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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the relation between police transformational leadership and organizational commitment is mediated by organizational culture. Drawing on the competing values framework (Quinn, 1988), four types of cultural orientations (group, developmental, hierarchical, and rational) are analyzed. Design/methodology/approach – In total, 358 South Korean police officers are surveyed. Using competing values as multiple mediators, a parallel four mediator model is estimated. Bias-corrected bootstrapping methods are employed to consider the small sample size, as well as the possible non-normal distribution of specific indirect effects. Findings – The linkage between transformational leadership and commitment appears to be fully mediated by group culture. Interestingly, multiple individual officer characteristics, duty type, and departmental size do not impact respective constructs overall. Research limitations/implications – The use of cross-sectional data hinders causal ordering among constructs included. Practical implications – Given the full mediation relationships among the three constructs, it is advisable to develop more nuanced leadership training programs optimized for fostering “considerate and supportive leaders” who have been known to impact group culture. Originality/value – Including two understudied police organizational correlates (i.e. transformational leadership and organizational culture), this study accounts for the mediating role of organizational culture in the transformational leadership-commitment link with multiple variables frequently used in previous research being controlled.

PurposePolice factor in extra‐legal as well as legal context in their decision to arrest a suspect. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of extra‐legal factors at both situational and neighborhood levels.Design/methodology/approachUsing hierarchical generalized linear modeling, over 9,000 domestic violence cases across 421 census tracts in Houston, Texas were examined. Situational information was derived from police reports, and neighborhood factors were measured by population characteristics drawn from the US Census Bureau. The model also controls for spatial autocorrelation of arrest rates between census tracts in the estimation of officer's arrest decision.FindingsAt the neighborhood level, concentrated disadvantage and immigration concentration had positive effect on the odds of arrest. At the situational level, the time of day, day of the week, premise type, and gender and racial relations between suspect and complainant, along with offense type and weapons use, had significant impact.Originality/valueThe scant literature has not yet provided an affirmative set of extra‐legal factors affecting police arrest decision. The paper's findings may contribute to the literature and suggest the need for guidelines concerning officer discretion exercised in the line of duty.

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The need for rapid response has been a perennial issue in policing. Although several studies have examined the effect of response time on apprehension probability, little attention has been given to the relationship between police response time and community characteristics. Using 2007 call for service data from the Houston Police Department and 2000 census statistics, the current study examines the relationship between police response time to in-progress burglary calls and neighborhood characteristics. In addition, the effects of incident characteristics on the likelihood of arrest are examined. The results suggest that disadvantaged neighborhoods enjoy a shorter police response whereas rapid response increases the probability of in-progress burglary apprehension.