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Abstract
Aim: Both domestic and foreign literature focuses on the possibilities of making law enforcement careers attractive to young people, career motivation, increasing retention and reducing turnover (see e.g. Wilson & Grammich, 2009; Christián & Erdős, 2020). Recruitment and retention are therefore topical issues, and continuous in-depth research will help to understand attitudes towards career choice and motivation. As law enforcement sectors are transforming (problem-solving, strategic thinking, community-based policing), expectations of the future police officer are changing (Scrivner, 2006), but to tackle the problems that are prominent in our society - organised crime, terrorism, migration crisis - also require stronger policing responses (Kerezsi, 2020), and therefore higher education in law enforcement needs to respond to a variety of customer needs, with students choosing law enforcement careers for a variety of reasons and motivations. The aim of this research is to understand the main motivations and ideas behind the choice of a career in policing.
Methodology: In this paper we present the results of our questionnaire survey among students (N=168) enrolled full-time at the Faculty of Law Enforcement of the National University of Public Service in the academic year 2023-24.
Findings: The motivation of people choosing a career in law enforcement has been the subject of numerous surveys around the world. The basic scale of motives is provided by the work of Lester (1983), who organized it into 3 main clusters: pay and security (1), service (2), and power and status (3) (Lester, 1983). This work is drawn upon by a number of other studies on career choice (see e.g. Wu et al., 2009; Elntib & Milincic, 2021). All of these are well understood in our domestic study. In our research, we also sought to understand how candidates view police careers, what are the dominant motives behind their career choices, and to what extent these motives shape their perceptions of the profession and their identity as a professional.
Value: By monitoring the input base of police officer recruits, we can draw trend-like conclusions about career choice motivation and thus formulate new directions for recruitment. The career choice motives of Lester and other researchers can be found in our sample, and by understanding these motives we can gain a more complete picture of the potential for keeping police officers in the profession.
References
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