Motivations to enter the Police Profession in the Caribbean: Evidence from a Cohort of Jamaican Police Recruits

Abstract

While the topic of motivation to enter policing has proliferated in the Global North, there are limited studies examining recruit’s motivations to enter policing in the Caribbean. As a result, the current effort was designed to analyze the motivations for entering the police profession by gathering data from police recruits in training at the National Police College in Jamaica via standardized, self-administered questionnaires. Data were gathered from one hundred and sixty-one (n=161) police recruits and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The analyses were based on gender, age, marital status and educational level and sought to determine the motivations of police recruits who entered the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). The findings indicated that the major motivations for entry into policing in Jamaica were: (1) the desire to assist others, (2) the opportunity to further education, and (3) the opportunity to enforce laws. This study provides insights into the motivations behind motivations for entry into policing in Jamaica and is a starting point for future research on motivations to enter the police profession in the Caribbean.