Attrition of Police Officers With Immigrant Background

• Author: Silje Bringsrud Fekjær,Andreea Ioana Alecu
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10986111211053844
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Police Quarterly

2022, Vol. 25(4) 535–560

© The Author(s) 2021

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10986111211053844

journals.sagepub.com/home/pqx

Attrition of Police Off‌icers

With Immigrant Background

Silje Bringsrud Fekjær

1

, and Andreea Ioana Alecu

2



Abstract

Recruiting police off‌icers with immigrant backgrounds has a limited effect if many of

these recruits leave the police service. The dropout and attrition rates among off‌icers

with immigrant backgrounds are also an important indicator of the challenges this

group faces when joining the police profession. We investigated police education

dropout patterns and attrition rates among police students and off‌icers with immigrant

backgrounds. Our study is based on detailed longitudinal data with total coverage of the

population, which were previously unavailable for police career studies. Using logistic

regression and coarsened exact matching, we analysed administrative registry data

covering all individuals admitted to the Norwegianpolice university college (1995–2010,

N= 6570) and allpolice-educated staff employedin the Norwegian police (1995–2014, N

= 7001). Students and police off‌icers with non-Western immigrant backgrounds have a

greater tendency to both dropout of education and leave the police service. Prior

academic performance can only partly explain these higher educational dropout rates.

Female and males with non-Western immigrant backgrounds have similar dropout

patterns. Our results provide a rationale for developing policy aimed at not only

recruiting, but also retaining police off‌icers with immigrant backgrounds.

Keywords

police off‌icers, immigrant backgrounds, ethnicity, diversity, dropout, attrition

1

Centre for the Study of Professions, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway

2

Consumption Research Norway and Centre for the Study of Professions, Oslo Metropolitan University,

Oslo, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Andreea Ioana Alecu, Centre for the Study of Professions, Oslo Metropolitan University, St. Olavs plass,

Oslo N-0130, Norway.

Email: Andreea-Ioana.Alecu@oslomet

Introduction

During recent decades, considerable effort has been invested in recruiting police of-

f‌icers with diverse backgrounds (Donohue, 2021). Increasing the proportion of off‌icers

with immigrant backgrounds is expected to improve the low levels of trust in the police

among minority groups, which will be an advantage for policing a diverse community

and increase internal job satisfaction (Alderden et al., 2017). Minority police off‌icers

are also expected to be more open to non-traditional policing styles, for example,

community-oriented policing and problem-oriented policing (Black & Kari, 2010).

These effects of recruiting minority off‌icers are not automatic. Increased diversity

among sworn off‌icers has been reported not to affect either job satisfaction or per-

ceptions of fair treatment among off‌icers (Alderden et al., 2017). Further, minority

recruits seem to have the same motivations for joining the police as their colleagues

with a majority background (Raganella & White, 2004), while white female off‌icers

may be even more able to assess the policing needs of diverse communities (Black &

Kari, 2010). However, several positive effects have been reported, including decreased

police misconduct and public complaints (Hong, 2017), increased ability to interact

with diverse cultural groups (Black & Kari, 2010) and improved perceptions of fairness

among agencies with more diverse leadership (Alderden et al., 2017). Police brutality

and violence when encountering minority groups is a contentious topic in the United

States (US) as well as several European countries. Hence, recruiting police off‌icers with

the ability to police diverse communities is particularly relevant.

Regardless, recruiting more off‌icers with immigrant backgrounds

1

will have a

limited effect if many dropout of police education or soon exit the profession. Hence,

investigating whether police off‌icers with immigrant backgrounds tend to leave the

police service more often is important. Previous research suggests that considering

academic performance and gender may nuance and broaden our understanding of

dropout and attrition patterns (Nevers, 2019;Todak & Brown, 2019). Thus, the topic of

this paper is the careers of police off‌icers with immigrant backgrounds, which we

addressed with three research questions: First, do police recruits with immigrant

backgrounds dropout from police education and/or leave the profession more often?

Second, to what extent can differences in dropout and attrition be explained by ac-

ademic performance? Third, does the association between immigration background and

dropout/attrition differ between female and male recruits?

To answer these questions, we employed a novel approach in police research by

using administrative registers with individual-level data. These data cover all indi-

viduals admitted to the Norwegian Police University College (NPUC) between 1995–

2010 or who were employed by the Norwegian police between 1995 and 2014. Until

now, studies of police career trajectories have mostly been based on surveys and/or

qualitative research methods (Chan & Doran, 2009;Haarr, 2005;Prenzler et al., 2010;

Rabe-Hemp, 2008). Our data are advantageous because they provide total coverage of

the population and avoid non-response problems. The relatively long study period

allows us to track careers over time in detail (including returns to the police). Nordic

536 Police Quarterly 25(4)