Civilians Perceptions of Law Enforcement Officers

Civilians Perceptions of Law Enforcement Officers
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Civilians Perceptions of Law Enforcement Officers
Introduction
The present project tries to establish the perceptions that the civilians have on law enforcement officers during their contact. The motivation for this project is the large outcry from the public that the police officers are misusing their power. There are many cases that have been reported on the police officers mishandling and mistreating the residents. There are other cases and reports where white police officers are blamed to have been killing residents because of their race. These events have triggered an outrageous cry from the public accusing the criminal justice legal system of unjust in addressing the concerns of the residents. The major concern in this project is how the gender and race of the law enforcement officers and the residents impacts their perceptions when interpreting the contacts.
The extent and nature in which the civilians and law enforcement officers get in contact varies depending on who initiated it. The contacts occurs for several reasons and in various situations: various services are provided to the public by the police officers and the residents are always seeking information or reporting various offenses to the law enforcement officers; at traffic stops, the drivers are the residents, the police officers are often searching the residents or their homes and they are likely to use extra force or threaten the civilians. Perceptions on the police officers are formed based on the residents’ own interaction with them or experiences from their relatives or friends. They tend to focus how they are treated by the police and rarely do they consider the outcomes. Research has indicated that police officers who treat the residents fairly and with respect tend to receive positive perceptions than those who treat them unfairly even if they give them speeding tickets. Other researches have demonstrated that the actions of the law enforcement officers are crucial to the perceptions they receive from the public. This is has been supported by some studies that have concluded that police officers who employ good communication strategies and treat the civilians with respect, there is a kind response in return from the residents. Consequently, those residents who perceive that they got ‘procedural justice’ perceive the officers as trustworthy.
The media coverage on police officer’s misconduct is also influences the perceptions of residents. Frequent coverages on police misconduct strongly influences the perceptions and also supports the common public beliefs about law enforcement officers. African-American or Hispanics in high-crime rate areas and hear others talk about what they witness tend to believe that police misconduct is common in the legal justice system. However, a study that was conducted in New York City shows that absence of violent scandals, the media coverage does not have any significant impact on civilians’ perceptions on the police. Therefore, the major motivation for this study is to examine and explore the interactions between law enforcement officers and civilians and the consequences they have on the public perceptions about the police officers (Bachman, R., & Schutt, 2014).
Research Questions
* What is the role of communication in police-resident encounters?
* How does the media influence the civilians’ perceptions about law enforcement officers?
* Does race or gender influence the perceptions?
* What the reactions from the public on their perceptions about the police?
Hypothesis
* A resident who is treated fairly and with respect by a law enforcement officer will have positive perception than the one who receive unfair treatment.
* Race and gender influences residents’ perceptions about the police officers.
* Large media coverage on law enforcement officers’ misconduct has a significant effect on the civilians’ perceptions about the law enforcement officers than a low or no coverage at all.
Research Methods
The project will utilize the qualitative research technique. Qualitative research is a unique type of research method that seeks to gather information by using the simplest methods. It uses questions to ask different types of questions in order to gather data and learn something about the social world of another person. Qualitative research uses participant observation, intensive interviewing, focus groups and systematic observation as data collection methods when interacting with the subjects in the field.
Data Collection Methods
This study intend to use a survey design in conducting the project. Survey research is one of the most efficient ways of data collection having been in use for centuries. Researchers have used it for various purposes, for instance, to establish the behavior simply by looking at variations in the behavior. This study will adopt the descriptive survey design. Both primary and secondary sources of data will be used where the questionnaires will be the major source of primary data and journals, articles and other related literature materials regarding the topic will be adopted as well. Moreover, the questionnaires will be distributed to various categories of residents in the state. The first category will be those who have sought “procedural justice” and the second category will consist of the residents who read the media as well as those in high-crime rate areas but have never sought any legal service from the justice system.
The surveys will be administered through the internet since it has been found to be effective and efficient in collecting data. The traditional survey data collection methods are through emails and phone calls (Dillman, 1998). This has evolved to an extent that it depends on the modern technology such as web-based surveys. According to Dominelli (2003), there are several advantages of incorporating this modern methods than using the traditional methods alone.
There is an increase in the number of internet users in the USA thus providing us with a large population at once. According to the U.S National Telecommunications and Information Administration (2003), the “Internet experiences a growth rate of approximately 2 million users per months.” Using the internet as a data collection methods benefits the researcher financially since it cuts printing and postage expenses that are associated with mailing the surveys. Moreover, there is a quicker response rate than the traditional methods.
Despite having several benefits, web-based data collection methods has its own limitations. As Dominelli (2003), outlines, “participating in web surveys, perceived burden of responding to a web survey, and security.” The respondents may not fully respond to the surveys as required.
Sampling Methods
Element refers to the subject, event or area under study. According to mathematicians, an element is an algebra of a sample space; therefore, any subject area that is not a subset and is not an element of algebra has no probability. An element in probability is necessary in order to establish accuracy. Upon choosing an appropriate element, it is easier to make relevant probabilities. This is possible because it will be simpler to determine patterns and detect any anomaly in the computation of probability (Hall and Joglar, 2016).
The project will use deliberate sampling in choosing the population sample. The sample of the project will be chosen from the University campus. This type of sampling has been chosen since the students are well known and they have a wide range of characteristics that will influence the end results of the project (Dattalo, 2010). Students are often engaged with law enforcement officers during times of strikes or demonstrates therefore they have an influence to the civilians’ perceptions about law enforcement officers. Some have had direct or indirect with the officers while others have never had any contact with law enforcement officers. Moreover, some of them may be from high-crime areas therefore their perceptions are already formed. Due to limited time this type of sampling helps us in choosing a sample that will allow us to complete the study within this limited period.
The project will use students from the University campus as its sample and they will constitute the main source of data. University students are considered to be the ideal sample population for various reasons. First, the large population presented by university campus will allow us to access willing participants in the project easily without much effort. Second, the university admission standards reflect the ability of them being competent survey participants which meets the requirements of this project. Third, there are potentials in the sample having people who have had a direct contact with the law enforcement officers either in an official or unofficial setting. The California Department of Alcohol & Drug Programs reported that most of the DUI arrests are for the under 21 aged people. The report continue to reveal further that the highest percentage of drivers with BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) are between the ages of 21-24. These reasons contributed to the chosen sample.
During the recruitment period, we will conduct visits to most of the undergraduate lecture courses and request for voluntary participation for those who meet the requirement. The courses that will be visited are the general education courses. However, some courses are basic and the students have to do some type of a project as part of their assignments. If this cases will be identified, we will visit the lecture and present our project idea and ask him or her for voluntary participation. We will also issues a protocol that will be followed for the students to meet their assignment specifications for participating in our study. If the lecture will not offer any assistance in this project, we will visit him or her for the second time and explain how crucial participants are needed in this study to persuade the students to take part in the study on their own consent (Robinson, 2014).
Participants will also be sampled form our email networks that we will create where we will circulate a pre-conceived email to large lecture courses to ask the students for voluntar...