 2003; Paoline and Terrill, 2014), especially in
relation to behavior.2 This is important because culture’s influence on behavior may be
a function of not only the nature of officers’ attitudinal outlooks but also the extent to
which officers share outlooks. Hence, officers may be more forceful if they strongly share
a distrust of citizens but less forceful if they strongly share a positive outlook of citizens.
Citizen distrust, however, may not be predictive of officers’ force behavior when views
toward citizens are generally less agreed upon.
Second, researchers have failed to account for the collective effects that cultural atti-
tudes may exert on officer behaviors. Because culture is shared, it is by definition a collec-
tive concept derived from the common strains officers face in their work environments.
Culture is an emergent phenomenon that originates in officer attitudes, becomes shared,
and then manifests at a higher level (e.g., Kozlowski and Klein, 2000). As a result, cul-
ture cannot be fully understood from the perspective of any single person who belongs to
it (Hofstede, 1980; Trice and Beyer, 1993; Van Maanen and Barley, 1985), and cultural
2. The “sharedness” of culture has been part of a debate among police researchers. The traditional
view, as well as the recent portrayal of culture by the President’s Task Force on 21st Century
Policing (2015), assumes widespread collectiveness among police confronting similar occupational
strains (Crank, 1998). Empirical research findings, however, have demonstrated that cultural views
are fragmented among segments of officers via attitudinal styles (e.g., Brown, 1988; Cochran and
Bromley, 2003; Jermier et al., 1991; Paoline, 2004). Although both lines of research comprise con-
ceptually incorporating ideas regarding sharedness, neither has been aimed explicitly at measuring
how strongly officers share these views.
measures should reflect the “aggregate influence” of those who produce it (Kozlowski and
Klein, 2000: 15). In prior work, however, scholars have mainly treated cultural attitudes
as individual officer attributes, rather than as collective measures, which could account
for the mixed results reported in police attitude–behavior studies.
As emphasized by the President’s Task Force (2015), addressing these issues has
important practical implications for identifying appropriate mechanisms aimed at
reforming police culture. For example, if the relationship between aggressive patrol
tactics and use of force exists at the officer level (e.g., McCluskey, Terrill, and Paoline,
2005), the implication would be to focus on identifying relevant officer characteristics,
such as work styles (Brown, 1988) or years of experience (Paoline, Myers, and Worden,
2000), and developing appropriate interventions. If, however, the relationship is a
collective one, then the implication would be to identify and address the features of
officers’ broader work environments that give rise to this shared cultural prescription.
For example, because sergeants interpret and communicate department initiatives to
multiple subordinate officers (Skogan, 2008), it may be necessary to examine and address
the role of sergeants in shaping their officers’ collective views toward aggressive patrol
tactics. The first step, we believe, is to begin disentangling aggregate, cultural influences
from individual, attitudinal influences on officer behaviors by incorporating the broader
context of policing that shapes culture and constrains officer behaviors.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Researchers have long noted that organizational entities serve as important structural
boundaries that shape and constrain both officer behavior and police culture. For in-
stance, the department is often viewed as the central organizing entity (Slovak, 1986;
Wilson, 1968). In his classic study, Wilson (1968) found that departmental styles were
based on policies directed at the police role and emphasized by the chief (see also Slovak,
1986). Discretionary driving-under-the-influence (DUI) enforcement practices have also
been found to vary by department size and complexity (Mastrofski, Ritti, and Hoffmaster,
1987). In addition, departmental contexts shape the ways officers might cope with their
environments, serving as an important source of cultural variation (Paoline, 2003).
Other scholars have emphasized the precinct as an important behavioral and cultural
context because it represents a distinct command structure embedded within depart-
ments. In drawing on Klinger’s (1997) theoretical perspective, Hassell (2006) argued that
precinct environments shape officer attitudes, which in turn translates into behavioral dif-
ferences across these locales. Furthermore, Reuss-Ianni (1983) noted the role of precincts
in structuring social relations and the occupational culture. In addition, important tempo-
ral variations pattern police work. Within precincts, officers are assigned to shifts that also
serve as cultural referents (Crank, 1998). Rubinstein (1973) found that varying shifts had
different work obligations and types of citizenry with whom officers interacted. Officer
experiences and attitudes have also been found to vary depending on the time of day that
they work (Haarr, 2001; Jermier and Berkes, 1979; Paoline, 2001), as well as depending
on their work schedules (Rubinstein, 1973).
In integrating the formal organization into police culture research, Ingram, Paoline,
and Terrill (2013) offered a framework that identified patrol workgroups, defined as
patrol officers assigned to the same squad or work schedule, on the same shift, in the
same precinct, as viable culture environments. They proposed that workgroups represent
immediate and proximal contexts of officers’ work environments that capture both
organizational and temporal variations important to patrol structure. Officers working in
the same group are exposed to similar environmental characteristics, are interdependent
on each other, and interact with each other on a regular basis, resulting in shared cultural
prescriptions. The results of the empirical tests revealed that officers within the same
workgroup shared cultural prescriptions and that most cultural attitudes varied across
workgroups even after controlling for higher organizational levels (shifts, precincts,
and departments) and officer demographics. Ingram, Paoline, and Terrill established
the construct validity needed to treat cultural prescriptions as shared unit constructs that
could be aggregated to the workgroup level. Hence, culture could be represented as a
collective property where officer attitudes determined the substantive nature of group
culture, but group culture could not solely be derived from any single officer.
Even though Ingram, Paoline, and Terrill (2013) found empirical support overall for
culture as a valid, shared property at the workgroup level, the results also indicated that
cultural attitudes were more strongly shared in some workgroups as opposed to others.3
Therefore, the degree to which officers in groups share cultural attitudes varies, and ac-
counting for this could provide additional insight into the culture–behavior relationship.
Measuring such sharedness can be incorporated with the concept of culture strength,
which is an important concept in organizational culture and climate research (Schneider,
Salvaggio, and Subirats, 2002). It is often defined as the level of dissensus among group
members regarding the content of culture (Trice and Beyer, 1993). Because sharedness
is an important definitional component of culture, culture strength is theoretically
meaningful and serves to complement the substantive values of group members.
CURRENT STUDY
A logical extension of the multilevel framework is to examine the relationship between
collective cultural measures and officer behaviors. Because officers in the same group ex-
perience similar environmental uncertainties, they depend on each other to invoke the
coping mechanisms (cultural prescriptions) needed to navigate these issues. These shared
prescriptions serve as guides for establishing expected behaviors within the group. Be-
cause workgroup environments vary, officers’ beliefs regarding the importance of specific
cultural prescriptions will also vary, leading to different behavioral expectations across
groups. We propose that workgroup culture will have a collective effect on behavior,
even after controlling for the respective officer level attitude, reflecting a contextual effect
(Bliese and Jex, 2002; Enders and Tofighi, 2007; Hoffman and Gavin, 1998; Raudenbush
and Bryk, 2002). We also propose that group culture strength will moderate the relation-
ship between culture and behavior. Here, we expect culture to be related to behavior
in groups that strongly share cultural prescriptions but have weak-to-little association to
behavior in groups where more cultural heterogeneity exists.
3. Differences in how strongly officers within groups share prescriptions exist for several reasons,
such as differential interaction patterns (Haarr, 1997), adherence to personal work styles as a re-
sult of the autonomy inherent in police work (Brown, 1988; Worden, 1996), varying exposure to
leadership practices (Wilson, 1968), or turnover. Any of these issues can affect the degree to which
culture is shared or even changes within a specific group of officers over time; however, it does not
mean that culture is completely nonexistent at this level.
To test this framework, we draw on two illustrative empirical examples central to un-
derstanding the strains that exist within the internal and external arenas of the occupation,
and at the core of the police culture literature. First, we focus on the dynamics of the orga-
nizational environment to determine the extent that workgroup cultural perceptions and
culture strength are associated with complaints of misconduct against officers. Second, we
turn to the features of the occupational environment to assess the extent to which work-
group culture and culture strength are associated with officers’ use-of-force behavior.
DATA AND METHOD

We rely on data drawn from the Assessing Police Use of Force Policy and Outcomes
project, a large-scale multiagency study (i.e., Albuquerque, New Mexico; Colorado
Springs, Colorado; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Knoxville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon)4
designed to look at a host of use-of-force issues (i.e., causes and consequences) over a
2-year period. The agencies were selected based on their type of use-of-force policy and
had similar city and organizational characteristics (see table S.1 in the online supporting
information for further details5 ). After securing agreements with police administrators,
the researchers conducted multiple site visits at each agency procuring use-of-force
and complaint data, as well as surveying and interviewing personnel about policies and
procedures.6
OFFICER SURVEY
Officers’ cultural attitudes were measured from a survey of patrol officers administered
at each site by trained project staff who attended multiple roll-call sessions. Fort Wayne
was the one exception as the site did not use a roll-call system; here, the survey was
administered during annual in-service training sessions. The 116-item survey comprised
questions asking officers about their perceptions of use-of-force policy, cultural attitudes,
work environment, and background characteristics. The plan was to survey the entire
population of patrol officers. Of the 1,460 patrol officers eligible to be surveyed across
the five departments, 1,053 officers were physically present at roll calls (or trainings).
The 407 patrol officers on rosters but absent from roll calls were not available because of
illness, vacation, training, court, or leave. For officers present during the administration
times, almost all participated. Of the 1,053 officers in attendance, 1,022 took the survey,
for a response rate of 97 percent, representing 70 percent of all patrol officers. For a
4. Three additional departments participated in the project but are excluded here. The structures
of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and Columbus, Ohio, differed substantially from the
others. Columbus assigned officers to specific zones in addition to shifts and precincts, whereas re-
districting occurred in Charlotte during the study period. Given the present inquiry, it is important
that the organization of officers be comparable across sites. St. Petersburg, Florida, did not allow
officer occupational attitude measures to be included in the survey.
5. Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online
Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/crim.2018.56.issue-4/issuetoc.
6. The study period for each site was as follows: Fort Wayne (December 18, 2004–December 17,
2006), Colorado Springs (2006–2007 calendar years), Knoxville (June 1, 2005–May 31, 2007),
Portland (November 5, 2005–November 4, 2007), and Albuquerque (April 13, 2006–April 12,
2008). Please see Terrill, Paoline, and Ingram (2012) for a complete project description.
breakdown of these survey administration results by department, see table S.2 in the
online supporting information.
Additional analyses were conducted to ensure representativeness within departments
by comparing the characteristics of surveyed and nonsurveyed patrol officers using avail-
able agency demographic information (i.e., race, gender, age, and years of service). The
only significant finding was in Albuquerque; slightly fewer women officers were surveyed
than expected (χ 2 = 4.66, df = 1, p < .05). No other significant differences were found
between surveyed and nonsurveyed officers for any site. Collectively, the high percentage
of officers surveyed, high response rates, and the presence of only one demographic dif-
ference between surveyed and nonsurveyed officers indicates that the officers surveyed
were representative of the patrol population for each department. The survey data were
then merged with official data collected over the 2-year study period for the current in-
quiry. For more detail on the overall research project, the survey administration process,
and qualitative descriptions of the internal environments, please see Terrill, Paoline, and
Ingram (2012).
CULTURAL MEASURES
We draw on three cultural attitudes (i.e., top management, aggressive patrol, and citi-
zen distrust) from the patrol officer survey with each item using a four-point Likert scale
(“agree strongly” to “disagree strongly”).7 These questions have been used readily in
prior research (Ingram, Paoline, and Terrill, 2013; McCluskey, Terrill, and Paoline, 2005;
Paoline, 2001, 2004). Views toward top management are derived from three survey items:
1) When an officer gets written up for minor rule violations, he or she will be treated fairly
by top management; 2) when an officer does a particularly good job, top management will
publicly recognize his or her performance; and 3) when an officer contributes to a team
effort rather than looks good individually, top management will recognize it. Items were
coded with higher values indicating more negative attitudes toward top management and
had valid and reliable psychometric properties (Eigenvalue = 2.09; factor loadings > .81;
α = .78). An attitudinal index was created from the three items and represents officer
perceptions of top management.
For views toward aggressive patrol, the following survey statement was used: “A good
patrol officer is one who patrols aggressively by stopping cars, checking out people, run-
ning license checks, and so forth.” The item was coded so higher values indicated stronger
agreement with this statement and represents aggressive patrol. Citizen distrust was con-
structed using the following attitudinal items with higher values reflecting greater distrust:
1) police officers have reason to be distrustful of most citizens, and 2) police officers have
reason to be suspicious of most citizens (Eigenvalue = 1.68; factor loadings > .92; α =
.81). An attitudinal index was created using the two items representing individual officer
perceptions of citizen distrust.
7. We caution the reader regarding our presentation of “cultural measures.” That is, we are not con-
ducting a comprehensive examination of all of the attitudes that comprise police culture, just as
we are not analyzing all of the theoretically relevant behaviors associated with culture. Rather, we
aim to examine workgroup influences with illustrative, but foundational, dimensions of police cul-
ture. Given the nature of our examination, we are going beyond simply scratching the surface of
extending police culture inquiries. At the same time, we fully acknowledge that there is certainly
more that could be added, in terms of measures and analyses, to what we present here.
Construct validity for aggregating the attitudinal measures to the workgroup level was
established by examining both the amount of between-group variation and within-group
agreement (Bliese, 2000). To assess between-group variation, random-effect analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA) models were conducted, controlling for the demographic com-
position of workgroups (sex, race, education, and years of experience). Officers’ views
toward top management (variance component = .63, standard error [SE] = .16, p < .001)
and aggressive patrol (variance component = .23, SE = .10, p < .05) significantly varied
across workgroups. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values indicated that 14
and 7 percent of the variances in these two attitudinal measures, respectively, can be ex-
plained by workgroup membership after controlling for group demographic composition.
Both ICC values fall within the expected range reported in prior attitudinal research in
organizational sciences (Bliese, 2000). Hence, the results provide support for significant
differences in these two cultural attitudes across workgroups that cannot be solely at-
tributed to compositional differences in officers’ demographic characteristics. The results
did not find citizen distrust to vary significantly across workgroups after controlling for
the demographic composition of workgroups (variance component = .06, SE = .05, p >
.05. ICC = .03).
Within-group agreement was assessed using average deviation (ADM ) indices (Burke
and Dunlap, 2002; Burke, Finkelstein, and Dusig, 1999).8 This analytic method is used
to determine how strongly officers in the same workgroup share cultural attitudes by
measuring the extent to which officers provide similar ratings for an attitudinal item.
The distribution of ADM values across the sample of workgroups is examined and
compared with the accepted threshold for establishing sufficient agreement (ADM < .67
for four-point Likert items), as well as for reporting the percentage of workgroups in the
sample that falls below this threshold (Burke and Dunlap, 2002). For all three cultural
measures (top management ADMj = .55, aggressive patrol ADM = .48, and citizen dis-
trust ADMj = .56), the calculated ADM values indicated that officers within workgroups
were approximately a half a unit apart on the Likert scale, which was well below the
threshold of .67 needed to establish sufficient levels of agreement. Furthermore, the
majority of workgroups had calculated ADM values below this accepted threshold for
top management (77.5 percent), aggressive patrol (77.0 percent), and citizen distrust
(64.7 percent). In essence, agreement levels were strong enough to conclude that officers
within groups shared these cultural attitudes.
Collectively, the between-group variation and within-group agreement results for both
the top management and aggressive patrol measures provide support for aggregation to
the workgroup-level using their group means, thereby representing collective properties.
These group means reflect the workgroup cultural measures of punitive management
culture and aggressive patrol culture, respectively. The descriptive statistics reported in
table 1 show that workgroup environments had negative collective perceptions toward
top management (M = 8.65, standard deviation [SD] = 1.27) and supportive perceptions
8. Several different within-group agreement indices have been developed to assess agreement; nev-
ertheless, they are all derived similarly (see Lebreton and Senter, 2008). The choice for using the
average deviation index in the current inquiry was a result of its more straightforward interpreta-
tion, the presence of an empirical threshold for determining acceptable levels of agreement, and
because simulations have demonstrated that this method performs similarly to the other agreement
indices (Roberson, Sturman, and Simons, 2007).
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Key Variables for Complaint and Force

Analyses
Variables N Mean SD Minimum Maximum
Dependent Variables
Total # complaint allegations 1,017 1.57 2.56 0 28
# of high-force incidents 1,014 1.88 3.70 0 40
Workgroup Level
Punitive management culture 186 8.65 1.27 4.50 11.75
Culture strength (punitive management) 186 1.91 .76 0 4.56
Aggressive patrol culture 187 3.09 .41 1.75 4
Culture strength (aggressive patrol) 187 .60 .45 0 3.14
Culture of citizen distrust 187 4.90 .76 3.00 7.33
Culture strength (citizen distrust) 187 2.55 1.89 0 12.57
# of violent crimes per 50 officers 187 568.07 242.35 248.00 1,270.08
Proportion of aggressive resistance incidents 187 .36 .22 0 1
Officer Level
Top management 994 8.58 2.12 3 12
Aggressive patrol 1,011 3.10 .75 1 4
Citizen distrust 1,003 4.95 1.53 2 8
Male 1,013 .89 .31 0 1
White 1,014 .79 .41 0 1
Bachelor degree or higher 1,000 .45 .50 0 1
Experience 1,013 7.79 6.43 .17 34.58
CSPD officer 1,017 .18 .39 0 1
PPB officer 1,017 .23 .42 0 1
APD officer 1,017 .30 .46 0 1
FWPD officer 1,017 .18 .38 0 1
KPD officer 1,017 .12 .32 0 1
ABBREVIATIONS: APD = Albuquerque Police Department, CSPD = Colorado Springs Police Department,
FWPD = Fort Wayne Police Department, KPD = Knoxville Police Department, PPB = Portland Police Bureau,
SD = standard deviation.
of aggressive patrol tactics (M = 3.09, SD = .41). The correlation between the two
organizational environment constructs is in the expected direction (r = –.27, p < .001),
as workgroups that perceived management to be punitive are significantly less likely to
support aggressive patrol tactics.
Even though there was mixed support for establishing the citizen distrust measure as
a workgroup construct, there are two justifiable reasons to include it in subsequent anal-
yses. First, the within-group agreement results were strong enough to conclude that offi-
cers within groups shared views toward citizens. Second, interaction effects with culture
strength are of interest in addition to the direct effects of the workgroup level measure.
Therefore, the workgroup mean was used to represent the aggregate measure of a cul-
ture of citizen distrust. The descriptive statistics (table 1) illustrate that workgroup envi-
ronments were not overly distrustful or suspicious of citizens (M = 4.90, SD = .76). A
correlation between the two occupational cultural measures (distrust and aggressiveness)
was, however, in the expected direction (r = .21, p < .01), indicating workgroups that
collectively supported aggressive tactics were also more suspicious of citizens.
With respect to culture strength, researchers have demonstrated that when a dis-
persion construct is believed to be a part of an interaction effect, then the standard
deviation, adjusted for differences in group sizes, is the most appropriate measure
(Biemann and Kearney, 2010; Roberson, Sturman, and Simmons, 2007). Thus, culture
strength was measured using Cureton’s (1968) unbiased estimates of the within-group
standard deviations for each of the top management, aggressive patrol, and citizen
distrust measures. These three variables reflect the amount of collective dissent present
within each workgroup regarding officers’ views with higher values equaling more
dissensus.
CONTROL VARIABLES
In addition to the cultural measures, several officer variables were included as level 1
controls. Most officer-level research on police behavior has been focused on demograph-
ics as correlates. As such, we control for officer sex (male = 1), race (White = 1), edu-
cation level (bachelor’s degree or higher = 1), and years of experience. In addition, five
dummy variables representing the officers’ department were also included as controls,
with Portland serving as the reference category, as this was the largest department and
contributed the most workgroups to the sample. Department measures were included at
level 1 to control simultaneously for both the within-group and between-group attitudinal
effects on behaviors (Enders and Tofighi, 2007).
Finally, the results of prior research have revealed that the distribution of com-
plaints and force varies across districts (i.e., officers’ organizational assignments)
and are associated with levels of crime (Hickman and Piquero, 2009; Klinger et al.,
2016; Terrill and Reisig, 2003). To control for this, we obtained the number of part I
violent index crimes for each department during the study period. The lowest orga-
nizational unit where this measure would be comparable across sites, however, was
at the precinct level. Thus, we created a violent crime rate based on precinct values,
# of violent crimes per 50 officers, and included it at the workgroup level as a control
in the final models. Descriptive statistics for all control variables can be found in
table 1.
PATROL OFFICER WORKGROUPS

Officers were coded into their respective workgroups using departmental master ros-
ters. Workgroups were defined as officers assigned to the same squad or work schedule,
on the same shift, in the same precinct. In Albuquerque, Fort Wayne, and Knoxville,
officers were assigned to squads (or teams) on each shift in each precinct, and each squad
or team reflects a distinct workgroup. In Portland and Colorado Springs, officers’ work
assignments were staggered based on their days on duty. For these two departments,
workgroups consisted of officers who worked the same days on duty. Regardless of
whether officers were grouped by squads/teams or days on duty, they worked under the
same supervisors, on the same shift, in the same precinct. As a result, group operational-
ization was consistent across study departments (irrespective of the term used), and we
use the term workgroup to represent all of these collectives. Approximately three to four
workgroups were assigned to each shift within each precinct across the five departments.
In all, there were 187 total workgroups within 67 shifts and 20 precincts across the five
departments (see table S.1 for breakdowns by department).
When examining potential group-level effects on officer behavior, three additional
aspects were considered: group size, group response rates, and assignment longevity.
For group size, the median number of officers within workgroups was seven (Mean =
7.56, SD = 2.00, Min. = 3.00, Max. = 15.00) with the majority of groups (62 percent)
having between six and ten officers, which is a range comparable to the recommended
number of officers per first line supervisor span of control (Walker, 2007: 12).9 For group
response rates, 73 percent of officers were surveyed within each workgroup on average
and at least half of the officers were surveyed in more than 89 percent of workgroups.
Although response rates were consistently high across the majority of the sample, 20
workgroups (11 percent) had fewer than half of the officers surveyed ranging from 29
to 44 percent. We consider the implications of this later in the discussion section.
Finally, assignment longevity may have an influence on workgroup culture and culture
strength. In each of the five departments, patrol assignments were based on an annual bid-
ding system with allotted openings and seniority serving as primary determinants. Thus,
with the exception of transfers, retirements, or terminations, officers held their current as-
signments for at least 9 to 11 months at the time the surveys were administered. We were
able to assess assignment longevity further in two study departments. In Albuquerque
and Knoxville (N = 62 workgroups), officers held the same patrol squad assignment an
average of 18 months (the workgroup mean) at the time of the survey, with the majority
of officers (73 percent in Albuquerque and 65 percent in Knoxville) reporting working in
the same squad for more than 1 year.
Correlations were conducted to examine the relationship between workgroup longevity
and culture for these two departments. Workgroup longevity was significantly correlated
with two of the three cultural measures used in the current inquiry. Groups with greater
assignment longevity were less aggressive (r = –.43, p < .01) and less distrustful of citi-
zens (r = –.25, p < .05). Additionally, groups with less variability in assignment longevity
more strongly shared views regarding the importance of aggressive patrol tactics (r = .24,
p < .05). Although these results only represent one third of the study workgroups and
are descriptive in nature, they do provide some insight into the longevity of workgroups
and suggest that duration is associated with the nature of culture and partially related to
culture strength. Unfortunately, we were unable systematically to capture the longevity
of workgroups across the other departments, and so this insight should be interpreted
conservatively.
ANALYTIC STRATEGY
We employ a two-step modeling procedure recently recommended for multilevel
frameworks that test for group-level effects using shared unit measures (Cole et al.,
2011). We provide an overview of this strategy here and then apply it to the two
foundational examples regarding culture in the following sections. First, a series of four
nested models is conducted for each cultural measure. The first model includes only the
workgroup culture and culture strength measures to investigate their direct effects on
behavior. The second adds an interaction term to determine whether culture strength
moderates the effect of culture on behavior. The last two models test whether the
9. An additional concern could be the average cluster size of 5.5 patrol officers based on group size
and response rates. Here we emphasize that prior research findings have emphasized patrol work-
groups to be both a theoretically and empirically salient cultural referent (Crank, 1998; Ingram,
Paoline, and Terrill, 2013). Furthermore, the size of workgroups in this study is comparable with
federal sentencing research focused on normative influences and sentencing departures (Ulmer
and Johnson, 2017). Finally, simulation research findings reveal that group-level results are mainly
unaffected by group size, especially when the number of groups exceeds 100 (Maas and Hox, 2005;
Nesterkin and Ganster, 2015).
relationships are curvilinear, as group culture effects on behavior may be amplified in

groups that strongly share cultural attitudes, reflecting a nonlinear relationship. Addi-
tionally, the workgroup culture and strength measures are statistically interdependent,
which may lead to erroneous conclusions regarding both direct and interaction effects if
the possibility of curvilinear relationships are not investigated (Cole at al., 2011). As such,
the third model includes workgroup culture and strength as well as their corresponding
squared terms. Finally, model four constitutes a full polynomial model.10
For this first step, a series of two-level, negative binomial regression models are used
because the outcomes of interest used are counts of infrequently occurring events and
overdispersed (see Huang and Cornell, 2012; Long, 1997).11 The models represent a form
of hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs) and are conducted using Mplus soft-
ware with the log link function and robust standard error estimates. All models control for
officer demographics, department, and officer attitudinal measures, and they include the
negative binomial error term at level 1. Because the four models are nested, model com-
parison tests are conducted using Satorra and Bentler’s (2010) difference testing method
to determine which model is most supported. For each cultural measure, this same mod-
eling procedure is used to determine the exact nature of the relationship between that
specific cultural component and behavior.
The second step of the modeling procedure involves using the results of the model
comparison tests to build a series of final models. These final, two-level models include
all of the relevant workgroup cultural measures as well as other level 1 and 2 controls.
Additionally, we also account for the fact that workgroups are nested within two higher
formal organizational levels: shifts and precincts. Here, we use modeling procedures that
adjust the standard errors of parameter estimates for any nonindependence of the data as
a result of the nesting of level 2 units (workgroups) within these higher levels (Muthén and
Muthén, 2017).12 The results for all analyses that follow are based off final sample sizes
using list-wise deletion for missing data (see table 1 for valid N’s for each study variable).
POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICERS’ ORGANIZATIONAL

ENVIRONMENTS
In the first analysis, we examine police culture and behavior within officers’ formal
organizational environment, which emphasizes the often punitive and unpredictable
nature of administrative oversight that characterizes police agencies (Paoline, 2003).
To test this premise, we examine officers’ views toward top management and their
orientations toward aggressive patrol tactics in relation to the number of complaints
received. Officers working in groups that share punitive perceptions of top management,
in terms of scrutiny and negative recognition, should generate fewer complaints. Such
10. To address multicollinearity concerns, the culture and culture strength measures were mean cen-
tered and then used to create the interaction and higher order terms.
11. Initial models were also conducted with Poisson and zero-inflated Poisson regression and com-
pared with the negative binomial models. Assessments of model fit provided the most support for
the use of negative binomial models.
12. Separate models were conducted for shifts and precincts because the previously reviewed re-
search results have demonstrated both of these levels as important influences on both attitudes and
behaviors.
orientations would serve to reinforce a lay-low, cover-your-ass (CYA) approach as

officers would be discouraged from acting in ways that would bring unwanted attention
to themselves (Paoline, 2003). To date, only a single study has empirically been aimed
at examining this relationship at the officer level (Terrill and Paoline, 2015). Here, we
extend this research by determining whether a punitive management culture and culture
strength at the collective workgroup level are associated with complaints.
Similarly, a consistent finding in the complaint literature is that proactive officers re-
ceive more complaints (Brandl, Stroshine, and Frank, 2001; Lersch and Mieczkowski,
1996; Terrill and McCluskey, 2002). Officers working in groups who share similar views
supporting aggressive patrol tactics, such as proactively stopping people, should generate
more complaints. Conversely, officers who believe that their organizational environment
embodies the unpredictable nature of administrative oversight (e.g., Paoline, 2003) are
less likely to subscribe to this cultural prescription and, in turn, would be less likely to re-
ceive complaints. Here, we examine this possibility by determining whether an aggressive
patrol culture and culture strength at the workgroup level are associated with complaints.
COMPLAINT DATA AND DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Two years of complaint data were collected from each department (for further details,
please see Terrill, Paoline, and Ingram (2012). We examine all complaints (both external
and internal) initiated during the study period and investigated by the study site. In the
current inquiry, complaints refer to each separate, investigated allegation of misconduct
that resulted from either departmental policy violations, performance issues, or improper
behaviors. The primary dependent variable of interest is the number of complaint allega-
tions that each officer received during the 2-year study period (N = 1,602). Approximately
50 percent (517 of 1,022) of surveyed officers received at least one investigated complaint
(M = 1.57, SD = 2.56).
An unconditional multilevel model for count data was conducted to determine whether
the number of complaints varied across workgroups. The results showed significant vari-
ation between workgroups (variance component = .21, SE = .07, p < .01). Furthermore,
an ICC for generalized linear mixed-effects models (ICCGLMM ) was calculated using the
methods proposed by Nakagawa, Johnson, and Schielzeth (2017)13 and was found to
be .10. This indicates that approximately 10 percent of the variation in the number of
complaints officers received can be attributed to their workgroup membership, which is a
sizeable amount given that findings from prior multivariate research on complaints have
explained between 12 and 16 percent of the total variance in complaint outcomes (Brandl,
Stroshine, and Frank, 2001; Hickman and Piquero, 2009). Collectively, the statistically
significant variance component and the nonzero ICCGLMM value provide empirical
support that complaint counts are clustered across workgroups, making it appropriate to
investigate workgroup cultural effects on complaints using multilevel methods.
13. This was calculated using equation 3.10 (Nakagawa, Johnson, and Schielzeth, 2017: 3): ICCNB−ln =
σα2
σα2 +ln(1+ λ1 + θ1 )
, where σα2 = the estimated between level variance, λ= the average number of events
per cluster, and θ = the estimated dispersion parameter.
Table 2. Model Comparisons for Workgroup Culture and Culture

Strength Effects on Total Number of Complaint Allegations
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Punitive Management Resultsa b SE b SE b SE b SE

Main Effects
Punitive management culture –.10+ .06 –.09 .07 –.10+ .06 –.10 .07
Culture strength –.02 .09 –.01 .09 –.05 .09 –.05 .08
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) –1,572.63 1.04 — — — — — —
Curvilinear Effects
Punitive management culture squared — — — — –.01 .02 –.01 .02
Culture strength squared — — — — .11 .08 .10 .08
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) — — — — –1,571.38 .96 — —
Interaction Effects
Punitive management culture × culture strength — — .07 .06 — — .05 .06
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) — — –1,572.04 1.02 — — –1,571.10 .95
Number of Model Parameters 14 15 16 17
Aggressive Patrol Resultsb b SE b SE b SE b SE

Main Effects
Culture of aggressive patrol .07∗∗ .02 .04∗ .02 .07+ .04 .09+ .05
Culture strength .14 .10 .15+ .08 .18 .14 .20 .14
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) – 1,601.98 .86 — — — — — —
Curvilinear Effects
Culture of aggressive patrol squared — — — — .02 .21 .29 .23
Culture strength squared — — — — –.06 .10 – .01 .10
Interaction Effects
Culture of aggressive patrol × culture strength — — .52∗∗∗ .01 — — .77+ .42
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) — — – 1,601.24 .78 — — –1,600.23 .89
NOTES: Unstandardized regression coefficients and standard errors presented. All models included level 1
control variables.
ABBREVIATION: SE = standard error.
a N = 185 workgroups.
b N = 187 workgroups.
+ p < .10; ∗ p < .05; ∗ p < .01; ∗∗∗ p < .001.
COMPLAINT RESULTS
Table 2 presents the results for the first step in the modeling procedure. For parsimony,
only the workgroup-level effects are reported. The results of the comparison tests showed
the most support for model 1, the direct effect models, for both the punitive management
and aggressive patrol cultural measures. For punitive management culture, the results did
not indicate the presence of an interaction effect (model 2), curvilinear effects (model
3), or polynomial effects (model 4). There was a significant interaction effect between
aggressive patrol culture and culture strength (model 2), and the model comparison test
provided support for this model over model 1 (χ 2 difftest = 4.84, p < .05). During visual
inspection of an interaction plot and results from simple slope tests, however, there was
not strong evidence to support that culture strength moderated the relationship between
aggressive patrol culture and the number of complaint allegations. Based on the results
from these initial models, we only included the direct measures of punitive management
culture and aggressive patrol culture as well as their associated culture strength measures
in the next step of the modeling procedure.
Table 3 presents the results for the final models. Model 1 in table 3 lists the baseline
results without taking into consideration the potential clustering effects of workgroups
within higher organizational levels. The findings at the workgroup level revealed that
subscription to a punitive management culture was associated with fewer complaint alle-
gations (b = –.13, SE = .05, p < .05). Specifically, a one-unit increase in officers’ collective
beliefs that top management was punitive decreased complaint allegation rates by a factor
of .88. The degree to which officers’ shared this cultural outlook, however, had no effect
on complaints. Additionally, subscription to an aggressive patrol culture was associated
with higher complaint counts (b = .26, SE = .13, p < .05). Here, a one-unit increase in of-
ficers’ collective support for aggressive patrol tactics increased complaint allegation rates
by a factor of 1.30. The associated culture strength result indicated that greater dissensus
regarding the importance of aggressive patrol was marginally associated with complaints
(b = .21, SE = .12, p < .10).
Models 2 and 3 in table 3 accounted for any nonindependence resulting from the clus-
tering of workgroups within shifts and precincts, respectively. The workgroup-level cul-
tural effects remained very similar, with two exceptions in model 3. When accounting for
the clustering of workgroups within precincts, aggressive patrol culture was marginally
significant (b = .26, SE = .15, p < .10), whereas the associated strength measure was sta-
tistically significant (b = .21, SE = .10, p < .05). Despite these two minor differences, the
patterning of results across all three models in table 4 was consistent, providing support
for the stability of the workgroup effects.
Another interesting finding emerged when looking at the effect of the workgroup cul-
tural measures in relation to their officer-level counterparts. Because the level 1 attitudes
were grand mean centered in the models, and the level 2 attitudes were measured using
group means, the coefficients for the officer and workgroup measures represent partial
regression slopes that delineate attitudinal effects on complaints at one level, while con-
trolling for their effects at the other level (Enders and Tofighi, 2007: 131). Once the level 1
attitudinal effects were partialed out, significant between-group effects were still present.
These results provide empirical support for aggregate effects on officer behavior as both
the workgroup-level punitive management and aggressive patrol cultural measures ex-
plained significant differences in complaints over and above the officer attitudinal mea-
sures. In essence, the collective culture of the group accounted for variation in officer
misconduct independent of respective individual officer attitudes.14
Although the results as a whole demonstrate that workgroup cultural measures were
significantly associated with complaints, the results should be tempered in relation to the
other model variables. Recall that the between-group variation in complaints was ap-
proximately 10 percent. Collectively, the cultural measures were calculated to account
14. Additional analyses were conducted using sustained dispositions from internal complaints as the
outcome to compare the robustness of cultural effects (see the online supporting information).
The same modeling procedures were employed, but we also controlled for the number of internal
complaint allegations received at level 1. The results also provided the most support for the direct
effects models (see table S.3). The final model results (see table S.4) indicated that collective sup-
port for aggressive tactics decreased sustained complaint rates and that the relationship between
punitive management culture and sustained dispositions was not statistically significant.
Table 3. Final Multilevel Models for Culture and Culture Strength on Total Number of Complaint
Allegations
Model Model 2 Model 3
Baseline Clustering by Shift Clustering by Precinct
Variable b SE b SE b SE Exp(b)
Workgroup Level
Intercept .76∗ .35 .76∗ .34 .76+ .41 —
Culture Measures
Punitive management culture –.13∗ .05 –.13∗∗ .04 –.13∗∗ .04 .88
Culture strength (punitive management) –.04 .09 –.04 .08 –.04 .09 .96
Aggressive patrol culture .26∗ .13 .26∗ .13 .26+ .15 1.30
Culture strength (aggressive patrol) .21+ .12 .21+ .11 .21∗ .10 1.23
Controls
# of violent crimes per 50 officers .00 .01 .00 .01 .00 .01 1.00
Officer Level
Top management .11∗∗∗ .03 .11∗∗∗ .03 .11∗∗∗ .03 1.12
Aggressive patrol .15∗ .07 .15+ .09 .15 .10 1.16
Male –.01 .16 –.01 .18 –.01 .19 .99
White –.16 .14 –.16 .13 –.16 .13 .85
Bachelor degree or higher .12 .10 .12 .11 .12 .14 1.13
Experience –.01 .01 –.01 .01 –.01 .01 .99
CSPD officer .03 .16 .03 .20 .03 .17 1.03
APD officer .17 .17 .17 .18 .17 .16 1.19
FWPD officer –1.05∗∗∗ .20 –1.05∗∗∗ .20 –1.05∗∗∗ .17 .35
KPD officer –.86∗∗∗ .22 –.86∗∗∗ .23 –.86∗∗∗ .23 .42
Dispersion parameter 1.59∗∗∗ .16 1.59∗∗∗ .17 1.59∗∗∗ .18 —
NOTES: Workgroup Level R2 = .99; N = 185 workgroups and 969 officers. Unstandardized coefficients and standard errors are presented.
ABBREVIATIONS: APD = Albuquerque Police Department, CSPD = Colorado Springs Police Department, FWPD = Fort Wayne Police Department, KPD =
Knoxville Police Department, PPB = Portland Police Bureau, SE = standard error.
+ p < .10; ∗ p < .05; ∗ p < .01; ∗∗∗ p < .001.
795
Table 4. Model Comparisons for Workgroup Culture and Culture

Strength Effects on Total Number of High-Force Incidents
Citizen Distrust Resultsa b SE b SE b SE b SE

Main Effects
Culture of citizen distrust .25∗ .10 .25∗ .11 .26∗ .12 .26∗ .12
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) –1,676.06 .98 — — — — — —
Curvilinear Effects
Culture of citizen distrust squared — — — — –.17+ .10 –.17∗ .11
Culture strength squared — — — — –.01 .01 –.01 .01
Interaction Effects
Culture of citizen distrust × culture strength — — .02 .04 — — .01 .05
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) — — –1,675.95 .96 — — –1,673.98 1.00
Aggressive Patrol Resultsa b SE b SE b SE b SE

Main Effects
Culture of aggressive patrol .58∗ .23 .54∗ .23 .51∗ .22 .46+ .25
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) – 1,677.70 1.02 — — — — — —
Curvilinear Effects
Culture of aggressive patrol squared — — — — .15 .27 .06 .37
Culture strength squared — — — — .09 .12 .09 .13
Interaction Effects
Culture of aggressive patrol × culture strength — — –.25 .47 — — .19 .65
–2 Loglikelihood (correction factor) — — – 1,677.55 1.02 — — –1,677.57 .98
NOTES: Unstandardized regression coefficients and standard errors presented. All models included level 1
control variables.
ABBREVIATION: SE = standard error.
a N = 185 workgroups.
+ p < .10; ∗ p < .05; ∗ p < .01; ∗∗∗ p < .001.
for 31 percent of this between-group variation. The majority of between-group variation

in complaints, however, was explained by compositional differences based on the depart-
ment where the officer worked. In essence, even though workgroup culture was signifi-
cantly related to complaints, the department where officers worked had more explanatory
power.
POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICERS’ OCCUPATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

In the second analysis, we examine police culture and behavior within officers’ occupa-
tional environment, which emphasizes an officer’s relationship to society and is character-
ized by the perceived danger and potential for violence that arises out of police–citizen
encounters. Thus, officers may develop a sense of distrust or suspicion of citizens to cope
with the danger and violence that characterizes this environment. As a result, officers
working in groups that are collectively distrustful may be more coercive in their encoun-
ters with citizens (Paoline, 2003; Terrill and Mastrofski, 2002). Officers’ support for the
cultural prescription of aggressive patrol tactics has also been linked to coercion (Brown,
1988; McCluskey, Terrill, and Paoline, 2005). As such, officers working in groups who sup-
port aggressive patrol should also be more forceful in their encounters with citizens. To
test these premises, we examine workgroup cultural measures in relation to use of force.
FORCE DATA AND DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Similar to the complaint data, we collected data on all use-of-force incidents as captured
in official records (i.e., use-of-force reports) over the same 2-year period. To ensure that
force behavior was comparable across sites, common force measures were coded from
each report and included the use of soft-hand tactics (e.g., control maneuvers, pressure
points, and takedowns), hard-hand tactics (e.g., punching, striking, and kicking), chemical
spray, conducted energy weapons (CEDs), or other impact weapons (e.g., bean bags, ba-
tons, and flashlights). Force behavior was gathered from each officially reported incident
and then aggregated to the officer level.
For this example, the primary dependent variable represents the number of times an
officer resorted to using a “high” level of force (i.e., any time an officer reported using
hard-hand force, chemical spray, CEDs, or other impact weapons as the highest level of
force) during citizen encounters. The variable is a count of the frequency in which officers
use such force and is similar to the results of prior research examining the relationship
between higher levels of force and neighborhood characteristics (Lersch et al., 2008), as
well as that examining situational- and officer-based predictors (Terrill and Mastrofski,
2002).
Overall, 1,910 high-force incidents were reported by officers during the study period,
with approximately 56 percent (571 of 1,017) using some form of higher level force in
at least one incident (M = 1.88, SD = 3.70). An unconditional multilevel model for
count data showed significant variation between workgroups (variance component = .59,
SE = .12, p < .001). Furthermore, the ICCGLMM was calculated to be .26, meaning ap-
proximately 26 percent of the variation in the number of times that officers resorted to
high force can be explained by workgroup membership. This amount is substantial when
viewed in relation to the results of other multilevel use-of-force research that has re-
vealed ICC values to be at either the neighborhood (Terrill and Reisig, 2003; ICC = .04)
or precinct (Levchak, 2017; ICC = .11) levels. Thus, officers’ use of high-level force was
clustered across workgroups providing support for the use of multilevel modeling.
An issue arises when conducting the force analyses using officers as level 1 units. On
the one hand, the officer level is the most appropriate level 1 unit when testing for aggre-
gate effects of workgroup culture because attitudes are derived from officers. Conversely,
conducting the analysis at the officer level limits the inclusion of situational factors prior
research findings have demonstrated to be predictive of force behavior. Including situ-
ational variables as officer-level measures is problematic because some officers did not
use force (or file any reports) during the study period, and thus, they would not have
any situational measures. Excluding these officers from the analyses, however, would be
inappropriate because they still contributed to the culture of the workgroup.
To address this issue, we included an additional control variable at the workgroup level.
Suspect resistance is often found to be the strongest predictor of officers’ use-of-force
behavior (Terrill, 2005), with officers more forceful as resistance levels increase. Also,
recall that the potential for resistance, especially violent resistance, serves to reinforce
danger and authority issues that police culture serves to address. As such, we include
a workgroup-level resistance measure. Specifically, we took the number of force inci-
dents reported within a workgroup where aggressive resistance occurred and divided it
by the total number of force incidents reported within that workgroup. Aggressive resis-
tance was defined as when a citizen either attempted to strike or did strike an officer (see
Terrill and Mastrofski, 2002). This measure, proportion of aggressive resistance incidents,
offers a way to control for one of the strongest situational predictors of force behavior,
and it allows us to capture important differences among workgroups in their exposure to
aggressive resistance. It is also consistent with the experiences of other researchers who
have had similar data issues and have incorporated proportional resistance measures to
examine force at the neighborhood level (Lersch et al., 2008).
FORCE RESULTS
Table 4 presents the results for the first step in the modeling procedure. Once again, for
parsimony, only the workgroup-level effects are reported. For aggressive patrol culture,
the results showed the most support for model 1, the direct effects model. No support was
found for the presence of an interaction effect (model 2), curvilinear effects (model 3), or
polynomial effects (model 4). As a result, we included the direct measures of aggressive
patrol culture and culture strength in the final models. For culture of citizen distrust and
high-force usage, the most support was provided for model 3 (curvilinear effects), as the
culture of distrust direct effect was statistically significant (p < .05) and the squared term
was significant at the .10 level. The model comparison test also provided support for this
model over model 1 (χ 2 difftest = 3.87, p < .05). The quadratic effect was plotted, which
showed a modest, inverted, U-shaped curve in relation to high-force incidents. Based on
these results, we decided to include the direct measures of citizen distrust culture and
culture strength measures, as well as the squared term for citizen distrust culture in the
final models.
Table 5 presents the results for the final models. Model 1 in table 5 lists the baseline
results without taking into consideration the potential clustering effects of workgroups
within higher organizational units. The findings at the workgroup level indicated that sub-
scription to an aggressive patrol culture was positively associated with officers’ use of high
levels of force (b = .50, SE = .25, p < .05). A one-unit increase in officers’ collective sup-
port for aggressive tactics increased the rate of high-force incidents by a factor of 1.65.
The associated culture strength measure for aggressive patrol had no effect on high-force
usage.
The curvilinear relationship also held in the final models for culture of citizen distrust
as both the direct measure (b = .20, SE = .10, p < .05) and the squared term (b = –.24,
SE = .09, p < .01) were significant. Based on the values of the coefficients, as well as on the
workgroup sample mean (M = 4.90), the inflection point was calculated to be 5.32. At this
value, the positive relationship between workgroup distrust and force peaked and began
to decline, illustrating an inverted U-shaped relationship between culture of distrust and
high-force usage (see figure S.1 in the online supporting information for a visual plot). As
collective levels of distrust increased, high-force usage increased but only up to a point.
The relationship then became negative, indicating the most distrustful workgroups relied
on high levels of force less frequently. The associated culture strength measure for distrust
did not have a significant effect on high-force usage.
Table 5. Final Multilevel Models for Culture and Culture Strength on Number of High-Force Incidents
Model Model 2 Model 3
Baseline Clustering by Shift Clustering by Precinct
Variable b SE b SE b SE Exp(b)
Workgroup Level
Intercept –2.95∗∗ .92 –2.95∗∗ 1.07 –2.95∗∗ .85 —
Culture Measures
Culture of citizen distrust .20∗ .10 .20∗ .10 .20∗ .08 1.22
Culture of citizen distrust squared –.24∗∗ .09 –.24∗∗ .09 –.24∗∗ .09 .79
Culture strength (citizen distrust) –.03 .03 –.03 .04 –.03 .03 .97
Aggressive patrol culture .50∗ .25 .50∗ .25 .50∗ .23 1.65
Culture strength (aggressive patrol) –.11 .15 –.11 .15 –.11 .13 .90
Controls
Proportion of aggressive resistance incidents 1.07∗∗ .40 1.07∗∗ .41 1.07∗ .45 2.91
# of violent crimes per 50 officers .00∗ .01 .00∗ .01 .00 .01 1.00
Officer Level
Citizen distrust –.02 .03 –.02 .03 –.02 .03 .98
Aggressive patrol .19∗ .07 .19∗ .07 .19∗ .07 1.21
Male .70∗∗∗ .16 .70∗∗∗ .16 .70∗∗∗ .17 2.01
White .25∗ .11 .25∗ .11 .25∗ .13 1.28
Bachelor degree or higher .16 .11 .16 .11 .16 .12 1.17
Experience –.05∗∗∗ .01 –.05∗∗∗ .01 –.05∗∗∗ .01 .95
CSPD officer .35 .20 .35 .23 .35 .23 1.42
APD officer –.65∗∗ .19 –.65∗∗ .20 –.65∗∗ .21 .52
FWPD officer 1.29∗∗∗ .25 1.29∗∗∗ .32 1.29∗∗ .41 3.63
KPD officer –.83∗∗ .24 –.83∗∗ .24 –.83∗∗ .25 .44
Dispersion parameter 1.12∗∗∗ .09 1.12∗∗∗ .11 1.12∗∗∗ .11 —
NOTES: Workgroup Level R2 = .63; N = 185 workgroups and 969 officers. Unstandardized coefficients and standard errors are presented.
ABBREVIATIONS: APD = Albuquerque Police Department, CSPD = Colorado Springs Police Department, FWPD = Fort Wayne Police Department, KPD =
Knoxville Police Department, PPB = Portland Police Bureau, SE = standard error.
+ p < .10; ∗ p < .05; ∗ p < .01; ∗∗∗ p < .001.
799
Models 2 and 3 in table 5 accounted for any nonindependence resulting from the clus-
tering of workgroups within shifts and precincts, respectively. Here, the effects remain
unchanged, providing support for the stability of workgroup effects across models. With
respect to the workgroup controls, the aggressive resistance measure had a strong, posi-
tive association with high-force usage. Specifically, a one-unit increase in the proportion
of force incidents within groups where officers were exposed to aggressive resistance in-
creased the rate of high-force usage by a factor of 2.91, the strongest relationship in the
model. The violent crime measure had no significant effect on high-force usage.
Similar to the complaint analysis, the results also provided support that workgroup
culture represented a distinct, collective effect on force behavior.15 Although a culture
of distrust was associated with higher level force usage at the workgroup level, the fixed,
officer-level effect reported in table 5 indicates that officers’ individual attitudes toward
citizens had no impact on force usage (b = –.02, SE = .03, p > .05), which is a finding
consistent with that of prior research conducted at the individual level (Terrill and
Mastrofski, 2002). Furthermore, once the within-level effect for aggressive patrol was
partialed out, significant between-group effects were still present for aggressive patrol
culture at the workgroup level.
As with the complaint analyses, we also considered the amount of variation in high-
force usage that workgroup culture explained in relation to other explanatory factors.
Again, the between-group variation in high-force usage was approximately 26 percent,
and the cultural measures accounted for 36 percent of this between-group variation.
Only approximately 8 percent was accounted for by compositional differences in work-
groups based on level 1 demographic and department control variables. The remaining
19 percent of explained variation was from the workgroup-level resistance measure.
When viewed in relation to the complaint results, workgroup culture had more explana-
tory power in accounting for force behavior.
DISCUSSION
In this study, we extend a recent multilevel framework for police culture research
(Ingram, Paoline, and Terrill, 2013) by linking it to behavior and introducing the concept
of culture strength. In doing so, we treat culture as a collective property of patrol work-
groups and provide a way to determine whether strength moderates the culture–behavior
relationship. Because shared unit concepts, like culture, have the potential to produce
nonlinear effects (Cole et al., 2011), we also investigated the possibility that collective
workgroup influences on officer behaviors were nonlinear. The results of these inquiries
produced three key findings.
First, collective, workgroup cultural measures bore a direct association with both
use-of-force and complaint behaviors. The strongest and most robust findings were for
15. Additional analyses were also conducted for total force usage to compare the robustness of cultural
effects (see the online supporting information). The same modeling procedures were conducted
using the same control variables used in the high-force usage models. The findings from the model
comparison tests (see table S.5) mirror those for high-force usage. The final model results are also
the same (table S.6). The only difference was in the amount of between-level variance accounted
for: workgroup-level effects had less explanatory power for total force usage (level 2, R2 = .55)
than for high-force usage (level 2, R2 = .63).
workgroup orientations toward aggressive patrol tactics as officers in workgroups that

collectively valued aggressive patrol tactics used force more frequently (and at higher
levels) than did less aggressive workgroups. The results are consistent with those of
prior research in which scholars argued that the defining aspect of officers’ broader
environments is their views toward aggressiveness (McCluskey, Terrill, and Paoline,
2005). Aggressive workgroups also generated more complaints, although significantly
fewer sustained dispositions, which suggests that even though the behavioral manifes-
tations of their collectively aggressive orientations may raise allegations of misbehavior
(thus, the initiation and investigation of a formal complaint), they are not necessarily
viewed by their respective organizations as departures from appropriate policies and
procedures. On the other hand, officers in workgroups that collectively perceived upper
management to be punitive generated fewer complaints. This result is consistent with
traditional depictions of police culture that posits punitive orientations serve to reinforce
the lay-low, CYA approach to policing and discourage officers from acting in ways that
bring unwanted attention to themselves (e.g., Paoline, 2003). Together, the results show
that officers who work in environments that subscribe to a culture of aggressive patrol
practices or punitive management perceptions behaved similarly.
The results for workgroup culture of distrust were also associated with an increase in
high-force usage (and force in general) except in the most distrustful workgroups. Inter-
estingly, this finding is similar to those of recent deadly force research that revealed a non-
linear relationship between officer-involved shootings and the level of firearm violence
within neighborhoods (see Klinger et al., 2016). Perhaps officers working in such work-
groups come to associate the citizens they interact with on a regular basis as having the
greatest potential for danger and violence and, as a result, take a more cautious approach
by using force more judiciously. Alternatively, perhaps highly distrustful workgroups pro-
vide a mechanism for officers to anticipate problems in ways that can de-escalate and con-
trol situations before more severe forms of force are needed. In any event, the findings
highlight the need to consider that the relationship between culture and behavior may not
always be a linear one.
A second key finding was that aggregated workgroup cultural measures generated sig-
nificant results over and above the individual attitudinal counterparts. These results shed
light on the potential differences between individual- and group-level phenomena, and
the importance for distinguishing the two, to understand more fully police culture and the
implications for its reform. The results for aggressive patrol tactics highlight this point. At
the individual level, officers who favored aggressive patrol used high levels of force more
frequently. For administrators concerned with aggressiveness, efforts to change officers’
views could focus on individual factors that might shape this attitude. We also found a dis-
tinct group-level association with behavior, however, suggesting that contextual features
of officers’ workgroup environments that give rise to shared views supporting aggressive-
ness should also be identified. Cultural prescriptions are derived from the strains officers
collectively encounter in their work environments, and so addressing specific strains is
necessary for efforts aimed at altering this aspect of police culture to be complete.
A third key finding is that even though culture strength may be an important concept
in the study of organizational culture (Schneider, Salvagio, and Subirats, 2002; Trice
and Beyer, 1993), our results demonstrated little support for this premise. The mixed
findings are surprising given the fact that sharedness is a definitional component of police
culture. Certain issues, however, could account for these results (or lack thereof). The
within-group agreement results (ADM values) for the three cultural measures indicated
that most workgroups already exhibited a strong sense of sharedness at the time of the
survey. Hence, the impact that culture strength could feasibly have had on behavior
may be mitigated. Furthermore, the results of organizational research have highlighted
the difficulty in detecting interaction effects using measures of dispersion (Roberson,
Sturman, and Simons, 2007). Both of these issues suggest the need to refine the concept
and measurement of culture strength before dismissing its potential usefulness.
Although the results presented here extend those of prior attitudinal studies of police
culture and officer behavior, this study is not without limitations. First, although work-
group culture was significantly associated with both complaints and use-of-force behavior,
it accounted for only approximately 3.1 and 9.0 percent of the variation in these outcomes,
respectively. The extent to which these results are unique is difficult to assess, however,
as scholars conducting policing research rarely report how much of the overall variance
is accounted for by specific measures. For instance, in examining the relationship be-
tween citizen correlates and complaints, Terrill and Ingram (2016) reported a total of just
8 percent explained variance. In a national analysis in which a host of organizational, ad-
ministrative, and environmental correlates of complaints were examined, Hickman and
Piquero (2009) reported just 15 percent total explained variance. In relation to use of
force, McCluskey, Terrill, and Paoline (2005), one of the few studies in which the unique
contribution of a culture measure (i.e., peer group aggressiveness) was assessed, reported
that it accounted for just .004 percent of the variance. Furthermore, although Terrill, Pao-
line, and Manning (2003) did not parse out the unique contribution of culture on use-of-
force behavior, the entire model, which also included 17 additional situational and suspect
correlates, still only accounted for 26 percent of the total variance. Thus, as a collective
whole, in studies aimed at examining complaints and use-of-force behavior, scholars gen-
erally explain a small amount of variation overall, suggesting researchers need greater
theoretical guidance and specification.
One potential reason workgroup culture did not have a greater impact on police be-
havior here could be a result of the amount of cultural variation found between groups.
Even though the ICC values for the workgroup culture measures were within an accept-
able range (.05 to .20) reported by multilevel attitudinal research (Bliese, 2000), Nesterkin
and Ganster (2015) found that lower ICC values combined with group response rates can
significantly attenuate group-level effects. With this study serving as a guide, the observed
workgroup cultural effects on the two behavioral outcomes could have been attenuated
by approximately 12 to 15 percent (depending on the unobserved “true” effect size) based
on the estimated ICC values (.03 to .14) and the average group response rate (73 percent;
Nesterkin and Ganster, 2015: 799).
This possibility has important implications not just for future police culture research
but also for multilevel research in general where the focus is on aggregating individual-
level attributes to use as higher level contextual measures. Here, we emphasize the
recommendation by Nesterkin and Ganster (2015) that the group response rate for the
higher level units be reported in multilevel survey research in addition to the overall re-
sponse rate for the total sample. Consideration should be given as to how group response
rates might affect the accuracy of the group-level measures. For example, if the average
group response rate falls below commonly accepted response rate thresholds (e.g.,
60 percent), how accurately does the group-level measure reflect the actual collective
perceptions of group members?
It is also important to note that results could be attenuated even with high group re-
sponse rates when ICC values are lower (Nesterkin and Ganster, 2015: 800). Given that
any attenuation in the results of the current study would likely be a result of the esti-
mated ICC values, as opposed to a result of the group response rates, researchers could
try and minimize this impact through the survey design. For example, a referent shift
model (Chan, 1998) where survey questions are constructed that specifically reference
the environment of interest could be used. Rather than asking, “Do police officers have
a reason to be distrustful of citizens?” the question could read as, “Are officers in my
workgroup distrustful of citizens?” By specifically referencing officers’ groups in a way
that describes the workgroup environment, variation in responses within groups should
decrease and ICC values should increase (see Nesterkin and Ganster, 2015: 803). In do-
ing so, it would still be necessary to assess empirically within-group agreement levels to
ensure that officers share workgroup perceptions, reflecting a valid, group-level construct
(Bliese, 2000).
A second study limitation is that the framework and analyses are focused primarily on
patrol workgroups as a cultural referent. Yet, both officers and workgroups exist within
higher levels of police organizations, such as shifts (Haarr, 2001; Jermier and Berkes,
1979; Paoline, 2001), precincts (Hassell, 2006; Klinger, 1997), and departments (Slovak,
1986; Wilson, 1968). Although we found consistent cultural associations with behavior
at the workgroup level, controlling for department, officer demographic characteristics,
workgroup-level measures (i.e., crime and resistance), and accounting for the nesting of
workgroups within shifts and precincts, future research would benefit by incorporating
these higher organizational levels more explicitly into theoretical frameworks, research
designs, and analytic models.
Within organizations, lower level phenomena (workgroup culture and officer behavior)
are shaped and constrained by higher level contexts (Kozlowski and Klein, 2000). For ex-
ample, the complaint results demonstrate that departmental factors served to restrict this
type of behavioral outcome across workgroup settings. In addition to alleged misbehav-
ior and the workgroup environment, the number of complaints that officers may generate
could also be a result of department investigation processes, the emphasis administrators
place on accountability, or even the citizen base served by departments. In this regard, the
magnitude of workgroup effects may depend on the type of behavior under study. The
salience of, and potential for, detecting workgroup effects may also depend on the size of
the police department (Mastrofski, Ritti, and Hoffmaster, 1987). More generally, officers
in smaller departments may hold more of a bond to an overall organizational culture as
opposed to officers in larger departments. In small departments, leaders (both formal and
informal) have more frequent contact with and direct knowledge of officers, perhaps mak-
ing it easier to shape a cohesive culture. Furthermore, officers in smaller departments may
feel the need to “present a united front” in performing certain activities, such as aggres-
sive policing, to “prove their worth” to the organization or community (Mastrofski, Ritti,
and Hoffmaster, 1987: 398) leading to behavioral uniformity. Conversely, the structure of
larger departments likely provides additional sources of cultural and behavioral influence
at various structural and temporal levels, such as precincts and shifts, which likely shapes
their cultural views toward citizens.
In essence, even though workgroups represent immediate and proximal environments
for officers, other relevant contexts also exist within the broader police organization.
Being able to incorporate these contexts more fully is necessary so that the relative
importance of effects across levels can be compared. From an analytic perspective, this
could be accomplished through the use of higher order multilevel models that incorporate
each level of the formal organization (i.e., individual, workgroup, shift, precinct, and
department). In doing so, behavioral differences could be assessed and parsed out, and
then relevant measures could be included to try and account for any observed variation
at each level of the hierarchy.
Similarly, the formal structures may not be the only cultural reference point for some
officers. For example, the communities in which police–citizen encounters occur may
serve as important cultural referents that also influence officer behaviors (e.g., Klinger,
1997; Rubinstein, 1973). In the current study, although workgroup members were likely
dealing with similar external demands of the job, workgroup boundaries did not uniformly
align with comparable geographic boundaries, such as police beats or neighborhoods. Fu-
ture research may benefit by having the geography of policing more fully integrated (see
Herbert, 1997) with that of the formal organization of policing. Furthermore, informal
groupings of officers based on race, ethnicity, sex, or sexual orientation also exist within
departments that span structural boundaries. Here, officers may not be comfortable with
some of the views of workgroup members, so they may turn to colleagues or leaders in
other units with whom they socialize (both on- and off-duty) or have worked previously,
or with those whose values with which they align as cultural referents. Unfortunately, we
could not systematically capture informal groupings of officers in the data.
Furthermore, we assessed just a few facets of police culture, albeit core dimensions of
the work environments. Our decision to focus on three cultural prescriptions was based
on research findings recommending attitudinal measures be theoretically linked to the be-
havior(s) under study (e.g., Frank and Brandl, 1991). Additionally, the concept of police
culture is often criticized for being too broad (Crank, 1998; Manning, 2005). Identifying
how specific prescriptions relate to behavior can make the concept of culture more con-
crete and allow for the development of explicit connections between prescriptions and
practice. Future research could be aimed at expanding on our inquiry by exploring addi-
tional cultural attitudes or behaviors. For example, examining collective role orientations
(i.e., law enforcement, order maintenance, and community policing) in relation to arrests,
problem-solving efforts, or other performance-related behaviors would be one area of
expansion. Exploring this relationship is also perhaps more amenable to situating work-
group effects into the broader organizational context as measures of department styles
are often described based on role expectations set at the agency level and examined in
relation to arrests (Slovak, 1986; Wilson, 1968).
Additionally, incorporating alternative configurations of cultural measures would be
beneficial. Our use of group means to represent aggregate cultural measures is a starting
point of inquiry, but it is just one method for measuring workgroup culture. Although ag-
gregated measures of central tendency and variation have been validated as an accepted
practice for measuring shared group-level phenomena in the organizational sciences for
some time (Bliese, 2000; Cole et al., 2011; Kozlowski and Klein, 2000), these measures
do not exhaust all the theoretical possibilities for characterizing a workgroup. For in-
stance, the aggregate measures used assume in their calculations that each officer would
contribute equally to the culture and culture strength of the group. The organizational
literature on groups, however, includes details on the importance of leaders, both for-
mal and informal, in shaping group processes (e.g., Brown, 2000; Kozlowski and Bell,
2003; Ostroff, Kinicki, and Tamkins, 2003). Unfortunately, we do not have data on such
potentially influential leaders. Future research could benefit (via assessments by peers
or first-level supervisors) from identifying influential officers (e.g., Willis and Mastrofski,
2017) and determining the extent to which they affect the cultural understandings of oth-
ers in the same work environment. Doing so would further allow for the use of alternative
configurations of aggregate cultural measures.
Another concern is the cross-sectional nature of the study. The theoretical framework
posits that workgroup culture influences officer behaviors. This assumes a certain causal
order that cannot be met through a cross-sectional research design. For example, although
it is plausible that cultural processes account for the influence that shared views toward
citizens had on the use of force, an alternative explanation is that the use of force by
officers may serve to create a culture of distrust rather than vice versa. A similar alterna-
tive explanation for complaints is that the nature of the complaint investigation process
in departments influences collective perceptions of top management. In this regard, the
outcomes of past use-of-force encounters or complaint investigations within workgroups
could shape officers’ cultural views, which would then influence their subsequent behav-
iors. Although an association between culture and officer behavior is established in this
study, future research could be aimed at establishing the precise causal nature of this
relationship to enhance the internal validity of the results.
The use of longitudinal data designs could help establish the appropriate temporal or-
dering needed to demonstrate that collective adherence to cultural prescriptions lead to
specific behavioral manifestations. In doing so, researchers should also more directly in-
corporate officers’ length of exposure to their workgroup environments. Although we
were able to provide some descriptive information regarding this, explicitly accounting for
length of exposure or capturing changes in workgroup composition over time in research
designs and/or analytic models would provide valuable insight into establishing causality.
Moreover, officers may differentially adopt cultural attitudes depending on their years of
experience. We conducted additional sensitivity analyses (not reported in tabular form)
to see whether the effect of officers’ years of experience on the behavioral outcomes sig-
nificantly varied across workgroups (i.e., random slope tests). The random slopes were
nonsignificant in all models, indicating that the effect of experience on complaints and
force was similar across workgroups.16 Future work (using qualitative interviewing tech-
niques), however, could more fully investigate this potential issue by tapping into specific
facets of officers’ career experiences (including pre-policing experiences, life events, and
work–life stressors) to determine how they might shape officers’ adherence to cultural
orientations as well as their behaviors. Such techniques would also be useful in disentan-
gling important police workgroup dynamics (e.g., group formation, the transmission of
sharedness, and member additions and subtractions).
In conclusion, police culture is an area of scholarship ripe for continued theoretical and
empirical examination as the importance of understanding the role of culture on behavior
is perhaps at an all-time high. In fact, the recent President’s Task Force on 21st Century
Policing (2015) includes references to culture 52 times. Discussions of police culture need
to continue to extend beyond abstract characterizations of its dynamics with vague im-
plications for behavioral practices. As the National Research Council (2004: 133) noted
16. Although this is just one way to investigate, it does provide initial evidence that the effect of expe-
rience on behavior is invariant across groups. As a result, workgroup culture would not moderate
the relationship between experience and behavior (i.e., cross-level effects).
in its assessment of the relationship between police culture and behavior, “to the extent
that police cultures co-vary with patterns of police practice, and to the extent that al-
ternative causes of variation in these practices can be discounted, police culture will have
been shown to have an impact.” The current study represents an initial attempt at demon-
strating that collective cultural measures do co-vary with police practices. In short, police
workgroups matter. They matter not just in terms of exhibiting variation in cultural ori-
entations (Ingram, Paoline, and Terrill, 2013) but also in behavioral differences in the
generation of complaints and the application of force.
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Jason R. Ingram is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and

Criminology at Sam Houston State University. His research interests include police offi-
cer attitudes and behaviors, police culture, police supervision, and multilevel theory and
methods.
William Terrill is a professor in the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at

Arizona State University. His research is centered on police behavior, with an empha-
sis on police use of force and police culture.
Eugene A. Paoline III is a professor and graduate director in the Department

of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida. His research interests in-
clude police culture, police use of force, and occupational attitudes of criminal justice
practitioners.
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at
the publisher’s website.
Table S.1. Description of Study Sites

Table S.2. Officer Survey Administration Results by Study Department
Table S.3. Model Comparisons for Workgroup Culture and Culture Strength on Total #
of Sustained Internal Allegations
Table S.4. Final Multilevel Models for Culture and Culture Strength on Total Number of
Sustained Internal Allegations
Table S.5. Model Comparisons for Workgroup Culture and Culture Strength Effects on
Total # of Force Incidents
Table S.6. Final Multilevel Models for Culture and Culture Strength on Total # of Force
Incidents
Figure S.1. Plot of Culture of Citizen Distrust Quadratic Effect on High-Force Usage

Ingram, J. Terril, W. Paoline E. 2018. Police Culture and Officer Behavior.

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POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICER BEHAVIOR:

APPLICATION OF A MULTILEVEL FRAMEWORK∗

JASON R. INGRAM,1 WILLIAM TERRILL,2

KEYWORDS: police culture, police use of force, police misconduct, occupational

POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICER BEHAVIOR

DATA AND METHOD

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Key Variables for Complaint and Force

PATROL OFFICER WORKGROUPS

relationships are curvilinear, as group culture effects on behavior may be amplified in

POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICERS’ ORGANIZATIONAL

orientations would serve to reinforce a lay-low, cover-your-ass (CYA) approach as

COMPLAINT DATA AND DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Table 2. Model Comparisons for Workgroup Culture and Culture

Punitive Management Resultsa b SE b SE b SE b SE

Aggressive Patrol Resultsb b SE b SE b SE b SE

Table 4. Model Comparisons for Workgroup Culture and Culture

Citizen Distrust Resultsa b SE b SE b SE b SE

Aggressive Patrol Resultsa b SE b SE b SE b SE

for 31 percent of this between-group variation. The majority of between-group variation

POLICE CULTURE AND OFFICERS’ OCCUPATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

FORCE DATA AND DEPENDENT VARIABLE

workgroup orientations toward aggressive patrol tactics as officers in workgroups that

Multilevel Theory, Research, and Methods in Organization: Foundations, Extensions,

Jason R. Ingram is an associate professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and

William Terrill is a professor in the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at

Eugene A. Paoline III is a professor and graduate director in the Department

Table S.1. Description of Study Sites

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