A career in criminal justice is usually very demanding. According to Hagan, Roman & Nollkaemper (1997), police officers have one of the most demanding jobs in criminal justice given that they put their lives at risk to ensure that law and order is maintained in a community Job satisfaction is one of the major motivators in any given job. It is factual that employees that are satisfied with their jobs perform better than those that are dissatisfied with their jobs. Consequently, job satisfaction has a major effect on the performance of the police officers as they go about their work. Many attempts have been made over the years to determine the factors that contribute to a police officer’s job satisfaction. A number of issues such as organization culture have been found to have an effect on a police officer’s job satisfaction (Hagan, Roman & Nollkaemper, 1997). This research aims examine the various factors that affect the overall job satisfaction of police officers. In order to produce the most accurate and reliable results, the research will employ both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
The goal/purpose of this study is to determine the various factors that affect the job satisfaction of police officers. A huge body of literature and scientific evidence has shown that job satisfaction has a huge effect on job performance and overall performance of the organization. It has been found out that employees who are dissatisfied perform poorly at their jobs while those who are motivated perform better. Job satisfaction is one of the motivators in work and hence an employee with job satisfaction would be motivated to work and perform better. Police officers need to be motivated so as to perform better at their jobs of maintaining law and order. A satisfied police officer will do his or her to the best of their ability since s/he is motivated. A dissatisfied police officer, on the other hand, will perform poorly and this will negatively affect himself or herself, the police department in which they work and the community they serve. Conditions such as poor working conditions, insufficient pay, biased promotion system and insecure working environment are some of the many conditions that may affect a police officer’s job satisfaction. The police department’s organization culture can also have a heavy weight in the job satisfaction of a police officer (Hagan, Roman & Nollkaemper, 1997). When police officers see that their input is appreciated and their decisions are supported, they tend to be contented with their job and this will lead to a better performance. The variables that will be analyzed in this research include organization culture, societal support and education.
The type of interview structure that will be employed in this research study is a structured interview. The interview will be carried out on a sample of police officers who will be representative of the target population. The structured interview questions will be administered to the study participants and their responses recorded. By employing a structured interview, it would be possible to replicate them among the participants and hence being able to ensure the reliability of the interview questions and that of the study (Neuman & Wiegand, 2000). Also, a structured interview is fairly easy to conduct and thus many respondents can be reached in a short period of time. As such, the study will be able to reach a large number of respondents hence ensuring that the study sample is representative of the target population. With a large sample, the study results could be generalized to the wider police force. With structured interview questions, the respondents can easily understand the questions and give accurate and reliable answers. Structured interview questions are also short and precise to the point and thus ensuring that the respondents are not bored or deviate from the topic of discussion. The survey questions will also be administered anonymously to ensure that the responses of the study participants are as honest and accurate as possible (Neuman & Wiegand, 2000). The interview questions will cover on the various factors that affect the job satisfaction of the police officers.
Given that this study will employ interviews as the methods of data collection, the questions to be asked are the most important and have to conclusively cover the research topic. The interview questions will range between twelve and fifteen and would be short enough to ensure that the respondents’ interest is not lost. The interview questions will mainly focus on the variable of the study which includes education levels of the police officer, organization culture and societal support. The interview questions will cover some introductory information into some of the activities that the police officers cover on a daily basis. These questions will lead the respondents to provide information that will provide an insight on what the job entails and also information that will provide a foundation for the follow-up questions. Next, the researcher will explore the likes and dislikes that the police officers have about their jobs and the various reasons behind those likes and dislikes. Moreover, the researcher will explore the various skills that are necessary in order to become an effective police officer and the conditions needed to be able to serve the community to the best of their abilities. The interview questions will also seek to explore the various hazards that the police officers are exposed to in their daily activities and how they affect their job performance. Given that education is one of the variables, it will also be important to know the education levels of the police officers so as to know how the education level correlates to job satisfaction. Questions will also focus on organization culture and will cover aspects such compensation, job conditions, training and development and job security among others. It will also be important to explore whether the community supports their work, appreciates them and offer information that would be important in their work. All questions asked will be used to assess the level of job satisfaction the police officers have and the importance of job satisfaction on job performance.
As outlined above, the data gathering strategy is a qualitative data collection strategy. A qualitative data gathering strategy has a number of advantages that make it more suitable than the quantitative data collection strategies. One of the main advantages of a qualitative data collection strategy is the fact that it produces more in-depth quality information (Neuman & Wiegand, 2000). As compared to the quantitative approaches which are limited, the qualitative approach ensures that the information being sought is explained further to give a clearer understanding of the issue. Qualitative approaches give absolute data hence enabling researchers to analyze the issue of interest from various viewpoints (Neuman & Wiegand, 2000). The qualitative data gathering strategies give a holistic view of the phenomena that is being investigated as compared to the quantitative approaches that give one-sided information. The qualitative data collection strategies play a vital role in the evaluation of impacts by providing information that is useful in the understanding the processes behind the results observed and assessment of the change in people’s perception about their well-being. In-depth information also assures reliability of the results as compared to the quantitative approaches that can provide unreliable information due to limited data. Another great advantage of the qualitative approaches to data gathering is the fact that the researchers are able to interact directly with the research subjects in the language they understand best and in their own terms (Neuman & Wiegand, 2000). It is a more flexible data collection strategy as compared to the quantitative approaches which tend to be rigid. By employing a qualitative approach in this research, data obtained would be able to paint a clearer picture on the factors affecting a police officer’s job satisfaction and how important job satisfaction is in the performance of a police officer.
In conducting a survey research, it is very important to provide informed consent and ensure confidentiality of the information provided by the study participants. For a researcher to ensure that they get true and accurate results from the respondents, it is important for them to assure the study subjects that their responses and information they provide will be used for purposes of the research only and in no means or way can the information they provided be used to incriminate them or any other reasons apart from research ((Hagan, Roman & Nollkaemper, 1997; Kraska & Neuman, 2011). The use of human subjects in criminal justice research has presented a number of ethical concerns for researchers as they are in control over information that only the respondents may know. A researcher is charged with the responsibility of protecting information provided by using it for the purposes of research alone. For a researcher to legitimately obtain consent, he or she must provide the study subjects with the explanation of the process of data collection and further explain the risks involved and the expected benefits among other issues and inform them that they free to withdraw from the study at will (Kraska & Neuman, 2011). The research subjects must voluntarily accept participation in the study and should not be forced in any way. Deception, coercion and duress should not be employed in recruiting study participants. Criminal justice research requires the study participants to disclose information that may be relevant to criminal activities, some of which may not be known by the legal authorities. As such, researchers are ethically obligated to guard this information so that it may not be used in legal proceedings. It is argued that no person, regardless of the career they are in, should incriminate themselves for the purposes of a research study and hence the need of informed consent and confidentiality of the information provided (Kraska & Neuman, 2011). Research ethics state that researchers must provide informed consents and ensure confidentiality of the information provided by the respondents.
References
Hagan, F., Roman, C. & Nollkaemper, A (1997). Research methods in criminal justice and criminology. New York : Macmillan ; London : Collier Macmillan Publishers.
Kraska, P. & Neuman, L (2011). Criminal justice and Criminology research methods. Prentice Hall.
Neuman, W & Wiegand, B (2000). Criminal justice research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Internet Resource.
