Summary
The objective of this research is to examine police officer attitudes concerning their communities and their policing roles and how these attitudes relate to community policing. More specifically, this thesis explores the attitudes of experienced police officers who were trained and socialized to perform in the traditional model of policing and are now expected to perform new roles under the new community policing philosophy. Do these officers possess the required attitudes to conduct community policing or is re-training and re-socialization needed? Police officer occupational socialization is reviewed and discussed from the pre-entry career decision to become a police officer through to their field training as probationary officers. The attitudes of 150 RCMP officers across the province of Nova Scotia are examined using a closed-ended questionnaire with most variables measured on a Likert scale.The questionnaire measures six different attitudinal indicators related to policing; three indicators are associated with 'traditional policing' (crime control orientation, orientation towards the use of force and orientation towards police solidarity) and three are related to 'community policing' (service orientation, orientation toward community cooperation and orientation toward community support). The findings for the research indicate that the sample has a moderately low to low orientation towards all three indicators of traditional policing (crime control orientation, orientation toward force and orientation towards police solidarity). These findings indicate that the sample has an attitude that is more consistent with the goals and methods of community policing than those of traditional policing. In the same vein, the sample has a moderately high to high service orientation, a high orientation towards community cooperation and a moderately high to high orientation towards community support. These findings indicate that officers are oriented favourably towards the indicators of community policing. Hence, the findings for this sample suggest that officers do possess the required attitudes to conduct community policing while at the same time remaining somewhat committed to the qualities of the traditional style of policing.