Abstract

Career aspirations, influences, and motives were compared for cohorts of criminal justice majors surveyed in 2014 (N = 204) and 2021 (N = 218). The first hypotheses held that there would be significantly fewer students interested in a career in law enforcement in 2021 than in 2014 because of recent events involving police use of excessive force against people of color. Contrary to this hypothesis, interest in a law enforcement career, particularly federal law enforcement, grew rather than shrank between 2014 and 2021. A second hypothesis predicted an increase in altruistic motives and a decrease in egotistic motives for a criminal justice career between 2014 and 2021. This hypothesis received partial support. A third hypothesis, this one testing whether law enforcement career aspirations and media influences on career choice in criminal justice majors decreased and teacher/professor influences increased as class standing (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior) increased, also received support.

摘要

比较了 2014 年（N  = 204）和 2021 年（N = 218)。第一个假设认为，由于最近发生的涉及警察对有色人种过度使用武力的事件，2021 年对执法职业感兴趣的学生将明显少于 2014 年。与该假设相反，2014 年至 2021 年期间，对执法事业，尤其是联邦执法部门的兴趣增加而非减少。第二个假设预测，在 2014 年至 2021 年期间，刑事司法职业的利他动机增加，自负动机减少. 这个假设得到了部分支持。第三个假设，该假设检验执法职业抱负和媒体对刑事司法专业职业选择的影响是否随着班级排名（大一、大二、大三和大四）的增加而减少，教师/教授的影响是否增加，