Evaluation of the New York City Police Cadet Corps, 1986-1989 (ICPSR 9980)
Version Date: Jan 12, 2006 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Antony Pate, The Police Foundation;
Edwin E. Hamilton, The Police Foundation
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09980.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
The purpose of this study was to examine whether the Police Cadet Corps program in New York City had achieved its goal of improving the police force through additional training of applicants with higher education. The evaluation of the program was designed to answer questions such as (1) How was the program recruitment implemented, and with what success? (2) What were the role-related perceptions and attitudes of the cadets and how did they differ, if at all, among different types of cadets and from those of the members of the latest recruit class? (3) How, if at all, did the program experience affect the cadets' perceptions and attitudes? and (4) How did the attitudes and perceptions of cadets compare to non-cadet recruits with and without some college education in the same academy class? Four cohorts of cadets were asked to complete several different questionnaires throughout the course of the program, which culminated in graduation from the police academy. Two sets of non-cadet recruits from the academy were also included in the research. Major variables in the data collection detail reasons for entry into the police department, opinions regarding police, and perceptions and attitudes toward the police cadet program. Some questionnaires also provided information on demographic characteristics of the cadets (race, sex, marital status, military service and branch, highest level of education, family income, and year of birth). The unit of observation is the New York City police cadet.
Citation View help for Citation
Export Citation:
Funding View help for Funding
Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
-
Some numbers in Figure 1 of the codebook (i.e., cadets first hired) are different from the report filed with NIJ. There is a sharp drop from the number of surveys given at the beginning of the cadet program to those given at the end, or upon exit from the academy. Data for several groups (Parts 4 and 18, Parts 5 and 19, and Parts 10, 14, and 20) were combined into single files without complete directions on how to separate them. Splitting these files sometimes resulted in a different number than was given in Figure 1. Also, there are duplicate ID numbers in eight datasets (Parts 4, 6, 7, 10, 17, 18-20).
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine whether the Police Cadet Corps program in New York City had achieved its goal of improving the police force through additional training of applicants with higher education. The New York City Police Cadet Corps was established as an innovative recruitment program designed to attract college students into careers as police officers through a monetary incentive which included an interest-free loan and monies for work performed. The five major objectives for the program were to (1) increase the educational level of the department, (2) test a more rigorous selection process for recruits, (3) increase the representativeness of the uniformed force, (4) increase the orientation toward community policing, and (5) improve leadership skills of new officers. The Police Foundation conducted this study to evaluate how well the program was implemented during its initial stages and the extent to which, during that period, it achieved its goals. The evaluation of the program was designed to answer questions such as (1) How was the program recruitment implemented, and with what success? (2) What were the role-related perceptions and attitudes of the cadets and how did they differ, if at all, among different types of cadets and from those of the members of the latest recruit class? (3) How, if at all, did the program experience affect the cadets' perceptions and attitudes? and (4) How did the attitudes and perceptions of cadets compare to non-cadet recruits with and without some college education in the same academy class?
Study Design View help for Study Design
The New York City Police Cadet Corps Program began with a special enlistment campaign at colleges and universities in New York City. The program consisted of ten phases that cadets completed: (1) meet entrance criteria, (2) participate in the Summer Program during the summer after their sophomore year, (3) participate in an eight-week Community Patrol Office Program (Stage One) after a two-week training and orientation period, (4) receive training during their junior year consisting of part-time work in precinct assignments and special training, (5) participate in a ten-week Community Patrol Officer Program (Stage Two) between their junior and senior years, (6) receive training during their senior year, (7) pass the police entrance exam, (8) graduate from college, (9) be promoted to police officer, (10) graduate from the police academy. Beginning in the summer of 1986 and continuing through to the end of 1989, various survey instruments were administered to cadets upon their entry into the Police Cadet Corps program, after their first summer, at the end of the program, at their entry into the police academy, and at their exit from the academy. The study did not cover the academy entry and exit for the 1988 cohort, nor did the 1987B cohort complete a first summer survey. For comparison purposes, 1988 non-cadet recruits in the police academy were given surveys at their entry and exit from the academy in 1988. Only an entry survey was administered to the 1989 non-cadet recruits.
Universe View help for Universe
All New York City police cadets from 1986-1988.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
self-enumerated questionnaires
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Questionnaires covered topics such as factors that led to respondents' joining of the cadets, family attitudes toward joining, future police career plans, previous jobs, number of hours and earnings in that job, and college financial assistance or aid. In addition, opinions of the cadets were solicited on a wide range of police-related activities and responsibilities, on the importance of factors that could be used as indicators of a "good" police officer, and on the amount of effort a police officer should spend on various activities. Cadets who had experienced police duty were queried on items such as the amount of time spent on different tasks, how useful they felt those assignments were, the usefulness of their police work experience, and their impression of the Community Patrol Officer Program. Also asked were questions on how the Community Patrol program had affected cadets' attitudes toward the Cadet Corps program and their possible police careers and future plans. The questionnaires also inquired about cadets' opinions on a variety of police cadet preparatory courses and instructors, and how they felt the required exercises affected their experience as police cadets.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
All cadets within the program were required to respond to the questionnaire.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
Several scales similar to Likert types were used in the survey instrument.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
1995-10-30
Version History View help for Version History
- Pate, Antony, and Edwin E. Hamilton. Evaluation of the New York City Police Cadet Corps, 1986-1989. ICPSR09980-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1994. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09980.v1
2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 21 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.
2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 42 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.
2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.
1995-10-30 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.