TURNOVER AMONG ALASKA VILLAGE PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICERS: AN EXAMINATION OF THE FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH ATTRITION Darryl Wood, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Justice Center University of Alaska Anchorage March 2000 JC 9901 TURNOVER AMONG ALASKA VILLAGE PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICERS: AN EXAMINATION OF THE FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH ATTRITION Darryl Wood, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Justice Center University of Alaska Anchorage March 2000 JC 9901 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many individuals. The support I received from others at the University of Alaska Anchorage Justice Center was invaluable and I could not have completed this research without it. I would like thank Antonia Moras for her patient editorial assistance, Bob Langworthy for his direction and assistance in the data analysis stage, Jan Brewer for her guidance through the maze of university bureaucracy, Melissa Green for her meticulous data scanning handiwork, Brian Lepine for his proofreading, and Jason Werre and Shane Aubrey for all of their support in the sample identification, survey administration, and data entry portions of the research. This research also would not have been possible without the groundbreaking work on policing in Alaska Native villages by former Justice Center faculty members John Angell and Otwin Marenin. A number of individuals affiliated with the Alaska State Troopers supported this research. Simon Brown, Mike Dekreon, Glenn Flothe, Jim Hibpshman, Doug Norris, Bob Sanders, and, especially, Gail O’Farrell, all at one time or another made this research much easier than it could have been. Thank you all. Many of the VPSO Coordinators from the regional non-profit corporations also provided support for this study. Their assistance in locating former VPSOs was essential in the early stages of this project. Specifically, I would like to thank Steve Gomez (Maniilaq Manpower, Inc.), Jim Grimes (Bristol Bay Native Association), Jack Hopstad (Association of Village Council Presidents), Richard Krause (Aleutian/Pribilof Islands Association), Robin Lown (Central Council Tlingit Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska), Brenda Schwantes (Kodiak Area Native Association), and Josie Stiles (Kawerak, Inc.) for their help. Two other sources of support were drawn upon for this research. I would like to thank Marie Collins of the Alaska State Fire Marshal's Office for her help in tracking down fire safety information. I would also like to thank Chris Murphy from the Atlantic Institute of Criminology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia for allowing me to use portions of his First Nations Tribal Police survey instrument. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank the 113 current and former Village Public Safety Officers who took the time to complete the survey this research is based upon. A number of particular VPSOs, including Tom Bolen, Robert Brown, Richard Ellis, and Gerald iii Halverson, were especially helpful when it came to making sense out of the results of the data analysis. I hope that this report meets their expectations. This research project was supported by Grant No. 98-IJ-CX-0035 awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. All content within, including any errors or omissions, remains the responsibility of the author. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................................iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... v Table of Figures..........................................................................................................................viii Table of Tables .............................................................................................................................ix Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................................................ 1 Scope of the Report..................................................................................................................... 2 Organization of The Report ........................................................................................................ 3 Chapter 2: Alaska Native Villages, Their Public Safety Needs, and the VPSO Program...... 7 The Alaska Native Village Context ............................................................................................ 7 Geography and Climate...........................................................................................................7 The Alaska Native Population............................................................................................... 10 Public Safety Needs .............................................................................................................. 13 Police and Public Safety Services in Alaska Native Villages................................................... 16 Village Policing Prior to the VPSO Program........................................................................ 17 The VPSO Program...............................................................................................................19 Chapter 3: Measures of VPSO Turnover and its Consequences............................................ 27 Turnover in Non VPSO Rural Alaskan Policing ...................................................................... 27 Measures of Turnover in the VPSO Program ........................................................................... 28 Measuring Employment Turnover ........................................................................................ 29 Turnover Rates in the VPSO Program .................................................................................. 30 VPSO Turnover Compared to Turnover in Law Enforcement and Other Occupations ....... 33 Employment Tenure in the VPSO Program.......................................................................... 38 Why Turnover is a Problem ...................................................................................................... 41 Lack of Presence in a Village................................................................................................ 42 Service by Untrained VPSOs ................................................................................................ 44 Summary ................................................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 4: Measuring the Correlates of Turnover — The VPSO Turnover Survey............ 47 Factors Associated with Police Turnover: Why do Officers Quit?........................................... 47 Stress and Job Satisfaction ....................................................................................................48 Difficulties of Rural Policing ................................................................................................ 51 Difficulties Faced By Native Police Officers........................................................................ 53 Factors Specific to VPSO Program that are Possibly Related to Turnover .......................... 55 Other Questions Included in the Survey ............................................................................... 57 Survey Instrument Administration............................................................................................ 58 v Chapter 5: Results of the VPSO Turnover Survey — Descriptive Statistics ........................ 65 Perceptions of the VPSO Career............................................................................................... 66 Training..................................................................................................................................... 68 Salary and Housing ................................................................................................................... 69 Stress and Officer Safety........................................................................................................... 73 Oversight Trooper Contact........................................................................................................ 77 Demands of Duty ...................................................................................................................... 79 Equipment ................................................................................................................................. 81 Service of Relatives and Home Village .................................................................................... 81 Village Support ......................................................................................................................... 83 Directiveness ............................................................................................................................. 84 Demographic Characteristics .................................................................................................... 84 VPSO Service............................................................................................................................ 85 Leaving the Program ................................................................................................................