a comparison of chinese and the u.s. police cadets’ occupational attitudes

Journal of Criminal Justice xxx (2010) xxx–xxx

JCJ-01014; No of Pages 8

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Journal of Criminal Justice

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A comparison of Chinese and the U.S. police cadets’ occupational attitudes☆

Ivan Y. Sun a,⁎, James J. Sobol b, Michael Cretacci b, Scott W. Phillips b

a Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, United Statesb Criminal Justice Department, Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY 14222, United States

☆ This paper was accepted under the Editorship of Ke⁎ Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (I.Y. Sun).

0047-2352/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. Aldoi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.04.037

Please cite this article as: Sun, I. Y., et al., A c(2010), doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.04.037

a b s t r a c t
a r t i c l e i n f o
Available online xxxx
While police attitudes and behaviors have been the subject of a large number of studies conducted since the1960s, very few studies had assessed Chinese police officers’ work-related attitudes and compared themwith those of the U.S. police cadets. Using survey data collected from 263 Chinese and American policecadets, the research empirically tested whether Chinese and American police cadet attitudes differed acrossfour attitudinal dimensions: aggressive patrol, order maintenance, legal restrictions, and distrust of citizens.Bivariate and multivariate results showed that Chinese cadets displayed occupational outlooks thatdistinguished them from their American counterparts. Chinese cadets supported aggressive patrol and weremore distrustful of citizens than their American counterparts. American cadets were more favorable of ordermaintenance activities and more accepting of legal restrictions compared with Chinese cadets. Implicationsfor future research and policy are discussed.
nt Joscelyn.

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omparison of Chinese and the U.S. police cade

© 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Police occupational attitudes have been subject to a large numberof studies conducted in the U.S. since the 1960s. The majority of paststudies assessed patterns or characteristics of officers’ job-relatedattitudes and analyzed the effects of various types of factors in shapingthe formation of such professional outlooks. Early studies tended toportray officers as a homogenous group of individuals subscribed tosome common attitudinal propensities, such as authority, suspicious-ness, cynicism, and an “us-them” mentality (Niederhoffer, 1969;Skolnick, 1966; Westley, 1970). Later studies on police typologiesfound that patrol officers were not entirely monolithic in theiroccupational attitudes (Brown, 1988; Muir, 1977). A minor line ofinquiry concerned police recruits’ attitudes before they were social-ized into seasoned officers. The richest information came from severalethnographic studies that traced the attitudinal and behavioraldevelopment of police cadets from entering the police academies tofield training and to the early stage of their patrol assignments (e.g.,Fielding, 1988; Van Maanen, 1974, 1975; Yunker, 1977).

The primary purpose of this study was to examine whetherChinese and the U.S. police cadets differ in their occupational atti-tudes. Two main reasons justified this study. First, empirical researchon Chinese policing in general and police officers’ work-relatedattitudes in particular, is almost non-existent. With the exception oftwo recent studies (Sun, Cretacci,Wu, & Jin, 2009;Wu, Sun, & Cretacci,2009), none of the previous studies had tested factors that influenced

Chinese police cadets’ attitudes. The lack of empirical studies is, inpart, attributed to the structural and cultural barriers for conductingcrime and criminal justice research in China (see Chen, 2004; Liang &Lu, 2006; Wong, 2002). As China has grown into a global political andeconomic power, the need for more empirical evidence to enhance abetter understanding of the formal control apparatus in the world'smost populated country is evident. Moreover, a comparative study ofChinese and the U.S. police cadets not only extends knowledge on theChinese police but also provides useful references and directions tothe U.S. police by expanding information of alternative possibilities orstrategies of successful police reform and developing more powerfulinsights into human behavior (Bayley, 1999).

A second and related reason is that, while the values of inter-national research of police have been acknowledged, only a verylimited number of studies on police occupational attitudes have beenconducted from a cross-national, comparative perspective. None ofthese previous studies examined police cadets’ attitudes acrosscountries and Chinese police cadets were not included in theiranalysis. The difficulty of gathering comparable data has impeded theadvancement of this vein of investigation. The lack of cross-nationalstudy of police cadets’ attitudes calls for more attention to this under-researched area.

Using survey data collected from cadets in a Chinese police collegeand an American police academy, this study represented the firstattempt to empirically test the attitudinal differences and similaritiesbetween Chinese and the U.S. police cadets. This study was designedto explore two specific questions: (1) Do Chinese and American policecadets differ in their work-related attitudes; and (2) What factorsinfluence police cadets’ occupational attitudes? A study of thiskind would not only improve understanding of police occupational

ts’ occupational attitudes, Journal of Criminal Justice

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outlooks under different and broader social and cultural contexts, butalso provide implications for political leaders and police adminis-trators for changes in policy. For example, based on the informationthat cadets may display resentful attitudes toward legal restrictions,police administrators can design or revise their training curriculum toimpart desirable occupational outlooks into police cadets. Similarly,police cadets may possess different attitudes toward the priority ofvarious police roles. Police administrators can tailor cadets’ educationand training to ensure that their perceptions of the importance ofpolice roles are in line with departmental strategies and priorities.

Police in China

According to the People's Police Law of 1995, the Chinese policesystem consists of the police in public security organizations, thepolice in state security organizations, the police in correctionalfacilities, and the judicial police in people's courts and procuratorate.Under the direct control of the State Council, the Ministry of PublicSecurity (MPS) represents the primary police authority in China.Public security police, the so-called People's Police (PP) orMinjing, areassigned to provincial- and county-level departments and bureaus aswell as grassroots-level field or neighborhood stations. The PP may beviewed as a centralized force for all its members wear the sameuniform and are subjected to an identical or similar set of policies andregulations in enforcement procedures, recruitment standards,training requirements, rank structures, promotion criteria, andbenefits systems set by the central government and the MPS (Ma,2005). It should be noted that, however, the local governments exer-cise great control over police forces in their jurisdictions through theprovision of budget for police operations and the determination of thepriorities in local policing.

Street-level policing in China is carried out by police officersassigned to numerous field or neighborhood stations, the so-calledpai-chu-suo (PCS), throughout the country. Urban and suburban PCSare functionally divided into four basic specialized units (i.e., patrol,detective, traffic, and riot), while rural PCS rely upon district ormunicipal/county-level agencies for specific functions and supportiveservices (Sun & Wu, 2010). Community policing was officiallyintroduced by the MPS in 2002 as the guiding strategy of Chinesepolicing. Urban departments are required to divide their jurisdictionsinto policing districts based on the boundaries of the communities andassign community policing officers from the PCS to the neighbor-hoods. Multiple community policing officers are deployed to largerdistricts with more complex security concerns. In rural areas, one orseveral villages can make up a policing district and have a communitypolicing officer from the local PCS (Yin & Zhang, 2007).

In addition to People's Police, another important force thatundertakes police functions is the People's Armed Police (PAP) orWujing. Under the dual leadership of the Central Military Commissionand the State Council, the PAP force is divided into three groups: theinternal guard units, the public security units (i.e., border-defense,firefighting, and guards) and the capital construction units (hydro-power, gold, transportation, and forestry). The first PAP group playsan active role in assisting the PP in maintaining order, fighting crimes,and quelling sudden incidents. The second group, which is adminis-tered chiefly by the MPS and its provincial and local public securitydepartments and bureaus, is responsible for the security of borderareas, the prevention and suppression of fire, and the protection ofhigh-ranking government and party officials (Sun & Wu, 2009). ThePAP's missions expanded greatly after the 1989 Tananmen Squareincident and the maintenance of social order has clearly become thetop priority of the PAP (Cheung, 1996).

Chinese police officers and managers are cultivated through threegroups of educational institutions: police universities, police colleges,and police academies and training schools/centers. First, policesupervisors and administrators are produced primarily by two police

Please cite this article as: Sun, I. Y., et al., A comparison of Chinese and th(2010), doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.04.037

universities in China, the Chinese People's Public Security University(CPPSU) in Beijing and the China Criminal Police University (CCPU) inShenyang. Under the direct supervision of the MPS, both institutionsoffer undergraduate and graduate degree education to high schooland college graduates as well as police officers in active service.Admission into the institutions is highly competitive. University edu-cation is conducted through a strict military-style system thatprovides students with standardized food, sleeping quarters, andactivities. The academic curriculum focuses on basic and professionalcourses as well as combat skills in martial arts, shooting, and vehicledriving. Upon successful completion of the degree programs andpassing governmental official exams, students may be assigned to anypart of the country as first-line supervisors.

Second, police colleges are established in all thirty-three province-level regions, which include twenty-two provinces, five autonomousregions, four direct-controlled (by the central government) munici-palities (Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Tianjin), and two specialadministrative regions (Hong Kong andMacao). These provincial- andmunicipal-level police colleges admit high school graduates andserving police officers for four- and three-year degree programs.Graduates from the police colleges may be assigned to any publicsecurity agency within the provinces and municipalities. Like theCPPSU and CCPU, police colleges also provide short-term, in-servicetraining to police supervisors and officers as well as adult educationcourses to civilians. In addition, these police colleges serve as regionaltechnical support centers, implement drug-testing, as well as forensicand other technical labs to support the operations of the local publicsecurity agencies.

Finally, a number of police academies and training centers are alsoformed in various localities. Police academies or schools provide recruitsa one-year training program, which emphasizes the idea of transform-ing them into police officers with firm political views, wide professionalknowledge, proficient operational skills, sound moral integrity, andstrong physical conditions. According to the People's Police Law of 1995,basic qualifications of police officers include: must be at least eighteenyears old, have a high school degree or higher, be in good health, havegood moral character, and support the PRC Constitution (Ma, 2005).Upon successful completion of the training course and passinggovernmental exams, recruits are appointed as police officers workingin police departments, people's procuratorates and courts, andcorrectional facilities. In 2000, all police universities, colleges, andacademies together cultivated 10 masters, 2,425 bachelors, 24,122associate bachelors, and 20,598 special and technical school graduates.Nationwide, about one-third of all Chinese police officers had at leastsome college education (Ministry of Public Security, 2000).

International analysis of police attitudes

A very small number of studies had compared police officers’ job-related attitudes across nations. Using survey data from the North-umbria, England, Police Department and the Fort Worth, Texas, PoliceDepartment, one study found that English and American policeofficers did not differ significantly in their experiences of frustration,strain, and commitment to community policing (Yates, Pillai, &Humburg, 1996). Using data collected from officers in a southern U.S.state, a large police district in Scotland, and a police district inMetropolitan London, another study compared the personality ofAmerican and British police along the Sixteen Personality FactorQuestionnaire (16 PF) (Harper, Evans, Thornton, Sullenberger, & Kelly,1999). American officers were found to have significantly lower scoresthan their English counterparts on intelligence, impulsivity, sensitiv-ity, imagination, and radicalism.

An earlier study assessed attitudinal differences among American,British, Australian, and New Zealand police officers (Chappell &Meyer, 1975). The study found that Australian and New Zealandofficers were more inclined than their American and British

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counterparts to agree that citizens’ evaluations of police had improvedover the past decade. Australian and New Zealand officers were alsomore likely than American officers to report a higher level of citizenrespect for police. The attitudinal variations may be attributed, in part,to the organizational distinctions of the police. That is, the U.S.preferred small locally-controlled police, whereas Australia and NewZealand adopted centrally-organized and administered forces. Amer-ican officers were more likely to report unfavorable ratings of policebecause officers in smaller, local-controlled agencies would havemore accurate perceptions of citizens. These findings may shed lighton the comparison between Chinese and the U.S. police for, likeAustralia and New Zealand, China has a centralized police force.

A fourth international analysis of police attitudes was Bennett's(1997) study of job satisfaction among police officers in threeEnglish-speaking Caribbean countries. The multivariate regressionshowed that supervision and promotion policy and citizen supportsignificantly influenced officers’ levels of job satisfaction. Furtherregression analysis was conducted by individual countries. Theresults indicated the significant predictors of the Nations 1 and 2were not significant predictors of the Nation 3 suggesting that, of twoof the three nations, different variables may account for job satisfac-tion across countries.

Several observations are noted from these comparative studiespublished before 2000. First, this line of research focused almostexclusively on the comparisons of police officers in English-speakingcountries. Officers from non-English-speaking nations were rarelyincluded (see the below discussion). Second, this small group ofstudies had yet to produce any consistent results concerning officers'attitudes toward the police role and perceptions of citizens. Finally,with the exception of Bennett's (1997) study, these studies used onlybivariate analyses, such as cross-tabulations and mean comparisons,thus failing to take into consideration the relevant control variables,such as officer and situational characteristics.

A series of recent studies comparing Taiwanese and Americanpolice officers’ occupational attitudes (Chu & Sun, 2007; Sun & Chu,2006, 2008) addressed these concerns associated with previousstudies. Using data collected from two Taiwanese and two U.S. policedepartments and multivariate regression analyses, these studiesassessed differences across both departments and countries amongseveral attitudinal dimensions. Two studies found that Taiwanese andAmerican patrol officers and supervisors did differ in their job-relatedattitudes with Taiwanese officers more likely than their U.S. counter-parts to have a broader role orientation and positive attitudes towardaggressive patrol but negative attitudes toward citizen support (Chu &Sun, 2007; Sun & Chu, 2006). The results for attitudes toward legalrestrictions were different for patrol officers and supervisors, withTaiwanese officers less likely to support legal restrictions (Sun & Chu,2006) and Taiwanese supervisorsmore likely to favor legal restrictions(Chu& Sun, 2007) compared to their American counterparts. The thirdstudy found that Taiwanese officers were more likely than Americanofficers to support the notion of distrust of citizens, but they did notdiffer in attitudes toward order maintenance (Sun & Chu, 2008).

Recent studies also conducted cross-national comparisons ofpolice opinions toward the use of unnecessary force by other officers.In one study, the U.S. and Finish police officers felt the use of excessiveforce was more serious than Croatian officers (Ivkovic, 2005). Inanother, Swedish officers viewed the use excessive force moreseriously than Croatian and the U.S. police officers (Ekenvall, 2003).

In brief, little research attention has been paid to the internationalstudy of police. The handful of studies that had examined policeattitudinal differences across countries yielded some limited evidenceon the effect of national affiliation. Recent studies had extended thecomparison into Chinese societies by assessing attitudinal distinctionsbetween Taiwanese and American officers. It is unclear, however,whether findings from studies on Taiwanese and American officerscan be applied to officers in China.


Officer occupational attitudes

This article focused on the examination of attitudinal differencesbetween Chinese and American police cadets along four attitudinaldimensions: aggressive patrol, order maintenance, legal restrictions,and distrust of citizens. These dimensions were selected for studybecause they represented several core features of the policeoccupational culture and have been studied in previous cross-nationalstudies of the police (e.g., Chu & Sun, 2007; Sun & Chu, 2006). Thisstudy aimed to inform knowledge on police cadets’ attitudes ingeneral and cross-national policing in particular. Examining howcadets perceive their work and the citizens they serve is important forunderstanding whether their responses parallel findings fromprevious analyses examining those who are officers. The sectionbelow provided a brief review of each attitudinal dimension, with anemphasis on issues relevant to Chinese officers’ attitudes.

Aggressive patrol

Aggressive patrol, which normally refers to a high level of patrolintervention through traffic stops, field interrogations, citations, andarrests, has been apopular strategy for theU.S. police since the turn of thetwentieth century. Previous studies found that American police officersexercised wide discretion in deciding whether to initiate contact and inchoosing course of action (Bayley, 1986; Brown, 1988). Research onpolice culture contended that police held favorable attitudes towardaggressive patrol (Barker, 1999; Paoline, 2001), despite the fact thatstudies showed that higher levels of aggressive law enforcementactivities have limited effects on crime and a negative impact on police-citizen relations and citizen satisfaction with the police (Kelling, Pate,Dieckman, & Brown, 1974; McGarrell, Chermak, Weiss, &Wilson, 2001).

While aggressive patrol has a long history in the U.S., it is relativelynew in Chinese policing, which has traditionally relied upon thehousehold registration system and informal social networks and groupsin preventing crime and settling conflicts.1 Systematic patrol was not inplace until the 1980s when the police neighborhood stations wentthrough a major transformation, shifting from the static administrationof the household registration system to the dynamic management ofpublic security on the streets (Fu, 1990). Since then, the Chinese policestarted to utilize preventive patrol as one of the main strategies inpreventing and fighting crime (Dutton, 2005; Zhong, 2009). It should benoted, however, that the Chinese style of patrolwasmainly reactive andseldom involved aggressive police intervention except during severalwaves of strike-hard campaigns that targeted particular types of crimeand involved a sudden increase of aggressive law enforcement over ashort period of time (Tanner, 2005).

Only one study had empirically assessed factors that influencedChinese police cadets’ attitudes toward police patrol. Sun et al. (2009)found that Chinese police cadets’ attitudes toward preventive patrolvaried across their age and educational background. Younger cadetswere more likely to support the goal of preventive patrol than oldercadets did, and cadetswith college degreeswere less inclined than thosewithout to favor preventive patrol as the most important police goal.While the attitudinal measure of preventive patrol used in Sun et al.'s(2009) recent study was not entirely the same as the one used in thiscurrent study, itsfindings suggested that Chinese police cadetswere nota homogenous group in their attitudes toward police patrol.

Order maintenance

Police shoulder a great deal of responsibility beyond traditionallaw enforcement duties. Extant research has documented that patrolofficers spend considerable time and effort dealing with order main-tenance and service calls and considerable less time on lawenforcement (Cordner, 1989; Reiss, 1971; Whitaker, 1982; Wilson,1968). Nevertheless, research has consistently shown that many U.S.




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officers tended to view their role predominately as crime fighters(Bittner, 1980; Sparrow, Moore, & Kennedy, 1990). These officerstended to perceive non-law enforcement activities as outside of theirrole conception and not consistent with their mandate to fight crime.

The widespread adoption of problem- and community-orientedpolicing by American police departments has called for moreattention to order maintenance. Police scholars posited that ordermaintenance was at least as important as, if not more important than,law enforcement or crime fighting because an emphasis on disorderproblems enhanced the quality of neighborhood life, decreased publicfear of crime, and eventually led to less crime, (Goldstein, 1977;Skogan, 1990; Wilson & Kelling, 1982).

A focus onordermaintenance problems in theneighborhoods echoesthe essential features of the Chinese model of social control that reliesheavily upon collective efforts exercised by neighborhood private andpublic institutions (e.g., families, kinships, schools, and neighborhoodsandworkplace committees) to proactively indentify and intervene at thefirst sign of a problem (Chen, 2004). Indeed, Chinese police officers havetraditionally been given a wide array of responsibilities (e.g., disputeresolution, household registration, firefighting, and immigration) thatextend beyond the traditional Western views of street-level lawenforcement. Order maintenance has been an integral part of Chinesepolicing and police officers were strongly encouraged to engage in allsorts of neighborhood activities and tended to persuade citizens to settletheir conflicts outside the criminal justice system (Sun & Chu, 2008).

Chinese police cadets’ attitudes toward order maintenance wereempirically assessed in a recent study (Sun et al., 2009). The studyfound that cadets’ attitudes toward order maintenance were weaklyrelated to their background characteristics. The only significantpredictor was cadets’ physical capability. Chinese cadets with higherlevels of perceived physical capability of dealing with a variety ofassignments at work were less likely to support the order mainte-nance role and activities often performed by the police.

Legal restrictions

Legal restrictions refer to officers’ attitudes toward laws and rulesimposed by the courts and various levels of government in regulatingpolice behavior (Sun & Chu, 2006). Research suggests that someAmerican officers are resentful of legal restrictions that limit theirdiscretionary authority and thwarts their ability to fight crime. Otherofficers reported that they are willing to accept and work within thelimits prescribed by the Supreme Court (Brown, 1988).

Compared to their American counterparts, the Chinese police enjoywide discretion and power in performing their work. For instance,police officers are allowed to hand out administrative sanctions, suchas fines and detention in police jails, without any judicial review orapproval (Leng & Chiu, 1985; Wang, 2000). Only the police chief'spermission, rather than the court's approval, is needed to conductsearches and seizures (Ma, 2003). Chinese police can intervene intothe defense attorney's work by, for example, setting time limits on thesuspect-lawyer meetings and presenting at the meetings (Ma, 2003).Great power tends to lead to abuse of power. Several important laws,such as the 1995 People's Police Law and the 1996 Criminal ProceduralLaw, were promulgated over the past two decades to enhance policeaccountability and address the problem of abuse of power andcorruption. The passage of these laws and regulations was designedto provide the guidelines for police officers to follow. In reality,however, such intentions have been seriously compromised due to thelack of respect for the law and the over-reliance on monetaryincentives to carry out police work (Dutton, 2005; Ma, 2003).

Distrust of citizen

American police traditionally have a suspicious perspective ofthose outside of the police profession (Manning, 1988; Paoline, 2001;


Skolnick, 1966). For instance, Skolnick (1966) argued that one of thecore traits that characterized the so-called police working personalitywas suspicion. This suspicion derived from the danger and unpre-dictable nature of their work (Paoline, Myers, & Worden, 2000;Westley, 1970). Patrol officers are constantly reminded by theirsupervisors about personal safety and quickly learn to evaluate thelevel of danger associatedwith certain types of suspicious persons andto respond accordingly. The implementation of community policingrequires police departments to foster close and positive relationswith community residents. Evaluations of community policing inseveral U.S. sites revealed that officers’ suspicious and distrustfulattitudes toward community in general and neighborhood residentsin particular appeared to be improved (Hayeslip & Cordner, 1987;McElroy, Cosgrove, & Sadd, 1993; Skogan & Hartnett, 1997).

Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in1949, policing in China has focused on the involvement of directactions by the general public or the masses (Brewer, Guelke, Hume,Moxon-Browne, & Wilford, 1996). Under the mass-line strategy,police-community relations were depicted as “the police are fishesand the masses are water,” meaning that police were unable to sur-vive without the support of the public (Zhong, 2009). Policecommunity relations, however, were not always as smooth as thepolice would have liked. This was especially true during periods ofpolitical, economic, and social turbulence when party policieschanged frequently and the rule of law was completely abandoned.

Since the late 1970s, rapid social, economic and political changeshave widened the social inequality in China, broadened the socialdistance between police and citizens, and resulted in a crisis of policelegitimacy, all of which have contributed to a further deterioration ofthe traditional intimate relationship between Chinese police andcitizens (Wu & Sun, 2009). Perhaps the most important factor thatdirectly shapes Chinese police officers’ attitudes toward citizens is theabsolute power associated with the profession. Chinese police haveextensive power to easily intrude into individuals’ rights andinterests. Presumption of guilt, rather than presumption of innocence,often guides police officers’ actions toward citizens regardless of thenature of offenses. Indeed, the relationship between Chinese policeofficers and local residents is unequal, with police as superiors andcitizens as subordinates (Jiao, 1995).

Methodology

Research sites

Data used in this study were collected by two separate projectsfrom two research sites, one in China and one in the U.S. The Chinesesite was a prominent police college in an eastern province of the PRC.The college's history can be traced back to a public security schoolformed immediately after the establishment of the PRC in 1949. Sincethen, the college has gradually grown into a comprehensive higher-education institution for Chinese police, with more than 3,000students currently enrolled in its four-year and three-year programs.The four-year program offers six different majors (e.g., criminalinvestigation, forensic sciences, public security, traffic management,law, computer sciences and technology) to high school graduates whoupon graduation would receive a bachelor's degree. The three-yearprogram admits high school graduates who can study one of the tenmajors (e.g., police administration, criminal investigation, publicsecurity, forensic sciences, traffic management, public administration,police command and combat tactics, and legal assistance) and upongraduation would earn an associate degree. The college also offers avariety of courses to officers for short-term, on-the-job training.

The U.S. site was a county-level police training academy in a north-Atlantic state. The police academy serves as a basic training center forvarious law enforcement agencies in the county, including the countysheriff department and another twenty-five to thirty small to middle



Table 1Descriptive statistics for all variables (N=263)

Variables Mean SD Min. Max.

Attitudinal variablesAggressive patrol 2.94 .96 1.00 4.00Order maintenance 8.55 1.87 3.00 12.00Legal restrictions 2.51 1.00 1.00 4.00Distrust of citizens 2.60 .92 1.00 4.00

Explanatory variablesChina .70 .46 .00 1.00Male .84 .37 .00 1.00Age 22.58 4.22 18.00 37.00College educated .30 .46 .00 1.00Family member as police .37 .48 .00 1.00


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size police departments. Each agency selects its own cadets and sendsthem to the police academy for a five-month training program. Newpolice recruits receive training in a variety of areas, such as ethics,various laws (e.g., arrest, search and seizure, evidence), criminalprocedure and arrest procedure, report writing, and use of force. Policecadets are appointed as police officers by their respective departmentsafter the successful completion of the basic training program.

Data collection and samples

The Chinese data were collected during the winter of 2007 whenone of the authors served as a short-term lecturer at the college. Thesurvey questionnaire was originally developed in English andtranslated into Chinese by one of the authors. It was then sent to apolice scholar in China for comments and minor revisions were madebased on the professor's suggestions. The questionnaire, whichcontained sixty-three structured questions, was designed to obtaininformation on various interesting issues, such as motivation to jointhe force, training received, attitudes toward the police role, work,promotion, and problems, and cadet background data.

Police cadets enrolled in four courses were notified in advance ofseveral days by the instructor that a voluntary opportunity toparticipate in a study existed for all interested individuals. Cadetswho elected to take the survey were provided with an informedconsent sheet, indicating that they understood the proceduresinvolved, the voluntary nature of their participation, and their rightsto withdraw from the project at any time. The survey was self-administered and students could complete it during their own timeoutside of class. Upon completion, the participants could return theirsurveys to the instructor's office under the door or via campus mail.On the day that the survey was distributed, the announcement wasagain made that any cadet could participate if he/she so chose, as wellas about the issues of voluntariness and confidentiality. Approxi-mately 200 surveys were distributed. A total of 187 surveys werereturned.2 Five surveys were dropped from the analysis because ofmissing responses, resulting in a Chinese sample of 182 police cadets.

The U.S. data were obtained from police cadets in two trainingclasses of the police academy. A survey questionnaire that containedforty-five structured questions was used to obtain information oncadet attitudes towards citizens, patrol tactics, and problem condi-tions that they might encounter on the street. The first training classstarted in late summer, 2007 and consisted of thirty-seven policerecruits. Recruits were asked to complete the survey at home on theirown time and that the survey would be picked up two days later. Thepurpose of the survey was explained and confidentiality was assured.The recruits were told the survey was part of a college study and wasnot connectedwith their academy training. In an effort to improve theresponse rate, a small “gift” (a law enforcement shirt) was given to allofficers who completed the survey. Two days later the researcherreturned to obtain the surveys, which were returned in a sealedenvelope. Seventeen completed surveys were returned, resulting in a48 percent response rate.

The second academy class started the first week of January, 2008and had 103 recruits. Again, this class included police recruits fromdifferent sized police agencies. As with the first survey distributionmethod, envelopes containing the surveys were passed out to recruitsrequesting they voluntarily complete the survey. A different “gift”item was used for this class: a gym bag with the word “police” (or“sheriff”) emblazoned across the side of the bag. Sixty-four recruitscompleted and returned the survey, resulting in a 66 percent responserate. Survey responses of all recruits from both academy classes forthe American recruits totaled eighty-one and the overall response ratefor the U.S. sample was 57 percent. A case was dropped from theanalysis due to missing values. The final sample used for this studyincluded a total of 263 police cadets. Among them, 183 were Chinesecadets and eighty were American cadets.


It should be noted that the survey data used in this study werecollected by two different projects using two set of questionnaires.Items in the Chinese and U.S. surveys are not entirely identical. Tomake the Chinese and U.S. data comparable, only identical questionsfrom both questionnaires were used in this study.

Variables

The dependent variables included four attitudinal dimensions:aggressive patrol, ordermaintenance, legal restrictions, and distrust ofcitizens. The variable aggressive patrol was measured based on asingle item asking respondents: “A good patrol officer is one whopatrols aggressively by stopping cars.” Response categories rangedfrom disagree strongly (1) to agree strongly (4). A high score on thismeasure indicated more favorable attitudes toward aggressive patrol.

The second variable, order maintenance, was an additive scaleconstructed by summing three items which asked: “In your view,police officers should be expected to do something about each of thesesituations - public nuisance (e.g., loud parties, barking dogs), neighbordisputes, and family disputes.” The original response categoriesincluded (1) always; (2) much of the time; (3) sometimes; and(4) never. Responses were reverse coded so that higher scoresindicated greater supportive attitudes toward order maintenance. TheCronbach's alpha associated with the scale is .63, suggesting anacceptable reliability.

The third measure, legal restrictions, was derived from a single itemasking: “In order to do their jobs, patrol officers must sometimesoverlook search and seizure laws and other legal guidelines” (1=dis-agree strongly; 4=agree strongly). Reverse coding was performed sothat a higher value implied more favorable attitudes toward legalrestrictions. The last variable, distrust of citizen, was also a single-itemvariable based on the question: “Police officers have reason to bedistrustful of most citizens” (1=disagree strongly; 4=agree strongly).A higher score suggested greater support for the statement.

The main independent variable was nation, which was coded as adummy variablewith 1 representing China. Control variables includedgender, age, educational attainment, and family members serving aspolice officers. Gender, educational attainment, and family membersserving as police officers were coded as dummy variables with 1representing male, college graduates, and officers with familymembers serving as police officers. The variable age was measuredin years. Table 1 displays the descriptive statistics for all variables usedin this study.

Analysis plan

Both bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assessattitudinal differences between Chinese and the U.S. cadets. Theformer focused on the mean comparison between Chinese andAmerican cadets across the four attitudinal measures. The latter



Table 3Multiple regression summarya

Variable Aggressivepatrolb

Ordermaintenancec

Legalrestrictionsb

Distrust ofcitizenb

China 2.35*** -1.24** -2.49*** 1.88***(.43) (.40) (.45) (.42)

Male .66* .19 -.13 .10(.31) (.31) (.32) (.31)

Age .01 -.04 .05 -.03(.04) (.04) (.05) (.04)

College educated .09 -.05 .30 .08(.26) (.25) (.26) (.26)

Family member as police -.39 .11 .18 .10(.25) (.24) (.25) (.25)

Pesudo R2/R2 .29 .06 .37 .23

a Entries are unstandardized regression coefficients, with standard errors inparentheses.b Ordered logit estimates.c OLS estimates.*pb .05.**pb .01.***pb .001.


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included two types of regression analyses. Ordered logistic regressionwas used to examine officers’ attitudes toward aggressive patrol, legalrestrictions, and distrust of citizens since these variables were orderedcategorical measures3 (Agresti, 2007). OLS regression was employedto analyze officers’ attitudes toward order maintenance for thevariable was a continuous measure.

Results

Mean comparison

Table 2 shows themean comparisons between Chinese and the U.S.cadets across attitudinal and explanatory variables. The meanassociated with Chinese cadets (3.27) for the variable aggregativepatrol is greater than that of the U.S. cadets (2.18), suggesting thatChinese cadets have greater levels of support for aggressive patrol thantheir American counterparts. Similarly, Chinese cadets also have ahigher mean (2.88) for the variable distrust of citizens than theirAmerican counterparts (1.99), indicating that Chinese cadets havehigher levels of distrustful attitudes toward citizens. The U.S. cadetshave greater means than their Chinese counterparts on two othermeasures. The U.S. cadetsweremore likely to favor ordermaintenance(9.20) and accept legal restrictions (3.40) than do their Chinesecounterparts (8.25 and 2.10, respectively). The independent t-testscores associated with attitudinal measures indicated that all meandifferences are significant at the .05 level.

While the mean comparison found attitudinal distinctions be-tween Chinese and the U.S. cadets, it is not clear whether countrydifferences remain the same when taking into account the effects ofother relevant variables. The results of the regression analyses give aclearer picture of the issue.

Multivariate regression

Table 3 reports the results of the multivariate regression analysis.The variable nation exerted a significant effect in all four attitudinalmodels controlling for the other explanatory variables and was theonly significant predictor in three out of the four models. Consistentwith the results of the bivariate analysis, Chinese cadets displayedmore favorable attitudes toward aggressive patrol and distrust ofcitizens but less support for order maintenance and legal restrictions,compared to their U.S. counterparts. The only non-nation variable thatsignificantly influenced officers’ attitudes is gender, with male officersmore likely than female officers to favor aggressive patrol. The inde-pendent and control variables have only weak to modest explanatorypower of officers’ attitudes, registering a R2 from .06 to .37.

Discussion

While much is known about police occupational attitudes, little isknown about those who will become police officers – police cadets.Representing the first attempt to empirically test attitudinal differ-ences and similarities between Chinese and U.S. police cadets, thisarticle examined police cadet attitudes on four dimensions: aggres-sive patrol, order maintenance, legal restrictions, and distrust of

Table 2Mean comparison by nation

China (N=183) U.S. (N=80)

Attitudinal variables Mean SD Range Mean SD Range t-test

Aggressive patrol 3.27 .80 1-4 2.18 .85 1-4 -10.00*Order maintenance 8.25 1.80 3-12 9.20 1.87 6-12 3.89*Legal restrictions 2.10 .82 1-4 3.40 .74 1-4 12.12*Distrust of citizens 2.88 .84 1-4 1.95 .76 1-4 -8.52*

*pb .05.


citizens. The general finding is that Chinese police cadets displayoccupational attitudes that distinguish them from their U.S. counter-parts. Several specific findings deserve further elaboration. First,Chinese cadets were more likely than the U.S. cadets to favor thenotion of aggressive patrol and distrust of citizens. These findings areconsistent with the results from comparative studies on Taiwaneseand the U.S. police officers (Chu & Sun, 2007; Sun & Chu, 2006). Apossible explanation of the greater supportive attitudes towardaggressive patrol among Chinese cadets is that police patrol is arelatively new police strategy in China and, unlike in the U.S., itseffectiveness in crime prevention has never been questioned byChinese scholars and policy makers. In other words, aggressive patrolis widely accepted as an appropriate and needed police strategy inChinese society. Compared to their Chinese counterparts, Americancadets may be much more aware of the limitations of overlyaggressive patrol activity, especially its adverse effect on police-community relations, which, in turn, contribute to a lower level ofsupport for aggressive patrol. More research is needed to furtherassess the validity of these speculations.

While American police are notorious for their cynicism towardcitizens, their counterparts in the East appear to share this trait aswell. A higher level of distrustful attitudes among Chinese cadets doesnot come as a complete surprise. For instance, a recent study (Wu &Sun, 2009) on Chinese trust in police provides some indirect evidenceon this finding. The study found that while the majority of Chinesehold generally favorable attitudes toward their local police, Chineseevaluations of police are less positive than those of their U.S.counterparts. One may argue that officers’ perceptions of localresidents are reciprocally influenced by how they are viewed andtreated by citizens. In other words, cadets’ attitudes toward citizensare reflections of citizens’ perceptions of the police. In addition, publicsecurity has become a dangerous business in China. The averageannual police deaths in the line of duty have reached 450-500 inrecent years, a more than ten-time increase from the average of 36between 1949 and 1978 (Tanner, 2005). More deadly confrontationsmay also lead to higher levels of distrustful attitudes toward citizensamong Chinese police cadets. There is not enough evidence to eithersupport or refute these arguments, however.

Second, Chinese police cadets were less likely than their U.S.counterparts to support the importance of order maintenance andlegal restrictions. While the less favorable attitudes toward legalrestrictions among Chinese cadets is not a surprise, their lower levelssupport for order maintenance is unexpected. One may speculate thatthe launch of community policing in the U.S. departments and theincorporation of principles of community policing into academy




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training curriculum may cultivate a stronger awareness of theimportance of order maintenance function among the Americancadets. For Chinese police officers and cadets, order-maintenancerelated activities are heavily rooted in their daily work and perceivedby officers as “routines” that do not require extra attention fromthem.4 These speculations need to be assessed through futureresearch efforts.

Finally, attitudinal differences between Chinese and Americanpolice cadets can be attributed mainly to national affiliation. Cadets’background characteristics are weakly related to their job-relatedattitudes. With the exception of the variable gender in one model,none of the background characteristics exerted a significant influenceon cadets’ occupational attitudes. These findings are actually in linewith results from previous studies that found a modest or weakconnection between officers’ background characteristics and occupa-tional attitudes (e.g., Paoline et al., 2000; Worden, 1993). The findingssuggest that more theoretically relevant variables need to beconsidered in assess officers' job-related attitudes.

While this study is certainly an important one and can serve as aspringboard for future research, given that it is the only one of its kind,it is also important to point out its limitations. First, only one policecollege in China and two recruit classes from an American policeacademy were subjected to the survey instrument. Second, thesamples were quite small; only 187 responses were obtained from theChinese police college and eighty-one total from the U.S. academy. Asa result, these combined issues limit the generalizability of thefindings presented above. Finally, only a small number of predictorswere incorporated in the analysis and their explanatory power ismodest at best. While a low explanatory power is not uncommon inattitudinal studies, it signals the need for better designed research.

Future research should be conducted along the following direc-tions. First, future studies should continue to explore possibleattitudinal differences between Chinese and the U.S. police cadets.Ideally, a longitudinal study that follows a group of Chinese andAmerican cadets from basic training in the academy to field trainingwith seasoned officers and to assuming the patrol assignment on thestreet is preferred. A study of this kind enables researchers to assesscadets’ attitudinal and behavioral developments along differentphases of their career and better understand similar and distinctivesocial and cultural factors that might shape the formation of theirpropensities across countries.

Second, more attitudinal dimensions that are theoretically andpractically important should be considered in future research. Forexample, officers’ attitudes toward their fellow officers and super-visors as well as their perceptions of community policing are of greatinterest to researchers and police administrators. From an interna-tional comparative perspective, officers’ attitudes toward importantissues in policing, such as use of force and domestic violence, are alsoworthy of greater research efforts. Finally, a more comprehensivemodel of police occupational attitudes should include not only officerindividual characteristics but also organizational (e.g., departmentpolicies and regulations, management style, and agency size) andcommunity (e.g., neighborhood levels of socio-economic status andcrime rates) variables. While data that includes all these areas ofpredictors may not be easy to come by, research that contains thisinformation arguably generates better evidence in advancing theoriesof police attitudes.

The findings of this study render some implications for policy. TheU.S. police cadets appear to display the kind of attitudinal propensitiesthat are congruence with the key elements of community policing –

they did not overly favor aggressive patrol, acknowledged theimportance of order maintenance role of police, accepted the legalrestrictions imposed on their field actions, and showed modestresentful attitudes toward citizens. If all these are desirable propen-sities that the departments want their officers to possess, policeadministrators need to ensure all these preferred attitudes are


constantly reminded by police supervisors and installed into thecadets throughout academy, field, and on-the-job training.

Chinese police administrators face tough challenge in two areas –how to improve cadets’ attitudes toward legal restrictions andcitizens. The good news is that because cadets are still in a veryearly stage of their career, police administrators have enough timeand plenty of opportunities to effectively mold cadets’ attitudes intodesirable propensities. Police mangers should not view the areas astwo separate issues because the extent to which officers’ willingnessto accept legal restrictions is intricately related to the relationshipbetween the Chinese police and citizens. To achieve better police-community relations, cultivating a group of police officers who arewilling to work within the boundaries of the law is a first andimportant step. Themessage is clear for Chinese police administrators.The establishment of a professional and autonomous force thatrespects individuals’ rights and protects the interests of the generalpublic, rather than party leaders and wealthy businessmen, has thepriority on the reform agenda. Any policy and police reform thatdeviates from this simple idea would be futile.

Notes

1. Household registration serves as a powerful social control tool for the Chinesegovernment. The system, which is administered by the Chinese police, involvesregistration of permanent and temporary residents, entries and exits, and births anddeaths. Household registration shapes many aspects of people's lives in Chinesesociety. For example, without valid household registration, urban residents are notallowed to apply for jobs, school admission, marriage certificates, passports, and homeownership. In terms of social control and crime prevention, the system issupplemented by informal social networks (e.g., families, kinships, and neighborhoodsand workplace committees) and further strengthened by a personal identificationsystem implemented since the mid 1980s.

2. The high response rate for the Chinese sample may be due to several things. TheChinese survey was distributed to police cadets by a researcher who served as aprofessor at the police college. Cadets were encouraged to participate in the project bythe professor who explained the project and highlighted the voluntary andanonymous nature of the survey. The researcher's capacity as an instructor at thecollege, the cadets’ familiarity with and respect for their teacher, and the ample timegiven to the cadets to complete the survey may have promoted a high participationrate among the Chinese cadets.

3. To justify the use of ordered logit regression, the parallel assumption thatrequires the latent variable has the same standard deviation or interval was checked.No violation of such assumption was found.

4. Order-maintenance related activities are firmly embedded in the daily work ofChinese police because they have been historically empowered with a broad range ofsocial functions that are mainly related to order maintenance and service, rather thanlaw enforcement. Chinese police officers and cadets thus are more likely to view ordermaintenance activities as “routines” that do not require extra attention from them.

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Ivan Y. Sun is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justiceat the University of Delaware. His research interests include police attitudes andbehavior, social disorganization and crime, and crime and justice in Asian societies. Hisrecent publications have appeared in Justice Quarterly, Police Quarterly, and Policing: AnInternational Journal of Police Strategies and Management.

James J. Sobol is an Assistant Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at BuffaloState College. His research focuses on theoretical and empirical examinations of policedecision-making, police attitudes and police culture. His work on these subjects hasappeared in Criminal Justice Policy Review and Justice Quarterly.

Michael A. Cretacci is Assistant Professor with the Criminal Justice Department atBuffalo State College. His research interests include social and self-control theories,criminal procedure, and multicide. His most recent publication is his book, SupremeCourt Case Briefs in Criminal Procedure by Rowman & Littlefield. His most recent articleshave appeared in Criminal Justice Review and International Journal of Offender Therapyand Comparative Criminology.

Scott W. Phillips is Assistant Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at BuffaloState College. He worked as a police officer in Houston, Texas, and a Grant Advisor forthe COPS Office. His research interests include police decision making and his work hasbeen published in Journal of Criminal Justice and Criminal Justice Policy Review.



a comparison of chinese and the u.s. police cadets’ occupational attitudes

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