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The Money or The Job: The Decision to Leave Policing*

The constituents of job satisfaction and morale amongst police workers have received some research attention overseas, but to date there has been relatively little work in this area in Australia. Recent controversy has been generated in Victoria concerning the issue of police morale amidst the introduction of a new superannuation scheme which has seen a dramatic increase in voluntary departures from the Victoria Police since 1987. This article reports the findings of a survey of departed and serving members of that organisation, conducted to identify the reason for departure and to gauge the importance of work-related attitudes in the decision to leave. The findings suggest that work dissatisfaction was strongly implicated in the decision to leave, particularly for those departures who resigned before 50 years of age. A comparable degree of work dissatisfaction was found amongst a sample of serving police workers, who expressed significantly more negative attitudes towards police work than those who retired early after reaching 50 years. The most prominent sources of dissatisfaction appeared to derive from the organisation and management of the Victoria Police, rather than from the nature of police work itself or factors external to the police organisation.