Promotion Mechanism among Local Police Officers

Abstract

This paper examines the promotion structure of local police headquarters to clarify the policy for the encouragement of skill formation using personnel data from a large-scale local police headquarters with more than 10,000 employees. The findings from the empirical analysis using personnel data and an inquiring survey of police bureaucrats are as follows: There are signs of first track effects for the promotion to rank of Commissioner (general manager), so that individuals promoted faster earlier on are more likely to advance to the highest available rank, i.e., a government official (the local police affairs official). Furthermore the individuals promoted a little later are offered a chance to get promoted to Superintendent (a head of the police station) or Chief Inspector (a section manager of the police station), while many other police officers are offered future prospects for the promotion to Inspector (an assistant manager). These results can be interpreted that the personnel policy gives all police officers incentive to skill formation. This means that the promotion mechanism of the municipal police is designed to stimulate all non-career police officers to make greater efforts and carries the selection system for getting the most out of their human resources.