Community Oriented Policing and POLICE Value: The Values of College Students Pursing a Police Career

Community-oriented policing(COP) has become a major approach in U.S. contemporary policing. Community relations and problem solving are main elements of COP. In this study, the author attempted to identify prefera-ble values in the era of COP and examine the values of college students pursuing a police occupation as a future career. The examination of value differences across gender and race and the impact of value orientations on college students’ job desirability were also interests in this study. With 200 college students in New York City, the findings provided crucial implications to understand value orientations of U.S. police officers. Police applicants, compared to those pursuing other occupations, tend to be male college students majoring in criminal justice who devalue the importance of “equality” and “wisdom.” The value orientations of these police applicants do not adequately hold preferable values in the era of COP. However, females and minorities tend to have more prefer-able values than males and whites.