Examining the Effects of Agency Accreditation on PoliceOffic.docx

Examining the Effects of Agency Accreditation on Police
Officer Behavior
Richard R. Johnson
Published online: 11 December 2013
# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract The policy of accreditation of criminal justice
organizations has grown over
the last four decades. Some advocates for accreditation claim
that it facilitates organi-
zational change at all levels of the organization. To date,
however, little empirical
research has examined these claims, especially within criminal
justice agencies. While
accreditation leads agencies to adopt formal policies, the
previous literature on street-
level bureaucrat behavior would suggest rank-and-file
employees are unlikely to follow
these formal policies as intended. The Commission on
Accreditation for Law
Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) is the accrediting body for law
enforcement agencies
in North America, and part of the formal policies CALEA
accreditation requires regard
engagement in community oriented policing. The present study
examined whether
officers on CALEA accredited agencies differed from officers
with agencies not
seeking accreditation, with regard to their engagement in
community policing activities.

The findings revealed that agency accreditation was not
associated with the degree to
which officers engaged in community oriented policing
activities.
Keywords CALEA . Accreditation . Police . Management .
Supervision . Community
policing . Public policy. Organizational behavior
For decades, improving criminal justice agency professionalism
and quality has been a
focus of public policy (McCabe and Fajardo 2001; Paoline et al.
2006; Wilson 1989).
One way some agencies have sought to improve their
performance, and professional-
ism, is through accreditation. Accreditation is the process of an
agency voluntarily
submitting to a review of its practices from an external
professional organization. The
accreditation process includes the establishment of minimum
standards, policies, and
practices sanctioned by the reviewing professional organization,
with the expectation
these minimum standards “will ensure organizational change”
(Scott 1995: 33). Public
agencies that regularly seek professional accreditation include
hospitals and other
Public Organiz Rev (2015) 15:139–155
DOI 10.1007/s11115-013-0265-4
R. R. Johnson (*)
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Toledo, 2801 W.
Bancroft St., MS 119,
Toledo, OH 43606, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

health care organizations, colleges and universities, prison
systems, parks, fire depart-
ments, and police departments (Teodoro and Hughes 2012).
While the accreditation process focuses on the organization and
formal rules
established at the top of the hierarchy, it has been suggested
that accreditation actually
changes the behaviors of the front-line, street-level bureaucrats
these agencies employ
(Casile and Davis-Blake 2002; Holm 1995; Scott 1987). Others,
however, have noted
that the informal policies and practices carried out at the bottom
of public organizations
often differ from the official policies and practices established
by the top administrators
of the organization (Brehm and Gates 1997; Lipsky 1980;
Wilson 1989). The formal
policies and practices that accreditation requires agencies to
adopt are only effective in
changing the agency’s actual performance if they also affect
how low-level employees
perform their jobs.
Understanding how street-level bureaucrats within the criminal
justice system re-
spond to agency accreditation standards has both theoretical and
practical importance.
Theoretically, understanding front-line employee responses
helps scholars learn more
about how organizations are linked to their normative
environments, and the factors
that create these links. Practically, understanding employee

responses informs profes-
sional associations and policy makers about how changes in
formal policies, brought
about by accreditation, might diffuse across an organization. It
is surprising, then, that
Teodoro and Hughes (2012) recently noted a dearth of empirical
research on the effects
of agency accreditation on the attitudes and performance of
rank-and-file public
employees. This gap in the literature is troubling as
accreditation carries high costs in
public employee time and fiduciary expenses.
The present study examined if agency accreditation was
associated with front-line
employee behavior in the context of law enforcement
organizations. Specifically, it
examined the relationship between Commission on
Accreditation for Law Enforcement
Agencies (CALEA) accreditation and the work behaviors of
rank-and-file officers with
regard to community-oriented policing (COP). CALEA
standards promote community-
oriented policing activities, so if accreditation creates true
organizational change, street-
level officers on accredited agencies would be more likely to
engage in COP-related
activities, when compared to officers on agencies that are not
accredited.
Theoretical Foundation for Accreditation
Institutional environments can and do change in response to the
interests of organiza-
tional and individual actors (Casile and Davis-Blake 2002;
Holm 1995; Scott 1987).

Given that institutional environments change, it is important to
understand how, and if,
these changes affect the front-line employees of these
organizations. Studies of organi-
zational responses to normative changes, such as accreditation
or new government
regulations, have suggested that both technical and institutional
factors affect organiza-
tions’ responses as a whole (DiMaggio and Powell 1983;
Goodstein 1994). The impact of
accreditation on normative and behavioral changes in front-line
employees, however, has
been little studied. Principal-agent theories may best explain
responses to normative
changes within organizations (Brehm and Gates 1994, 1997;
Jensen and Meckling 1976).
Classic principal-agent models from economics, political
science, and organizational
psychology (Bianco and Bates 1990; Holmstrom 1982; Miller
1992) suggest that the
140 R.R. Johnson
principal (management) directs the agent (employees) to
perform specific tasks in a
specific way. The principal, however, often cannot know for
sure that the agent is
giving full effort to the task (moral hazard), or is competent at
the task (adverse
selection). To overcome these shortfalls, the principal often
attempts to supervise the
agent’s tasks (through direct observation or measurement of
outputs), offer incentives

for compliance, and screen agents at the hiring decision for
their attitudes and compe-
tencies (Jensen and Meckling 1976).
The work of Lipsky (1980) and Wilson (1989), however,
asserted that within
criminal justice organizations the principal’s ability to do these
things is severely
restrained. In police organizations (and many other public
organizations), due to limited
resources, divergent and ambiguous goals, and hostile and non-
voluntary clients, it is
difficult for street-level bureaucrats (agents) to carry out
policies as their principal
desires. Street-level bureaucrats may also fail to adopt the same
attitudes about policies
as their leaders (Lipsky 1980). As a result, Brehm and Gates
(1994), in their enhanced
principal-agent theory, have suggested that street level police
officer behaviors are
driven heavily by their own personal preferences, and the
expectations of their peers,
more so than the directives of the principal. The influence of
the principal on the agent’s
behavior is only as great as the principal’s ability to supervise
the agent’s work.
In policing, principals cannot easily monitor, reward, or punish
agents (Lipsky
1980). Because the agents realize that fiduciary and promotional
rewards are scarce
and (because of bureaucracy) only loosely coupled to
performance, agents seek non-
pecuniary rewards such as self-satisfaction in their work, or
peer approval (Brehm and
Gates 1994, 1997; Van Maanen 1983; Wilson 1989). Agents,

therefore, devote effort to
activities that bring these non-pecuniary rewards from self and
peers (such as things
that bring job satisfaction or praise from peers) to the extent
they are unsupervised.
When supervised by the principal, via paperwork, constituent
complaints, or direct
observation, the agents devote more effort to the activities
emphasized by the principal.
Often the activities valued by the agents, and peer preferences
may, or may not, be the
same as those emphasized by the principal (Brehm and Gates
1994).
Applied to accreditation standards, and their ability to affect
change at the lowest
levels of the organization, enhanced principal-agent theory
implies that changes in
front-line employee behavior will depend on three elements.
First is the extent that the
agent (front-line employee) personally embraces the new
standards. Second, the extent
the agent’s peers embrace the new standards. Third, the extent
the principal can monitor
the agent’s compliance with the new standards (Brehm and
Gates 1994). As these three
circumstances may vary widely across occupations and
organizations, perhaps this
explains the inconsistent findings on the effects of accreditation
on individual public
employee behaviors.
Public Agency Accreditation and Employee Change
While there is a great deal of general literature on accreditation
within public agencies,

very little empirical research exists that has evaluated the
effects of this accreditation on
employee behavior. For example, Greenfield and Braithwaite
(2008) examined over
3,000 books and articles on accreditation within the healthcare
field, finding only 66
studies that empirically evaluated the effects of accreditation on
any agency or
Accreditation and Police Officer Behavior 141
employee outcomes. Even these few studies produced
inconsistent results, depending
on the outcome measures used. Accreditation within healthcare
agencies produced
equivocal findings with regard to changing employee attitudes
and various quality
measures (Greenfield and Braithwaite 2008). Other studies
found accredited hospitals
were indistinguishable from unaccredited hospitals with regard
to patient safety (Miller
et al. 2005) and patient satisfaction (Sack et al. 2010).
In higher education, a review by Brittingham (2009) argued
there is no evidence that
university accreditation standards changed how faculty members
taught in classrooms.
Smith et al. (2010) monitored information technology managers
in government agen-
cies for compliance with accreditation standards regarding
information systems security
procedures. They found that these procedures were routinely
violated due to lack of
resources, lack of senior management input, and lack of

employee commitment to the
procedures. No differences in employee security practices were
found between
accredited and unaccredited government agencies (Smith et al.
2010).
In the field of criminal justice, Loughran (1998) found that the
implementation of
American Correctional Association (ACA) accreditation
standards on prisons had no
impact on the rehabilitation of criminal offenders. Among jail
staff, Paoline et al.
(2006) determined that ACA accreditation was associated with
small decreases in
employee stress, and increases in job satisfaction. Peer cohesion
among the employees,
however, explained much more variance in jail employee job
stress and satisfaction
than did agency accreditation (Paoline et al. 2006).
Studies of accreditation in policing have also been few, and
have produced incon-
sistent results. Using macro-level agency data, Alpert and
MacDonald (2001) examined
police use of force and found that Commission on Accreditation
for Law Enforcement
Agencies (CALEA) accreditation had no effect on the frequency
of police use of force
incidents. Likewise, Doerner and Doerner (2012) examined 260
law enforcement
agencies in Florida and found that CALEA accreditation had no
influence on agency
clearance rates for violent or property crime offenses. At the
micro-level, Teodoro and
Hughes (2012) studied officer attitudes toward community
policing in a sample of

agencies and found no association between CALEA
accreditation and officer work
attitudes.
Mastrofski et al. (2007), on the other hand, surveyed police
executives and found
that, in the opinions of these executives, CALEA accreditation
increased agency
success in implementing COP. The perceptions of top leaders in
the organization,
however, lacked empirical evidence of actual attitude or
behavior changes among
rank-and-file officers. Gingerich and Russell (2006) sampled a
number of police
agencies in the state of Washington, surveying only one officer
per department about
their receptivity to community oriented policing strategies.
They revealed that officers
from accredited agencies were significantly more receptive to
community oriented
policing than were officers on non-accredited agencies. Relying
on only one officer
respondent per agency, hand-picked by the chief, raises serious
validity concerns as the
sample cannot be considered representative of the typical street
officer.
These inconsistent results demonstrate a need for further
research into the potential
effectiveness of accreditation to change organizational
operations down to the lowest
level employee. The growth of accreditation in public agencies
generally, and the
growth of CALEA accreditation specifically, has occurred in the
absence of consistent
evidence of its effectiveness at creating true, lasting change that

permeates all levels of
142 R.R. Johnson
the organization. This has led some to even question its value.
Sykes (1994) claimed
that CALEA accreditation failed to change accredited agencies
in any significant way,
and Mastrofski (1998) argued that it offered merely a semblance
of change with little
actual change in the daily practices of officers. Furthermore,
Doerner and Doerner
(2009) suggested that accreditation is only a symbolic exercise
aimed at appeasing the
public and embellishing the credentials of ambitious police
executives.
Community Oriented Policing and Accreditation
Community-oriented policing (COP) is a model of policing,
developed in the early
1980s, that emphasizes collaboration between the police and the
public to identify and
address problems of crime and disorder at the neighborhood
level (Trojanowicz and
Bucqueroux 1990). Cordner (2005) has suggested that COP is
defined by several
principles. The first principle is that the police organization is,
at all levels, open to
citizen input. The second principle is that the operations of the
police organization
change to focus on the needs of specific geographic regions, and
to emphasize crime
prevention rather than a reactive response to crime. This, again,

should occur at all
levels of the organization. The third principle is that the tactical
operations of the front-
line members of the organization should emphasize partnerships
with citizens and
collaboration on solving neighborhood problems. Finally,
change in the organizational
structure must occur so rank-and-file officers are empowered to
develop tactics and
procedures to prevent crime and improve police-citizen
relations (Cordner 2005).
Since the early 1980s, police departments across the U.S. have
slowly adopted the
COP model (Morabito 2010). Early on, many police agencies
adopted COP in name
only, without achieving the organization-wide change COP
requires (Chappell 2009;
Trojanowicz and Bucqueroux 1990). Today, however, some
police agencies have fully
adopted all of the principles of COP, experiencing the
significant organizational change
COP requires (Morabito 2010). Yet many law enforcement
agencies still lack full
implementation of COP strategies (He et al. 2005; Morabito
2010). Some police
executives attribute the CALEA accreditation process with the
full adoption of COP
(Mastrofski et al. 2007).
Section 45 of the CALEA standards manual, one of the
mandatory standards,
addresses COP (CALEA 2006, 45-1). It calls for addressing
community perceptions
of crime, organizing crime prevention groups in residential and
business areas, and

requiring officers to build grass roots’ community support and
cooperative efforts for
resolving community issues (CALEA 2006, 45-2 and 45-3). The
standards in section
45 promote COP by clearly explaining how an agency ought to
engage its community.
If accreditation creates change at all levels of the organization,
then one would expect
even rank-and-file officers to be engaged in these efforts on a
routine basis. Brehm and
Gates (1994) enhanced principle-agent theory would argue,
conversely, that this would
only occur to the extent these rank-and-file employees are
personally supportive of
COP, their peers show support for COP, and they are supervised
while doing their work.
The present study sought to test the influence of CALEA
accreditation on increasing
COP activities among rank-and-file officers. Using a sample of
patrol officers
employed by a variety of municipal law enforcement agencies,
the study examined
the influence of individual officer preferences, peer preferences,
and CALEA
accreditation as predictors of the degree to which the officers
engaged in COP activities
in their daily work.
Method

The present study used data previously gathered by Haarr
(2003) for her longitudinal
analysis of the evolution of police officer attitudes.1 Haarr
surveyed a sample of officers
when they began their training at a regional police academy in
Arizona, at the end of
their academy training, at the end of their field-training period,
and after they had
successfully completed their probationary year on their
respective departments. Only
this final wave of data was used as, in this wave, all of the
respondents were police
officers with a year or more of experience on the street. These
data contained survey
items that specifically measured many of the variables of
interest in the study, and
survey items that could be fashioned into appropriate proxy
measures of the remaining
variables of interest. While not recent data, these data were
collected long after the most
recent changes in policing in America, specifically the
unionization of police forces,
and the adoption of community and problem-oriented policing
strategies (Langworthy
and Travis 2003).
Sample
The sample consisted of 292 patrol officer respondents
employed by 11 different law
enforcement agencies around the Phoenix metro area. All of
these officers were
surveyed after successfully completing one full year of
employment as a patrol officer
on their respective agencies. Consistent with national statistics
on police officer

demographics (Hickman and Reaves 2006), the sample of
officers was overwhelmingly
male (90 %) and mostly White (81 %). Forty-two percent of the
officers held a
baccalaureate degree and 52 % were married. Although all of
these officers had only
been employed with their current agency for just over 1 year,
many came to their
present department with years of previous police experience.
The number of years of
police experience within the sample ranged from one to
fourteen, with a mean of
2.87 years. Therefore, the sample of officers was more
experienced than one would
originally think.
These officers also represented 11 distinct law enforcement
agencies. These agencies
were the city police departments of Avondale, Chandler,
Gilbert, Glendale, Peoria,
Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, and Yuma, the Maricopa County
Sheriff Department, and
the Colorado River Tribal Police. These agencies ranged in size
from 2,600 sworn
officers on the Phoenix Police Department, to 49 sworn officers
on the Avondale Police
Department. Fifty-nine percent of the sample (172 officers) was
employed by the
Phoenix Police Department, while the department with the least
representation in the
sample was the Yuma Police Department, with only three
officer respondents.
1 Data for this study was obtained from: Haarrr, Robin N.,
Impact of Community Policing Training and
Program Implementation on Police Personnel in Arizona, 1995–

1998 [Computer file]. ICPSR version.
Phoenix, AZ: Arizona State University West [producer], 2001.
Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium
of Political and Social Research [distributor], 2003.
144 R.R. Johnson
Measures
The dependent variable was a measure of each officer’s degree
of involvement in COP-
related activities. An index was created by summing officer
responses to five survey
questions. Each question asked the officer to estimate how many
hours in a given week
he or she engaged in a specific activity commonly associated
with COP (Trojanowicz
and Bucqueroux 1990). These five activities were foot patrol,
attending public meetings
about community problems, talking with citizens one-on-one
about community prob-
lems, contacting other city agencies about a community
problem, and talking to
business owners or managers about community problems. The
officer responses to
each question were recorded on a five-point scale ranging from
“none” to “1–5 h,” “6–
10 h,” “11–20 h,” and “more than 20 h.” The responses to these
five survey questions
were standardized (through the calculation of Z-scores) and
summed to create the index
indicated the degree of time the officers spent on activities
mandated by Section 45 of
the CALEA standards. The higher the numeric value of the

dependent variable, the
more the officer engaged in the activities mandated by Section
45. The reliability of
these measures was calculated with a Chronbach’s Alpha score
of .8420, indicating the
five survey items tapped a similar construct.
Because the data used in this study were hierarchical in nature,
with officer
respondents nested within different law enforcement agencies,
the exogenous variables
will be described by their level within the hierarchical analysis.
Officer-level Variables
The primary officer-level variables of interest in light of Brehm
and Gates (1994, 1997)
enhanced principal-agent theory, were the individual officer’s
attitude toward COP, and
the attitudes toward COP held by the officer’s peers. Brehm and
Gates (1994, 1997)
theory suggested that these attitudes would strongly influence
which work activities
rank-and-file public employees prioritized. Officer attitude
toward COP was measured
with an index composed of nine survey items. Each of these
nine questions asked the
officers to indicate their opinion about how much agency
resources should be com-
mitted to a specific activity associated with COP. These nine
COP activities were: foot
patrol, bike patrol, marketing police services to the public,
getting to know juveniles,
understanding the problems of minority groups, explaining
crime prevention tech-
niques to citizens, researching and solving neighborhood

problems, coordinating with
other agencies to improve neighborhood quality of life, and
working with citizen
groups to resolve local problems. The officer responses to each
question were recorded
on a four-point scale ranging from “none” to “a large amount.”
These nine items were
standardized and summed to create an index with a Chronbach’s
alpha score of .8298.
Officer’s perceptions of peer attitudes toward COP were also
measured with a nine-
item index. Each of these nine questions asked the respondent to
indicate the degree to
which their work peers believed a certain COP activity was
important. These nine
COP activities were the same as those used for the individual
officer attitude described
in the paragraph above. The officer responses to each question
were recorded on a
four-point scale ranging from “unimportant” to “very
important.” These nine survey
items were standardized and summed, creating an index with a
Chronbach’s alpha
score of .8378.
Traditional principal-agent theory (Jensen and Meckling 1976),
and Brehm and
Gates (1994, 1997) variation, both suggest that employee
compliance with the princi-
pal’s directives depend on the principal’s ability to supervise
the agents. A measure of

perceived supervisor feedback was created by combining the
responses to two survey
questions: “My supervisors let me know how well I am doing on
the job,” and “My
supervisors often let me know how well I am performing.” The
officer responses to
each question were recorded on a five-point scale ranging from
“strongly disagree” to
“strongly agree.” The responses to these two questions were
standardized and summed
to create an index with a Chronbach’s alpha score of .8523.
Additional officer-level variables were also included in order to
control for influ-
ences that may have a confounding affect on individual officer
involvement in COP
activities. The first of these was organizational commitment. It
could be argued that
organizational change would be easier among employees with
high levels of organi-
zational commitment than with officers possessing low levels of
commitment.
Following the precedent of Haarr (2003) and Johnson’s (2012)
earlier use of these
data, four survey items were used to create a simple measure of
global organizational
commitment. These survey questions were:
“From my experience, I feel our management generally treats
their employees
quite well.”
“The law enforcement agency I am employed by is one of the
best in the
country.”

“The law enforcement agency I am employed by is open to
suggestions for
change.”
“I have confidence in my command staff.”
The responses to these questions were recorded on a five-point
scale ranging from
“strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” These responses were
standardized and
summed to create an index with an alpha value of .8416.
Finally, basic officer demographic characteristics, such as
officer race, sex, educa-
tion, and years of experience were added, as individuals likely
vary in ways that affect
their attitudes and behavior toward COP. Some studies have
found female officers to be
more receptive of COP than were male officers (Dejong et al.
2001; Engel and Worden
2003). It could also be assumed that more experienced officers
are set in their ways and
less likely to be receptive to the changes COP requires. Police
experience was
originally measured in total years of police service, but this
produced a very slewed
distribution. The respondents ranged from one to fourteen years
of police service,
however the mean was two years and the median was only one
year. To allow its use in
a linear model, the years of experience variable was
transformed into its natural log.
Some research suggested that African-American and Hispanic
officers are more
receptive to COP strategies than have whites (Kratcoski and

Noonan 1995). Race,
therefore, was measured with two dichotomous variables
(African American and
Hispanic), with all other racial groups serving as the reference
group. College educated
officers may be more liberal in their beliefs, and therefore more
receptive to COP
strategies. Education was measured dichotomously as whether
or not the respondent
possessed a baccalaureate degree.
146 R.R. Johnson
Agency-level Variables
The 292 respondent officers were nested within 11 different law
enforcement agencies,
each with its own separate influences on employees. Two
independent variables were
created at the agency level to capture agency differences
relevant to CALEA accred-
itation, and one more was created to control for sample size
differences across agencies.
The most important influence at the agency level in this study
was the CALEA
accreditation status of the agency. A dichotomous variable was
created to measure if
the agency had earned CALEA accreditation before 1996, when
the final wave of
officer-level data collection took place. CALEA’s website lists
the agencies that it has
granted accreditation, and the year the agency first obtained
accreditation. Using this

website as a data source, agencies holding CALEA accreditation
prior to 1996 were
coded with a one for accreditation, and agencies lacking
accreditation were coded
with a zero.
It was possible that some of the agencies in the sample had not
yet been awarded
accreditation by 1996, but in the process or earning
accreditation at that time. Agencies
working toward accreditation would thus have been making
organizational changes
similar to those agencies already accredited. These agencies
may have already
conformed to the CALEA standards regarding COP, but not
been awarded their
accreditation as of yet. To control for this possibility, a second
dichotomous variable
was created to measure whether the agency was actively
involved in applying for
accreditation. The CALEA accreditation process takes
approximately 3 years to com-
plete and revolves around an agency self-assessment process
(Teodoro and Hughes
2012), so agencies that were not accredited before 1996, but
were accredited before
1999, were considered involved in the self-assessment process.
Furthermore, once an
agency receives CALEA accreditation, it is reviewed every 3
years in order to maintain
that accreditation, which again involves a detailed agency self-
assessment (Teodoro and
Hughes 2012). Agencies in the sample were coded as one for
being in the accreditation
process if they received CALEA accreditation after 1995, but
before 1999, and because

of the constant self-assessment process to maintain
accreditation, agencies accredited
before 1996 were also coded one on this self-assessment
variable.
To clarify, agencies that were not CALEA accredited, and were
not in the process of
pursuing accreditation at the time of the officer-level data
collection, were coded as
zero for both dummy variables (accreditation and self-
assessment). Agencies that were
seeking CALEA accreditation, but were not yet accredited,
received a zero for
accredited, but a one for self-assessment. Agencies that held
CALEA accreditation at
the time of the survey received a one for accredited, and a one
for self-assessment
because of their effort to seek re-accreditation. Coding
accredited agencies in this way
isolated the effects of accreditation itself from the process of
seeking accreditation.
Finally, an agency-level control variable was included to
control for any effects the
variation in sample sizes by agency may cause. This variable
was a measure of the
number of officer-level respondents in the survey for each
agency. The number of
respondents ranged from three respondents to 172, with a mean
number of 26.55
respondents and a standard deviation of 48.85. These values
suggested that the
distribution of this variable was highly skewed. To allow its use
in a linear model,
therefore, its natural log was calculated and the logged version
of the variable was used

in the analysis.
Procedure
First, descriptive statistics were calculated and examined for the
variables in the study.
Second, tests for multicollinearity were conducted. Third, two-
level hierarchical linear
models were estimated using the officer-level and agency-level
variables to predict the
degree each officer reported engaging in COP activities. Three
models were estimated,
with the first using the accreditation dummy variable. The
second used the self-
assessment dummy variable, and the third used both dummy
variables.
Analysis
Diagnostics
Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics for the variables in
the analyses. The sample
of officers was 90 % male, 10 % Hispanic, and 3 % African
American. Forty-two
percent of the officers possessed a baccalaureate degree. At the
agency level, 27 % of
the 11 law enforcement agencies were accredited at the time of
the officer surveys, and
45 % were in the process of self-assessment for accreditation or
re-accreditation. Of the
five agencies involved in self-assessment, three were already

accredited and two were
in the process of seeking accreditation. The remaining six law
enforcement agencies in
the study were not accredited, nor were they seeking
accreditation at the time these data
were collected.
Table 1 Sample descriptive statistics
Variable Minimum Maximum Mean Standard deviation
Dependent variable
COP activities index −5.83 10.66 0.00 3.16
Independent variables
Officer-level variables (N=292)
COP attitude index −22.16 15.52 0.00 6.27
Peer COP attitudes index −17.37 17.58 0.00 5.86
Supervisor feedback index −6.61 2.86 0.00 1.86
Organizational commitment index −11.92 6.11 0.00 3.29
African American officer 0.00 1.00 0.03 0.18
Hispanic officer 0.00 1.00 0.10 0.30
Male officer 0.00 1.00 0.90 0.30
Baccalaureate degree 0.00 1.00 0.42 0.50
Logged police experience 0.00 2.64 0.32 0.66
Agency-level variables (N=11)
Accredited 0.00 1.00 0.27 0.47

Self-study 0.00 1.00 0.45 0.52
Logged number of respondents 0.00 3.00 1.83 0.89
148 R.R. Johnson
A Shapiro-Wilk’s test for normality was conducted for the
dependent variable and
every continuous measurement independent variable, all of
which reached statistical
significance at the .05 level. This suggested that these variables
were fairly-normally
distributed around their respective means (Shapiro and Wilk
1965), indicating they
would be suitable for use in linear regression models. The
independent variables were
then examined for potential multicollinearity. Correlation
matrices were produced for
the officer-level variables and the agency-level variables (not
shown here), and exam-
ined to determine if any of the independent variables were
highly correlated (Pearson’s
r>.5) with another. At the officer-level, none of the independent
variables displayed a
strong correlation with another independent variable. Variance
inflation factors (VIF)
were also calculated for the officer level variables, none of
which approached the
conventional threshold of 5.0. The VIF values only ranged from
1.02 to 1.33, further
confirming a lack of multicollinearity among the Level-1,
independent variables.
At Level-2, the agency level, however, the correlation matrix

did reveal that the
accreditation variable and the self-assessment variable were
strongly correlated with
one another (Pearson’s r=−.685, p=.02). This is not surprising
since all of the
accredited agencies were also engaged in a self-assessment, and
agencies not engaged
in self-assessment were not accredited. To account for this
multicollinearity, separate
HLM models were estimated, one using the accreditation
variable and the other using
the self-assessment variable.
Mutivariate models
Hierarchical, linear regression models were estimated to
determine the predictive
influence the independent variables had on the dependent
variable—the degree to
which each respondent spent time on COP-related activities.
Table 2 reveals the
regression coefficients, standard errors, and statistical
significance levels of the inde-
pendent variables in each of these models.
Model 1 in Table 2 reflects a two-level, hierarchical, linear
regression model
including both officer-level and agency-level variables. Model 1
included the dummy
variable for accredited agencies, which demonstrates the
differences in officer COP-
related activities between agencies with and without
accreditation. Model 1 revealed
that CALEA accreditation had no statistically significant
influence (using the conven-
tional threshold of p<.05) on the degree the officer spent time

on COP-related
activities. A few officer-level variable, however, were
statistically significant predictors
of engagement in COP activities. The higher the respondent
officer’s level of organi-
zational commitment, regardless of whether the organization
was accredited, the more
likely the officer was to engage in COP-related activities. The
more the officer
perceived that his or her peers supported COP, the more the
officer engaged in COP-
related activities. The more police experience the officer
possessed, the more the officer
engaged in COP-related activities. Finally, male officers were
less likely than females to
engage in COP-related activities.
The variables in Model 1 that lacked statistical significance at
the p<.05 level were
also of relevance. The most notable non-significant finding was
the individual respon-
dent’s own level of support for COP. One would think that
officers who were
supportive of COP would engage in more COP-related
activities. Nevertheless, this
was not the case if the respondent’s peers were not supportive
of COP. The
respondents’ own personal preferences were, apparently,
subservient to the preferences
of their work peers. This adherence to peer preferences was also
stronger than the

influence of supervisor feedback, which also failed to reach
statistical significance.
Finally, officer race, officer education level, and number of
respondents per agency,
also all lacked statistical significance.
The second model exchanged the accreditation dummy variable
for the self-
assessment dummy variable, which included both agencies
seeking accreditation for
the first time and currently accredited agencies. This model
explored whether agencies
going through the accreditation application process may have
already transformed their
organizational environment as to be similar to agencies already
accredited. Model 2
revealed, however, that this measure also had no statistically
significant influence on the
amount of time officers engaged in COP-related activities. All
of the other variables in
Model 2 remained the same as in Model 1 with regard to
statistical significance. Officer
engagement in COP activities was determined by the
respondents’ peers’ support for
COP, the respondents’ own level of organizational commitment,
the officer’s sex, and
the officer’s experience. Accreditation, or application for
accreditation, failed to have
any statistically significant influence on officer COP-related
activities.
Despite the possible influence of multicollinearity, a third
model was estimated using
both the accreditation and self-assessment variables. This
Model appears in Table 2 as
Model 3 and, again, neither of these agency-level variables

proved to be statistically
significant predictors of officer engagement in COP-related
activities. In this final
model, the same predictors maintained their statistical
significance as was the case in
Models 1 and 2. The results of the model estimations were
stable across all three models.
Table 2 Hierarchical linear models
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Coefficient
(S.E.)
p Coefficient
(S.E.)
p Coefficient
(S.E.)
p
Officer-level variables (N=292)
COP attitude index 0.02 (0.03) .51 0.02 (0.03) .50 0.02 (0.03)
.52
Peer COP attitudes index 0.08 (0.03) .01 0.08 (0.03) .02 0.08
(0.03) .01
Supervisor feedback index −0.05 (0.10) .66 −0.05 (0.11) .64
−0.04 (0.11) .66
Organizational commitment index 0.13 (0.06) .03 0.13 (0.06)
.03 0.13 (0.06) .03

African American officer 1.50 (0.96) .12 1.47 (0.96) .13 1.51
(0.96) .12
Hispanic officer 0.25 (0.58) .44 0.27 (0.58) .64 0.26 (0.58) .66
Male officer −1.02 (0.58) .08 −1.04 (0.58) .07 −1.01 (0.58) .08
Baccalaureate degree 0.20 (0.38) .59 0.19 (0.38) .61 0.19 (0.38)
.62
Logged police experience 0.72 (0.27) .01 0.71 (0.27) .01 0.72
(0.28) .01
Agency-level variables (N=11)
Accredited 1.79 (1.62) .20 – – 1.96 (1.79) .31
Self-assessment – – 0.78 (0.96) .44 −0.15 (1.28) .27
Logged respondents 1.08 (0.64) .13 −0.59 (0.51) .29 1.10 (0.70)
.16
(Intercept) −1.23 (1.62) 0.47 −0.14 (1.37) 0.92 −1.24 (1.71) .49
150 R.R. Johnson
As with all studies, this analysis had limitations. First, it
involved secondary
analyses of data collected for another purpose. One artifact of
this was that the length
of tenure of the officers involved was truncated. While some of
the officers surveyed
had as much as 14 years of experience as a police officer, the
vast majority had less than
2 years of total police experience, and all had served with their
current employing
agency for not much more than a year. This must be considered

when generalizing the
findings to other officers, or even these officers later in their
careers.
Second, only agencies from one metropolitan area were
included in the sample, and
some of these agencies policed smaller communities.
Consequently, the sample size in
this study is relatively small for a 2-level hierarchical analysis.
This limitation is common
in policing research conducted within a limited number of
agencies (see Engel and
Worden 2003). Future research should seek replication of these
findings across a larger
sample of law enforcement agencies of varying size and regions
across the country.
Discussion
The present study served to help fill the gap in the literature
regarding the effects of
accreditation on the ability to create true organizational change
within criminal justice
agencies. Although this was only one study, with its limitations,
it continued to suggest
that CALEA accreditation does not change the organizational
practices of rank-and-file
officers. Recall that, among the empirically sound studies to
date, Alpert and
MacDonald (2001) found CALEA accreditation had no
measurable influence on officer
use of force, and Teodoro and Hughes (2012) found CALEA
accreditation had no
influence on officer attitudes toward COP. The present study
joins these two previous
works in suggesting that CALEA accreditation has little

influence on the work behav-
iors of the lowest level employees, thus failing to create true
organization-wide change.
It was previously suggested within this article that Brehm and
Gates (1994, 1997)
enhanced principal agent theory would predict compliance with
CALEA standards by
the lowest level employees would be based heavily on their own
preferences, the
expectations of peers, and the ability of management to monitor
their behavior. The
findings here only partially supported these assertions. While
peer preferences for COP
predicted the respondents’ level of COP-related activities, the
respondents’ personal
preferences for COP activities, and the degree of performance
feedback they received
from their supervisors, both failed to produce statistically
significant, predictive rela-
tionships. Bearing in mind that this sample was composed of
officers who had just
completed their first year of employment on their department
(regardless of how much
prior police experience they possessed), perhaps these “rookie”
officers were more
likely to set aside their own work preferences in order to build
bonds with their peer
officers. Perchance the respondents’ own preferences for COP
activities would have
had a more significant impact if the officers had the self-
confidence and autonomy that
comes with greater tenure within the organization.
The suggestion that CALEA accreditation does not change the
day-to-day activities

of rank-and-file police officers poses two policy-related
questions. The first would be, of
what use is accreditation? In other words, does accreditation
serve some other purpose?
There are several potential answers to this question. First, in the
eyes of the police, self-
governance through a professional association, like CALEA, is
preferable to regulation
by external groups (Walker and Katz 2008). Second,
accreditation forces the law
enforcement agency to establish standards and practices at the
top of the organization.
While these are only minimum standards, and CALEA gives
agencies much latitude in
how organizational policies are written, having such policies
helps create some unifor-
mity across agencies (Skogan and Frydl 2004). It ensures that
certain procedures are
formalized in writing, such as the use of force and the handling
of citizen complaints
(Walker 2001; Walker and Katz 2008). The formalization of
policies, and the self-
assessment process, may also improve record keeping (Walker
and Katz 2008).
Third, accreditation may help law enforcement organizations
reduce risk of civil
liability. The formalization of procedures, and mandated
training, are often cited as risk
avoidance strategies for all organizations (Archbold 2004).
Establishing written limi-

tations on the use of force, engagement in vehicle pursuits, and
the conduct of cavity
searches, may not prevent individual officers from violating
these restrictions, but it
will make it easier for the organization to successfully
discipline this misconduct, or
distance itself from the officer in civil suits. While the
organization may not be able to
avoid all vicarious liability for the officer’s actions, as long as
reasonable attempts were
made to supervise the officer, the agency will likely avoid any
charges of reckless
negligence (Archbold 2004). In fact, one study suggested that
CALEA accredited
agencies experienced 16 % fewer legal liability claims per
officer, and, when payouts
are required, the monetary amount of accredited agencies’
payouts are approximately
70 % lower than those of non-accredited agencies (Marino
1998).
Fourth, accreditation appears to serve the purpose of appeasing
the public. Most
public agencies do not produce a quantifiable output (Lipsky
1980; Wilson 1989), and
police organizations are no exception. Law enforcement
agencies, therefore, seek ways
to demonstrate their competence and professionalism
(Mastrofski 1998), and attaining
accreditation is one measurable output that can be shown to the
citizenry and local
political leaders as a mark of professionalism or distinction
(Doerner and Doerner 2009;
Mastrofski 1998; Sykes 1994). In fact, this stamp of
professionalism in the eyes of the
public also appears to apply to the leaders of accredited

agencies. Teodoro (2009) found
that achieving, or maintaining, CALEA accreditation was a
significant resume booster
for police executives interested in moving on to become the
police executive of another
agency. Committees charged with selecting new police
executives highly favored
candidates with prior CALEA accreditation experience, and
police executives seeking
to move up sought to win accreditation for their present agency,
so that they would be
more marketable later (Teodoro 2009).
The second policy related question the present study raises is, if
accreditation does
not change officer behavior, what can? How can real change be
accomplished at every
level of the organization? Obviously, this question is not easily
answered as thousands
of books and articles have been written on the topic, many with
contradictory argu-
ments. The police organizational literature, however, does offer
some basic suggestions
to address this question. First, as was seen in the findings of the
present study, winning
over the “hearts and minds” of the rank-and-file employees is
important to any
organization-wide change. In the present study, the respondents
engaged in more
COP-related activities when they perceived their peers were
doing so as well. Brehm
and Gates (1993, 1997) found the same regarding officers’ time
spent on traffic patrol
and paperwork. Winning “buy-in” for any changes from a
majority of the rank-and-file
employees would appear to be necessary for employee

compliance.
152 R.R. Johnson
Expectancy motivation theory (Vroom 1964) has also been
shown to successfully
structure the elements needed to guide officer work behaviors.
Employees at all levels
of the organization need to know exactly what is expected of
them in their work. They
need to have the capability to perform their expected tasks, in
the form of the talents
they bring to the job and the training they have received. They
need to be given the
opportunity to perform their tasks, suggesting the need for
realistic performance
expectations based on their specific work environments. Finally,
they need to have
rewards they value, and these rewards need to be clearly
contingent on acceptable
performance (Vroom 1964).
All of these elements are very difficult to achieve in most
public agencies due to
their vague and contradictory goals, lack of a measurable work
product, difficulty in
observing employees doing their work, and great latitude of
low-level employees to
exercise discretion (Lipsky 1980; Wilson 1989). Nevertheless,
when the elements of
expectancy theory can be achieved (or at least approximated),
they have been found to
determine the degree to which patrol officers engage in traffic
and drunken driver

enforcement (Mastrofski et al. 1994; Johnson 2006), drug
enforcement (Johnson
2009a, b), domestic violence enforcement (Johnson 2010), and
community problem
solving (Dejong et al. 2001).
In conclusion, while accreditation of law enforcement agencies
may offer some
benefits for the agency, there is a lack of evidence that
accreditation creates any change
in the day-to-day work activities of patrol officers. Claims that
accreditation creates
organization-wide change (Gingerich and Russell 2006;
Mastrofski et al. 2007) lack
empirical support. To date, no empirical evidence exists to
support the suggestion that
CALEA accreditation influences officer work behaviors.
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Richard R. Johnson is an associate professor of criminal justice
at the University of Toledo in Ohio. A former
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supervision and management of patrol officers.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further
reproduction prohibited without
permission.
c.11115_2013_Article_265.pdfExamining the Effects of Agency
Accreditation on Police Officer BehaviorAbstractTheoretical
Foundation for AccreditationPublic Agency Accreditation and
Employee ChangeCommunity Oriented Policing and
AccreditationMethodSampleMeasuresOfficer-level
VariablesAgency-level
VariablesProcedureAnalysisDiagnosticsMutivariate
modelsDiscussionReferences

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