Management challenges in law enforcement: the case of police misconduct and crime

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study police crime, which is defined as crime committed by police employees on duty. Design/methodology/approach – Based on an empirical study of all police court crime cases in Norway for the last four years, relationships between coded variables from court cases are explored in this paper. Findings – The court sentence measured in terms of days in jail is influenced by motive, source of information and police culture. Originality/value – Based on court documents, this study developed measures, coded court text, and analyzed relationships between constructs. The analysis identified crime motive, police culture, and information source as predictors of jail sentence length. The extent of physical versus non‐physical crime by police employees on duty was influenced by crime motive. The source of information tends to be police officers internally when a colleague has committed a physical rather than non‐physical crime.