Weston Morrow: Examination of decision to enter police workforce | Undergraduate Research

Title

Examination of decision to enter police workforce

Mentor

Weston Morrow

Department

Criminal Justice

Bio sketch

Weston J. Morrow is an assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at the University of Nevada, Reno. He earned a B.S. in social science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, an M.S. in criminal justice from California State University, Long Beach and a Ph.D. in criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University. He has conducted research on the Fourth Amendment, police use of force, courts and sentencing, and juvenile justice. Morrow’s work has appeared in the American Journal of Criminal Law, Criminal Justice Studies, the Criminal Law Bulletin, and the Journal of Crime and Justice. He has also contributed a chapter to the New York University Press book, Pat-Down: Examining the Role of “Stop, Question, and Frisk” Practices in American Policing.

Project overview

Over the last decade, law enforcement agencies have expressed a pronounced challenge recruiting and hiring qualified candidates into the profession. To date, most research on the topic of recruitment and hiring focuses on the reasons and motivations underlying people’s decisions to enter law enforcement. Less is known, however, about the reasons why people do not enter the police profession—a void in the literature that could help law enforcement attract individuals to the profession. The goal of this project is to examine the reasons why people choose to become and choose not to become police officers. The student chosen to collaborate on this project will be expected to conduct a literature review on related research, clean and code data, present at a regional or national conference, and help write a manuscript that will be submitted to a journal for publication.