Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:46:57.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Patterns of Promotion

The St. Louis Police Department, 1899–1975

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Eugene J. Watts
Eugene J. Watts*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Throughout the early decades of this century, reformers bemoaned the unsystematic nature of police management, reserving particular criticism for the influence of nonbureaucratic and nonmeritocratic matters on promotions. Their advocacy of greater routinization and regularity, cloaked in the rhetoric of professionalism, eventually won acceptance in formal police administration. Few proponents of change, however, measured the consequences of their efforts upon the actual careers of officers (Fosdick, 1972; Vollmer, 1972; Smith, 1940; Wilson and McLaren, 1950; Price, 1977).

Type
Research Note
Information
Social Science History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Spring 1982 , pp. 233 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cohen, B. and Chaiken, J. M. (1973) Police Background Characteristics and Performance. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.Google Scholar
Dalton, M. (1951) “Informal factors in career achievement.” Amer. J. of Sociology: 407–415.Google Scholar
Fogelson, R. M. (1977) Big-City Police. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. PressGoogle Scholar
Fosdick, R. (1972) American Police Systems. Montclair, NJ: Patterson SmithGoogle Scholar
Glaser, B. (1965) Organizational Scientists. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Klecka, W. (1975) “Discriminant analysis,” pp. 436–467 in Nie, N. H., Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Maniha, J. K. (1970) “The mobility of elites in a bureaucratizing organization: the St. Louis police department, 1861–1961.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
McNamara, J. H. (1967) “Uncertainties in police work: the relevance of police recruits’ background and training,” pp. 163–252 in Bordua, D. J. (ed.) The Police: Six Sociological Essays. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Parsons, T. (1951) The Social System. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Google Scholar
Price, B. R. (1977) Police Professionalism. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.Google Scholar
Reiss, A. J. (1966) “Reflections on police bureaucracies in modern societies.” Presented at the Sixth World Congress of Sociology.Google Scholar
Segal, D. and Willick, D. H. (1968) “The reinforcement of traditional career patterns in agencies under stress.” Public Administration Rev. 28 (January-February): 30–38.Google Scholar
SLPD (1976) Annual Report. St. Louis, MO: St. Louis Police Department.Google Scholar
Smith, B. (1940) Police Systems in the United States. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Vollmer, A. (1972) The Police and Modern Society. Montclair, NJ: Patterson Smith.Google Scholar
Walker, S. (1977) A Critical History of Police Reform. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath.Google Scholar
Watts, E. J. (1981a) “Black and blue: Afro-American police officers in twentieth-century St. Louis.” J. of Urban History 7 (February): 131–168.Google Scholar
Watts, E. J. (1981b) “St. Louis police recruits in the twentieth century.” Criminology 19 (May): 77–113.Google Scholar
Watts, E. J. (1979a) “Education and recruitment, career padis, and perceptions of the St. Louis police, 1899–1970,” pp.19–40 in Conley, J. (ed.) Theory and Research in Criminal Justice: Current Perspectives. Cincinnati: Anderson.Google Scholar
Watts, E. J. (1979b) “Prior occupations and police careers in St. Louis, 1899–1970.” South Atlantic Urban Studies 4 (Summer): 198–233.Google Scholar
Weber, M. (1947) Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, J. Q.(1964) “Generational and ethnic differences among career police officers.” Amer. J. of Sociology 79 (March).Google Scholar
Wilson, O. W. and McLaren, R. (1950) Police Administration. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar