Date

6-17-2026

Department

Helms School of Government

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Criminal Justice (PhD)

Chair

David Conn

Keywords

community policing, LEMAS, CLETA, police training, quantitative correlational research

Disciplines

Sociology

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between Community Policing (CP) training in Law Enforcement Training Academies (LETAs) and CP implementation in Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in the United States. This exploratory quantitative study used a correlation design to analyze secondary data from 2018 Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies and the 2020 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey obtained through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The analysis included data from 615 LETAs and 2,704 LEAs. CP training was operationalized using total required hours of community partnership building and problem‑solving approaches. These measures were aggregated to the state level and compared to a state‑level Community Policing Implementation Index using Pearson correlation coefficients. Results indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between overall CP training and the CP implementation, as well as between community partnership building/collaboration and CP implementation. A statistically significant relationship was not found between problem-solving approaches and CP implementation. The findings offer empirical evidence for the role of LETA CP training shaping agency policing practices, an assumption guided by intuition rather than quantitative information. The study recommends future studies incorporate broader datasets, include relevant control variables, and examine quality of CP curriculum and instructional delivery within LETAs.

Download

Included in

Sociology Commons

Share

COinS