Police spokespersons: A question of organizational representation

AuthorRylan Simpson,Kamali’ilani Wetherell
Date01 September 2020
DOI10.1177/1461355720918882
Published date01 September 2020
Subject MatterArticles
Article
Police spokespersons: A question
of organizational representation
Rylan Simpson
School of Criminology, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Kamali’ilani Wetherell
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA
Abstract
Police spokespersons exist at the core of organizational representation: they are selected to represent their agencies at all
levels of engagement on all public platforms. Given their repeated exposure via traditional and electronic media,
perceptions of spokesperson characteristics may impact perceptions of police and police organizations more broadly.
Using online search queries of publicly available sources, we collected data for 612 spokespersons from 514 municipal
police agencies across the United States. Our analyses reveal that spokespersons are overwhelmingly sworn, White men
who are middle-aged and mid-rank. Our analyses also reveal some bivariate relationships between spokesperson
characteristics (e.g., gender and employment status) and some variation among characteristicsacrossstates(e.g.,
Texas versus Ohio). By identifying and describing spokesperson characteristics at both national and state levels, we
extend historical research regarding police spokespersons, contribute to the scholarly understanding of police
representation p ractices, and the orize the relation ships between spokespersons, organizations, and contemporary
policing issues.
Keywords
Media, organizations, police, public information officers, representation, spokespersons
Submitted 01 Aug 2019, Revise received 30 Jan 2020, accepted 24 Mar 2020
Introduction
The police play a particularly public role in contemporary
society. Frequently observed on patrol, on television, and
online, they penetrate a wide variety of social settings.
Much of their (specific) responsibility for public outreach,
however, falls upon the shoulders of their spokesperson(s).
Police spokespersons (otherwise referred to as public infor-
mation officers, press information officers, or press rela-
tions officers) are responsible for maintaining the “face” of
their agencies by disseminating public information and
managing press relations. For example, spokespersons par-
ticipate in news interviews, manage social media accounts,
write press releases, and engage with the public during
community events. By nature of th eir duties, they often
become defined as the representatives of their organ iza-
tions and the first point of contact for official agency
communication. This role has tremendous importance
given the bureaucratic and hierarchical structure of most
police agencies, where the flow of information is tightly
controlled and typically released only through certain chan-
nels (which often involve the spokesperson). Although
spokespersons have thus always been important in policing
operations (Motschall and Cao, 2002; Surette, 2001; Sur-
ette and Richard, 1995), they have become increasingly
important over the course of the past decade du e to the
legitimacy crisis that now exists in American policing and
Corresponding author:
Rylan Simpson, School of Cri minology, Simon Fraser Un iversity, 8888
University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada. Email:
rylan_simpson@sfu.ca
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2020, Vol. 22(3) 253–262
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1461355720918882
journals.sagepub.com/home/psm

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