Expected Length of Service in the Danish State Police Compared with a Representative Group of English Forces
| Author | G. W. Leeson |
| Date | 01 January 1980 |
| Published date | 01 January 1980 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8005300107 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
G. W. LEESON, M.Sc., M.A. (OXON)
University
of
Copenhagen
EXPECTED LENGTH OF
SERVICE in the Danish State
Police compared with a
representative group of English
Forces
Thefollowing is a revised, non-technicalversion
of
apaper
produced
by the author at the Demography Department
of
the University's
Statistic Institute, entitled'A Multiple Incre-Decrement
Modelfora
Hierarchically Graded Manpower System'. In its theoretical sense,
this paper applies to any manpower system within which the
employees are
ranked
according to seniority, 'and where wastage
rates
and
promotion/
demotion rates are assumed to be dependent
on length
of
service. To test the consistency
of
the model,
and
aspart
of
a larger study, it was applied to
datafrom
the above
mentioned
Police
Forcesfrom
the
period
1968-72,
and
it is these results which
are presented here.
The Markov chain theory in the form of multiple incre-decrement
models (Leeson, 1978) is used to enable the production of service
tables which show the length of service an officer can expect
distributed among the ranks once he has completed a certain length of
service.The standard measure summarising the service experience of
the Force is widely accepted as the expected service length on
recruitment, which is useful as a practical measure for the Police
Forces and the individual officer as far as planning is concerned.
Furthermore, in view of the nature of wastage from the Forces, it was
decided to see just what effect resignations had on this expected
length of service, and this was done by using the theory of competing
risks (Chiang, 1968)- named the theory of partial probabilities in
the original paper (Leeson,
1978).
We are then able to compare the
two Police Forces and their wastage experience.
The Forces: the data used are from the period 1968-72, and cover
the Danish State Police Force, for which data was obtained from
Politiets Arsberetning 1968-1972 and force records, kindly placed
at the author's disposal by
"The
Police Chief'. The combined group
of English Forces consists of the Leicestershire, Bedfordshire,
January 1980 Police Journal 43
To continue reading
Request your trial