Explaining Salary Levels in the Public Safety Sector

Police Income and Occupational Gender Inequality

“…This research has tended to focus on (a) the effects of various policies on police pay or (b) how economic theory could explain variation in police income. In an example of the former, Jennings and Borrelli (1994) tested the effects of a number of policies on police salary levels. While they found that demographic factors (population density, per capita income, etc.…”

“…Among the studies of police wages, the mechanism that has been the most widely explored is how unions and unionization shape public-sector occupations in general and police pay specifically (Ashenfelter, 1971; Ehrenberg, 1973; Ehrenberg & Goldstein, 1975; Frandsen, 2016; Freeman, 1986; Hunter & Rankin, 1988; Jennings & Borrelli, 1994; Wilson, Zhao, Ren, & Briggs, 2006). There have been several important studies addressing the positive relationship between unions and police wages and salaries (Bartel & Lewin, 1981; Doerner & Doerner, 2010; Feuille & Delaney, 1986), and the general findings are that unionized police departments experience additional rewards and lower rates of accusations of excessive force (Jenkins & DeCarlo, 2015).…”

Urban Decision Making and Police Salaries

“…For example, Gallagher (1978) demonstrated that bargaining increased salaries for teachers. Similarly, other studies (Gallagher and Veglahn 1987;Jennings and Borrelli 1994;Kearney 1979;Lewin and Keith 1976;Spizman 1980;Valetta 1993;Zhao and Lovrich 1997) have shown that police agencies with collective bargaining have salaries greater than those agencies without it. Collective bargaining is measured dichotomously, according to whether or not the agency uses it (see Table 1).…”

“…For example, using an econometric approach, some studies have argued that economic conditions, such as a city's fi scal capacity and private-sector wage rates, serve as constraints on decision makers in determining policy outputs (Jennings and Borrelli 1994;Hall and Vanderporten 1977). Focusing on needs created from sociological conditions, other studies have used demographic variables such as region, population, and crime as determinants of policy outputs (Gallagher and Veglahn 1987;Jennings and Borrelli 1994;Kearney 1979;Lewin and Keith 1976). Finally, presuming that politics and policy preferences affect decisions about policy outputs, other studies have identifi ed several political variables, such as collective bargaining (Gallagher and Veglahn 1987;Jennings and Borrelli 1994;Kearney 1979;Lewin and Keith 1976;Spizman 1980;Valetta 1993;Zhao and Lovrich 1997) and municipal political structure (Dye and Garcia 1978;Lineberry and Fowler 1967;Morgan and Pelissero 1980).…”

“…Another is that a higher-crime city is more dangerous and thus requires better compensation for offi cers exposed to greater risk. 5 Whatever the particular rationale, the hypothesis is that cities with greater crime have higher police salaries (Hall and Vanderporten 1977;Jennings and Borrelli 1994).…”