Examining law enforcement officer job satisfaction and burnout through the lens of empowerment theory

This exploratory cross-sectional study examined the organizational factors that influence law enforcement officers’ perception of job stress and perception of job satisfaction. The extant literature is replete with the finding that organizational factors (job context) rather than the aspects of providing police service (job content) cause law enforcement officers the largest amount of stress and job dissatisfaction. However, the literature also shows that the exact organizational factors that wield these deleterious effects are enigmatic. This situation is further confounded by the lack of a guiding and encompassing theoretical construct through which the myriad of organizational influences and consequences may be identified and measured. It was postulated that empowerment theory might provide this theoretical lens as it has been successfully employed as such in similar private sector research. This construct was operationalized a priori as consisting of seven sub-constructs, with the initial research questions and hypotheses framed accordingly. Subsequently, a unidimensional construct of department support, conceptually based on organizational support theory, emerged as the dominant construct through which the research questions were pursued. An AMOS structural equation model analysis of the relationship between the one-factor construct of department support, officer job satisfaction and burnout (emotional exhaustion) revealed a good fitting model where χ 2 (103, N = 487) = 227.15, p \u3c .001, CFI = .963, RMSEA = .050, 90% CI [ .015 - .059]. All parameters (regression pathways) and variance values were statistically significant at p \u3c .001. Department support had a significant positive effect on job satisfaction and accounted for 35% of the variance (R2 = .35, β = .59, p \u3c .001), and, a significant negative effect on burnout, accounting for a variance of 14% (R2 = .14, β = -.38, p \u3c .001). The findings of this study suggest that organizational support theory may be an excellent lens through which to examine the antecedents and consequences of the law enforcement organizational environment. However, these results are extremely tentative as more research in this area is needed to confirm the findings here, and, to clearly define the constructs of organizational support and empowerment as they exist and function in law enforcement organizations

Sidebar- Programming Commercial Robots

P. 125-132Manual systems require the user/programmer to directly enter the desired behaviour of the robot, usually using a graphical or text-based programming language, as shown in Fig. 1. Text-based systems are either controller-specific languages, generic procedural languages, or behavioural languages, which typically differ by the flexibility and method of expression of the system. Graphical languages [BKS02, BI01] use a graph, flow-chart or diagram based graphical interface to programming, sacrificing some flexibility and expressiveness for ease of use. The user/programmer has little or no direct control over the robot code in an automatic programming system, which may acquire the program by learning, programming by demonstration (PbD), or by instruction, as indicated in Fig. 2. Often automatic systems are used “online,” with a running robot, although a simulation can also be used. In this sidebar we will focus on the characteristics of commercial programming environments. Simple robots can be programmed directly using their own operating systems. More sophisticated robots include SDKs to simplify the programming of their robots. Mobile robots programming environments vs. industrial manipulators are also presente

Aftermath of an Officer Involved Shooting: Formal Education, Continuing Education, and Responsibility

This is a policy review presentation that shows there are areas for improvement and recommendations to implement in the professional and academic sides of law enforcement using the lens of a current officer involved shooting that generated a lot of publicity. The recommendations would require a partnership between formal education providers, continuing education providers and practitioners

Evaluation of a non-visual auditory choropleth and travel map viewer

Presented at the 27th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD 2022) 24-27 June 2022, Virtual conference.The auditory virtual reality interface of Audiom, a web-based map viewer, was evaluated by thirteen blind participants. In Audiom, the user is an avatar that navigates, using the arrow keys, through geographic data, as if they are playing a first-person, egocentric game. The research questions were: What will make blind users want to use Audiom maps? And Can participants demonstrate basic acquisition of spatial knowledge after viewing an auditory map? A dynamic choropleth map of state-level US COVID-19 data, and a detailed OpenStreetMap powered travel map, were evaluated. All participants agreed they wanted more maps of all kinds, in particular county-level COVID data, and they would use Audiom once some bugs were fixed and their few recommended features were added. Everyone wanted to see Audiom embedded in their existing travel and mapping applications. All participants were able to answer a question evaluating spatial knowledge. Participants also agreed this spatial information was not available in existing applications

Managing multifunctional landscapes: local insights from a Pacific Island Country context

Across Pacific Island Countries, projects and policies are incorporating objectives related to managing landscape multifunctionality to sustain flows of multiple, valued ecosystem services. Strategies to manage natural resources are often not effective, or do not have intended outcomes, if they do not account for local contexts and the varied needs and constraints of stakeholders who rely upon natural resources for their livelihoods. Through fieldwork in Ba, Fiji, local insights were generated concerning the institutional, geographic, and socio-economic factors which determine and challenge i) different stakeholders’ ability to access landscape resources, and ii) stakeholders’ capacities to benefit from ecosystem services. The following insights were generated from this research which are important for guiding management of landscape multifunctionality. In Ba, hierarchical governance systems present barriers to effective management of landscape multifunctionality, and projects or policies with aims to manage landscapes should establish context appropriate multi-scale governance. Such governance systems should facilitate communication and interaction between different stakeholders, build upon community knowledge, and support communities as key actors in landscape management. Consideration of the spatial footprint of landscape resources, stakeholders’ different physical and financial capacities, and the institutional structures that mediate access to resources should be central to landscape management and planning. Various climatic stressors affect flows of ecosystem services from the Ba landscape and people’s capacity to access landscape resources; therefore, it is important that management of landscapes also builds resilience to climate stressor

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