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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Media, Politics And Law Enforcement: How The Current Political Climate And Media Coverage Are Leading To Fewer Law Enforcement Officers In The Field, Allen Denver Denny Jr Mar 2024

Media, Politics And Law Enforcement: How The Current Political Climate And Media Coverage Are Leading To Fewer Law Enforcement Officers In The Field, Allen Denver Denny Jr

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory has been used extensively in the business field to explain job satisfaction of employees. This study applied Maslow’s theory to law enforcement by examining how the media and political rhetoric is impacting the support officers receive from the communities that they serve as well as the agencies that they work, and how this support is impacting the number of officers leaving the profession. The study sampled law enforcement officers located in western and central North Carolina and involved both large urban agencies and small rural agencies. The Professional Quality of Life (ProQoL) survey was used …


Gender Differences In Compassion Fatigue And Burnout Among Sheriff's Deputies, Charity Creech Feb 2024

Gender Differences In Compassion Fatigue And Burnout Among Sheriff's Deputies, Charity Creech

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Law enforcement has a long and sordid history with mental health. Recently researchers have begun to dissect the effect of professional and occupational stressors on LEOs. I focused on secondary constructs, compassion fatigue and burnout, that contribute to mental health concerns. Compassion fatigue (CF) and burnout (BO) have been studied most thoroughly in medical settings, but less so in law enforcement settings. While most researchers study law enforcement as a genderless mass, I hypothesized that there is a gender difference in burnout and compassion fatigue levels among Sheriff Deputies (SD). Research aimed to identify how gender differences can contribute to …


Servant Leadership: The Change Needed In Law Enforcement, Shane H. Shetler Feb 2024

Servant Leadership: The Change Needed In Law Enforcement, Shane H. Shetler

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Servant leadership is a moral-based form of leadership in which leaders place the well-being of followers before their own (Canavesi & Minelli, 2022). It is a theory that has gained increased notoriety over the past several decades. Despite this, there remains a limited amount of empirical research on it and its potential benefits. However, several professions have adopted it, and their results have been positive. Leadership change is needed in many professions, and law enforcement is no exception. The policing profession faces many challenges, such as recruiting quality candidates and retaining existing personnel. Furthermore, the challenges plaguing policing also exert …


A Quantitative Analysis Of Servant-Leadership Characteristics Among Those Called To Serve And Protect, Louden S.B. Suggs Dec 2023

A Quantitative Analysis Of Servant-Leadership Characteristics Among Those Called To Serve And Protect, Louden S.B. Suggs

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine if servant-leader characteristics were common among recruits enrolled in basic law enforcement training programs in North Carolina Community Colleges and the relationship between recruit commitment to preserving public safety and public order and the call or natural feeling to serve others. This study explored whether law enforcement recruits inherently possessed servant-leader characteristics defined by Greenleaf and Spears (1998, 2002) and described in Matthew and Mark. One hundred eleven law enforcement recruits, both men and women, from various demographic backgrounds actively enrolled in 22 North Carolina Community College System’s Basic Law …


The Utilization Of Employee Assistance Programs In Law Enforcement: Breaking The Stigma, Kristi Lynn Shalton Jul 2023

The Utilization Of Employee Assistance Programs In Law Enforcement: Breaking The Stigma, Kristi Lynn Shalton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this grounded theory study is to not only describe and understand what current resources exist for officers after experiencing a critical incident during the course of their job duties and responsibilities, but to also develop an understanding of their unique needs and how the stigma that often coincides with the desire to ask for assistance from such resources, affects officer mental health and wellness and ultimately, their ability to effectively and efficiently do their job. The theory guiding this study is grounded theory, a methodology first used in the 1960s by Glaser and Strauss, which incorporates interactionism …


Leadership In A Military Criminal Investigative Organization: Perceptions Of Authentic Leadership Among Special Agents, Precious Jeanbatiste Jul 2023

Leadership In A Military Criminal Investigative Organization: Perceptions Of Authentic Leadership Among Special Agents, Precious Jeanbatiste

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Genuine, effective leadership in law enforcement establishes the climate of the organization. Scholars have comprehensively explored the influence of different leadership styles in various criminal justice organizations from multiple facets; however, minimal information exists about how authentic leadership is perceived by special agents assigned to a military criminal investigative organization. This qualitative phenomenological study will provide an increased understanding of authentic leadership from the perspective of special agents assigned to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), the U.S. Army's primary criminal investigative organization, and the Department of Defense's (DoD) premier investigative organization. The researcher will use a qualitative research design to …


The Correlates Of Right-Wing Extremism, Michael Damian Tucker Dec 2022

The Correlates Of Right-Wing Extremism, Michael Damian Tucker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Research into the correlates of right-wing extremism has been focused on the group level, mainly ignoring the individual right-wing extremist behaviors, characteristics, and traits. Although group milieu strongly affects the ideology of individuals, personal decisions making often comes from a combination of unique experiences, cognitive abilities and biases, and differences in individual traits. This biographical study aimed to examine the life course events of twenty-five individual right-wing extremists identifying common biological and circumstantial correlates among and between the subjects. By analyzing the different correlates, this study created a matrix that identifies the correlates for significance. The results of the analysis …


Responding To Wounds Of The Soul: American Law Enforcement, Moral Injury And Religious Coping, Boston D. Ross May 2022

Responding To Wounds Of The Soul: American Law Enforcement, Moral Injury And Religious Coping, Boston D. Ross

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The concepts of moral injury and religious coping are inherently entwined, based on the common reaction of many to turn to religion when faced with stressors. Specifically, Koch (2010) suggests religion is a common means by which individuals, including police officers, may try and cope with their occupational stress. In consideration of the current focus on police mental health and wellness, examining the literature related to moral injury, religious coping and American law enforcement officers serves as a viable first step in conducting further research. Furthermore, based on the extremely limited body of literature on the aforementioned subject(s) independently, and …


Vicarious Trauma In Spouses/Intimate Partners Of Law Enforcement Officers And The Relationship Between Trauma And Relationship Functioning, Dortheen Richardson Dec 2021

Vicarious Trauma In Spouses/Intimate Partners Of Law Enforcement Officers And The Relationship Between Trauma And Relationship Functioning, Dortheen Richardson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The phenomenological study is to understand better the impact of vicarious trauma (VT) on the spouses/intimate partners of law enforcement officers (LEO)s in Alabama and allow researchers to attain a meaningful understanding of real-life events and the complexity of the social phenomenon. The goal is to highlight the inequity in the treatment of spouses/intimate partners of LEOs and develop protocols for mandatory reporting trauma. The theories guiding this study are constructivist self-development theory (CSDT), secondary trauma theory (STT), and family stress theory (FST). The participants were former/current spouses/intimate partners of LEOs who experienced trauma while in the line of duty. …