Abstract

This study examines the effects of attitudes toward the police and punitive ideology on Hispanic criminal justice majors’ interest in law enforcement careers. To date, relatively few studies of the occupational interests of students majoring in criminal justice have been conducted and most have focused on the impact of demographic characteristics on career goals among predominantly White samples of criminal justice majors. Few scholars have questioned whether the attitudes and beliefs of criminal justice majors influence their occupational aspirations or investigated the career objectives of racial/ethnic minority criminal justice majors. This study addresses these gaps in the extant literature via an analysis of survey data collected from students attending a Hispanic-Serving Institution. A structural equation model of the data indicates the students’ age, gender, attitudes toward the police, contact with the police, and punitiveness are significantly correlated with interest in a career in law enforcement. The policy implications are discussed.

摘要

本研究考察了对警察的态度和惩罚性意识形态对西班牙裔刑事司法专业学生对执法职业兴趣的影响。迄今为止，关于刑事司法专业学生职业兴趣的研究相对较少，大多数研究集中在人口特征对刑事司法专业主要白人样本中职业目标的影响。很少有学者质疑刑事司法专业学生的态度和信仰是否会影响他们的职业抱负或调查种族/少数民族刑事司法专业学生的职业目标。本研究通过分析从就读于西班牙裔服务机构的学生收集的调查数据来解决现有文献中的这些空白。数据的结构方程模型表明，学生的年龄、性别、对警察的态度、与警察的接触和惩罚与对执法职业的兴趣显着相关。讨论了政策含义。