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Police Quarterly
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Wilson Redux

Another Look at Varieties of Police Behavior

John Liederbach

Bowling Green State University, jlieder{at}bgsu.edu

Lawrence F. Travis, III

University of Cincinnati

Since the publication of Varieties of Police Behavior more than four decades ago, Wilson's theory concerning the link between local political culture and police styles has had a significant and enduring impact on police scholarship. However, there have been surprisingly few empirical tests of Wilson's assertions, and of those limited number of studies, only a small number provide even partial support for the model. The current study provides a test of Wilson's theory using a unique measure of police style derived from observational data rather than official arrest/citation statistics. Perhaps more important, we discuss our findings within the context of previous research that has failed to support Wilson's theory and present a critical assessment of the requirements of a valid test of this theory. We argue that Wilson's model retains an intuitive appeal to those interested in explaining the relationship between local community context and police behavior.

Key Words: James Q. Wilson • varieties of police behavior • police styles • police and community variation • systematic social observation

This version was published on December 1, 2008

Police Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 4, 447-467 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1098611108314567
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