Retaining the Thin Blue Line: What Shapes Workers' Intentions not to Quit the Current Work Environment

The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants of police officers’ intentions to quit their current department. For this purpose, we analysed US survey data that included a large set of police officers from the Baltimore Police Department in Maryland. Our results indicate that more effective cooperation between units, a higher trust in the work partner (social capital), a higher level of interactional justice and a higher level of work-life-balance substantially reduces police officers’ intentions to quit. On the other hand, high levels of physical and psychological strain and the experience of traumatic events were not correlated with the intentions to quit the department These findings suggest that police officers accept high levels of stress as inherent to the job of policing. JEL classification: I1, I12, I31, J24, J81, Z13