Alan F. Arcuri

Moonlighting by Police Officers: A Way of Life:

Although roughly 6.9% of men hold second jobs (Miller, 1972 ), some 39% of police officers moonlight (Miller, at al., 1973). Grant ( 1977) found that police officers who moonlighted were less satisfied with their jobs than those who did not. To explore moonlighting by police officers in the 1980s, 25 detectives and 75 troopers in the state police (mean age 35.1 yr., SD = 13.0) were given an anonymous questionnaire on moonlighting. Of these 100 men 96% moonlighted, and only four of these worked in security-related jobs. They worked a mean of 21.4 hr. at the second job (SD = 25.3). The main reasons given for moonlighting were ( in order of ranked importance) to meet regular n~onthly expenses, to pay off debts, to save for the fucure, because they enjoyed different types of work, and to gain experience for a future job. Of these 100 men 35% said that moonlighting affected their family sirnation negatively, but 18% said it improved matters and 46% said it had no effect. Seventy-six percent said that noonl lighting had no effect on their morale as police officers (and 13% said it improved their morale), and 79% said that it did not adversely affect their ability to perform as law enforcement officers. Also, 62% of the men would choose law enforcement again as a career. It appears that moonlighting has become a way of life for these police officers.

Moonlighting and stress in police officers

In a recent study we found that a high percentage of police officers work at second jobs (Arcuri, Gunn, & Lester, 1987). In a sample of 100 men, 96 moonlighted for an average of 21.4 hr. per week. The present study investigated whether moonlighting by police officers was associated with higher levels of stress. All of the police officers from two other small departments (n = 36) were asked about moonlighting and administered a stress scale of 22 items (Langner, 1962). The mean age of the men was 34.9 yr. (SD: 8.1). Of these, 28 moonlighted for an average of 10.1 hr. per week (SD: 8.3). The mean stress score on Langners scale for d 36 men was 40.7 (SD: 7.6). The eight police officers who did not moonlight did not differ from those who did on mean stress scores (t,, = 0.64). For those police officers who moonlighted, however, the hours worked at other jobs was positively associated with their stress scores (Pearson r = 0.45, one-tailed p < .025). (Incidentally, the ages of the officers was not correlated either with stress scores or with the number of hours worked.) The present results indicate that the number of hours worked at other jobs is positively associated with subjective feelings of stress in police officers; however, the present data do not allow a choice to be made among the cause-and-effect possibilities in this association.

Criminal Justice: A Police Perspective

Police have great latitude in the way they combat or fight crime. A policemans discretion in vigorously enforcing certain laws while ignoring others may be colored by what, if anything, happens to the persons he arrests. Moreover, police attitudes toward lawyers and judges may reveal why there is a disparity between law enforcement expectations and practices. The purpose of this brief study was twofold: to look at police views toward lawyers, judges, and local justice and to see if these attitudes affected theirjobs as policemen.

Locus of Control in Elderly Women Who Have Worked and Those Who Have Not

It was noted in a pilot study that elderly men and women who had worked had similar scores on Rotters (1966) scale to measure a belief in an external locus of control, scores lower than those of women who had been only housewives. To replicate this finding, students in a class on gerontology were each told to find elderly people living in the general community (rather than in homes or retirement communities) and administer a questionnaire containing Rotters locus of control scale, together with questions on age, sex, and work and retirement history. Subjects had a mean age of 72.5 yr. (range 65 to 99 yr.), with a mean length of retirement of 8.6 yr. (range 0 to 32). Thirty-six housewives, 65 years old or more, who had worked full time until at least age 50 yr., were compared with 73 males who had similar age and work characteristics. All had a high school education or less. The two groups did not df fer significantly in their belief in an external locus of control (Ms = 10.2 and 10.4, SDs = 4.0 and 4.7; t = 0.14, df = 107). In contrast, the 34 housewives who had never worked had a significantly stronger belief in an external locus of control than the housewives who had worked (Ms = 12.5 and 10.2, SDs = 4.3 and 4.0; t = 2.27, df = 68, one-railed p < 0.025). Incidentally, age, highest grade completed, and years of retirement did not have any consistent relationship with belief in an external locus of control in any of the three groups, though older men did have slightly lower scores on Rotcers scale (Pearson 7 = -0.25, df = 70, rwo-tailed p < 0.05). These results confirmed those of the pilot study. Housewives who have worked during their lives appear to have lower scores on a scale to measure a belief in an external locus of control than housewives who have never worked. It may be that experience of employment facilitates development of feelings of an internal locus of control.

PERSONALITY CORRELATES OF POLICE DISCRETION TO ENFORCE TRAFFIC LAWS

Police officers have a great deal of discretion in deciding whether to enforce certain laws in the community. For example, an officer may merely warn a motorist who disobeys traffic regulations or he may give him a ticket. It has been suggested (Lester & Genz, in press) that police officers may differ in the motives which affect their choice of law enforcement as a career and that these different kinds of police officers may differ in personality (especially on the set of needs described by Henry Murray). For example, some police officers are motivated by the service aspects of the job, others by the law-andorder aspects. This paper attempts to explore whether the personality of the police officer is related to his behavior on che job. Twenty-seven white male officers (M age = 32.6 yr., SD = 6.9) from two municipal police departments were given the Adjective Check List (Gough & Heilbrun, 1965), which measures Murrays need strengths, and asked about their enforcement of traffic regulations. Of the men 13 saw themselves as strict enforcers while 14 did not. The strict enforcers reported giving significantly more tickets than the other men (an average of 7.6 per week versus 1.2) but not significantly more warnings (an average of 11.3 per week versus 9.5 > . The self-perceptions of the officers as strict enforcers were not related to scores on any of the 24 scales of the Adjective Check List. The median correlation coefficient was 0.14, and the largest was 0.33. Correlations between Adjective Check List scores and actual number of tickets given were also nonsignificant. Thus, the present research did not identify a personality correlate of the strictness with which a police officer enforced traffic regulations.