Listening to law enforcement officers: The promises and problems of police – adult probation partnerships

Police-probation partnerships have increased in recent years, but evaluations of such partnerships are rare. Particularly within probation agencies, such partnerships can be perceived as an abandonment of service responsibilities in favor of enforcing the law against probationers, but the views of police officers involved in these partnerships have not been examined in the past. The current study began this process by examining the perceptions of law enforcement officers in Texas. In particular, the following questions were addressed: (1) whether they experience role conflict or role ambiguity, (2) how they perceive the effectiveness of partnerships, and (3) how they evaluate the impact of partnerships on crime reduction. Three partnership patterns were identified using cluster analysis. The analysis revealed a significant relationship between the extent of partnerships and the perceptions of law enforcement officers on the partnerships. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.