Public Attitudes and Perceptions on Community Policing in Texas Neighborhoods

A Proposal

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Abstract

Relationships and interactions between citizens and law enforcement determine the success and effectiveness of law enforcement efforts, including community policing. The study proposed herein will be seeking to uncover citizen’s perceptions of and attitudes towards community policing in Texas neighborhoods. Guiding the study will be the two questions: 1) How do citizen’s perceptions of community policing in Texas affect the state’s neighborhoods? 2)To what extent to citizen’s perceptions of community policing shape citizen-police relationships and interactions? The literature reviewed emphasizes the significance of positive citizen-police relationship and suggests that understanding the said attitudes and perceptions can help in the formulation and effective implementation of better policing strategies. The proposed qualitative study will uncover these perceptions and as such contribute to the available body of knowledge that could inform policy as far as community policing is concerned.

Introduction

Incidents of conflict between citizens and law enforcement have been on the rise in the United States. With recent killings of unarmed people who only needed to be arrested, for instance the recent shooting of George Floy, it is highly likely that the conflict between law enforcement and the citizenry will escalate as have been witnessed in the context of nation-wide protests against police brutality and what appears to be institutionalized racism. In some instances, law enforcement officers have been on the receiving end, an example being the shooting of a state trooper at a bust station in Richmond (Officer down memorial page, 2016). When it reaches a point where the citizenry is retaliating or expressing their anger in such a manner, indeed once can only infer things could get out of hand in the future, unless something is done. This strained relationships, as Polizzi (2013) notes, hurt any efforts to ensure smooth communication and cooperation between the citizenry and law enforcement.

The citizenry’ perceptions of and attitudes towards law enforcement are constantly changing, just as the context in which they occur. Changing social and physical conditions have meant that safety is not assured for anyone, be it law enforcers or common citizens (Foster et al., 2014). Johnson (2016) presents that without well nurtured personal relationships between law enforcement and citizens, there is no trust but fear and lower confidence and satisfaction in law enforcers. Amid such tensions, effective policing strategies are needed if community policing and other law enforcement efforts are to succeed, but such cannot be devised if citizen’s perceptions are not understood and considered. Such an understanding is necessary to inform policing strategies, which will lead to the much needed nonhostile interactions between law enforcement officers and citizens (Johnson, 2016). Indeed, such public perceptions of law enforcement and contextual community policing gain relevance in terms of how they shape citizen-police interactions and relationships. Regarding these relationships, the importance of trust, cohesiveness, unbiased actions, respect, and a sense of legitimacy when police are dealing with citizens cannot be overemphasized. For these to be realized, it is imperative that policing policies and practices consider citizen’s perceptions in the same regard.

Indeed, positive engagement in the context of citizen-law enforcement relationship is an issue of significance in the US, just like everywhere else. Recent incidents depicting strained relationships and violent engagements between citizens and law engagement elevate the need to improve relationship and interactions (between citizens and law enforcement). For that to be realized, it is imperative that better community policing strategies are employed. Since citizens are major stakeholders in matters law enforcement and crime prevention, it is important to know how they perceive such strategies so that application and implementation can be smoother. Presently, it is not known how or to what degree that such perceptions affect the devising, application, and implementation of such policing strategies. Against the backdrop of this gap, the proposed study will be seeking to uncover the citizenry’s attitudes and perceptions on community policing in Texas neighborhoods.

The following questions will guide the study:

Research Question 1: How do citizen’s perceptions of community policing in Texas affect the state’s neighborhoods?

Research Question 2: To what extent to citizen’s perceptions of community policing shape citizen-police relationships and interactions?

Literature Review

In the recent past, the US has experienced strained relationships between citizens and law enforcement. Central to these relationships are people’s attitudes and perceptions of truth as well as reality, more so as developed though life experiences (Stein & Griffith, 2015). Renauer and Covelli (2011) present that in the presence of negative perceptions, there is likely to be conflict, miscommunication, freedom loss, and an array of other problems that culminate in negative police-citizen engagement. Such engagement, according to Streimikiene (2015), not only hinders community development and growth but also leads to poor quality of life.

The subject of the proposed study can be positioned within a wide body of theory. For instance, since community policing is one of the elements of interest in the study, the Policy Feedback Theory (Mettler & Sorelle, 2014) explores the legitimacy of policy and bases it on policy feedback. In this regard, the legitimacy of a given policy is determined by examining its appropriateness (or lack thereof) for the people whom it affects or serves. According to these scholars, no meaningful policy change can occur without the engagement and participation of the people whom that policy affects. This engagement and participation take places in various stages, including the establishment of a meaningful relationship between the government and its people, which is at the center of citizenship. Additionally, governance is defined by the government’s capacity to learn through its officials from their engagement with the citizenry, and such engagement should be characterized by efficiency/effectiveness, democracy, integrity, and lawlessness, which may not all be realized at once.

When public perceptions are negative, there is likely to be community mistrust. This assertion finds support in the Broken Window Theory which elevates the role of the community in determining its engagement with the government (and by extension law enforcement), contextual reputation, and the prevailing physical conditions (Wilson & Kelling, 1982). This theory emphasizes the visibility and vigilance of both the citizenry and law enforcement in the community. According to Crocker (2013), visibility of both parties as emphasized by this theory creates a sense of social order in which each party plays its roles and fulfils its obligations. This theory also has it that if the community fails to take actions to contain crime at its onset, such inaction leads to an elevation of levels of crime, which eventually create urban decay. The view here is that communities have a role to play in maintaining law and order in their neighborhoods, and if the slightest rate of crime is not addressed, it potentially escalates. The point is that people must care enough about their own communities as to address the slightest damage at the onset, just like in the case of the metaphor of a house with broken windows.

Based on the Broken Window Theory, street crimes (and other forms of crime) increase in communities where the earliest indications of disorderly behaviors are ignored (Wilson & Kelling, 1982). This viewpoint identifies and magnifies the significance of public order as well as the citizenry’s perceptions of and attitudes towards community policing efforts and strategies in their neighborhoods. Lack of citizen participation and engagement/involvement implies that their perceptions are ignored, hence a potential failure of policing strategies to capture citizen’s input. This potentially leads to high crime rates and an overall urban decay. The place of this theory in the current conversation is supported by many scholars, for instance Hinkle (2015), Gau & Gaines (2015), Steenbeek & Kreis (2015), and Thompson (2015), all of whom agree that law enforcement officers need to understand the community as well as the citizenry’s perceptions as such understanding helps make correct decisions in the context of crime and efforts to reduce it.

By and large, modern civilization has focused and conceptualized policing and as such the maintenance of law and order as a kind of top-down management approach, one in which those to whom policy is applied do not necessarily need to take part in its formulation. According to Gau and Gaines (2015), officers out on foot patrols feel unsafe as they are exposed to dangerous outdoor elements, a fact that makes their work assignments look like a form of punishment. Such are some of the problems associated with community policing where the situation on the ground is greatly shaped by the perceptions of citizens. For the better of their assignments (on the ground), officers encounter citizens who, in the burden of own challenges, are trying to solve issues affecting themselves and their communities at large. In other words, citizens are in a continuous bid to establish order as per the context of their communities, so it is important that their perceptions and input is considered when coming up with policing strategies.

The concept of community policing has gained prominence in recent decades due to a feeling by public order policymakers and police officers that traditional policing approaches were not working. Indeed, as Friedmann (2013) informs, many felt there was an urgent need find effective solutions and come up with more efficient strategies for combating crime. At the heart of community policing is greater community involvement (in decision-making), more police accountability, and greater recognition and respect for fundamental rights and freedoms (civil liberties) (Friedmann, 2013). Taking these aspects into account, community policing is thus considered a kind of proactive strategy geared towards improving public safety through service improvement, just as happens in healthcare circles.

With better/effective community policing, a community’s chances of achieving economic prosperity are magnified (Aiyer et al., 2015). Where is disorder, crime and lawlessness thrive, creating a feeling of insecurity that forces people to keep to their homes since they think going out for whatever activity makes them easy targets (Muniz, 2012). To overcome such fear and create a conducive environment for prosperity and development, effective community policing is required, which must importantly identify a coherent and clear community voice. To get this voice, zero tolerance and strict forms and approaches of policing should be avoided as to embrace those strategies incorporating the voice and viewpoint of the community. In this regard, Braga et al. (2015) identify a gap in research on community policing in that the public’s perceptions have not been adequately explored. This gap informs the proposed study, which will be seeking to uncover the attitudes and perceptions of citizens on community policing in Texas neighborhoods.

Methods

The proposed research will employ a qualitative approach to investigate the attitudes and perceptions of citizens on community policing in Texas neighborhoods. According to Andrew and Halcomb (2009), the qualitative data that is yielded by this kind of study mainly entails textual observations that portray participants’ attitudes, intentions, and perceptions. In the proposed study, this data will be integral to giving insight on citizen’s perceptions of and attitudes towards community policing in Texas neighborhoods.

Participants and Research Setting

Participants in this study will be adults living in Texas neighborhoods. Their ages will range from 18 years and above. As part of the inclusion criteria, participants will be those who will have lived within Texas at least for the past 6 months at the time of commencement of the proposed study. It is anticipated that each participant will be knowledgeable about community policing efforts and strategies/approaches within Texas neighborhoods. As implied, the study will be conducted within Texas state with the hope that participants will be representative of the state’s various neighborhoods.

Key Variables

Independent variables in the proposed study will include an array of factors that are thought to play a role in influencing citizen’s perceptions of and attitudes towards community policing. They include sex, age, education level, and occupation. It will be interesting to see how the dependent variables, perceptions and attitudes toward community policing, will vary across participants based on the variables (sex, age, education level, and occupation).

Instrument

The data collection instrument for the proposed study will be telephone interviews. This instrument has been chosen since it facilitates observance of current Covid-19 protocols and safety measures in terms of social distancing, avoiding physical contact, and staying at home. Interview questioning will be conducted individually at times agreed with each participant. Imperatively, the interviewing will focus on the research participant’s perceptions of and attitudes towards community policing in Texas neighborhoods. As such, the researcher will prepare guiding questions that will provide direction for the interviews as they proceed. Specific points to touch on will be include participants interactions and relationships with law enforcement, the frequency of such interactions, perceptions before interaction, perceptions after interaction, factors informing perception change, and general perceptions on community policing including effectiveness/efficiency.

Data Collection Procedure

After selecting participants for the study, an introduction meeting will be organized where they will be introduced to the research. During this session, participants shall be taken through various aspects of the research, including its rationale and objectives. They shall be reminded that they will be participating in it on a purely voluntary basis. Following this introductory session, all Covid-19 protocols and containment measures such as the wearing of masks shall be observed. Having been taken through the said aspects of the research, participants shall leave and be at liberty to contact the researcher at time of their convenience for interviewing. Efforts will be made (with cooperation between the researcher and participants) to conduct interviews very early in the morning and late in the afternoon in a bid to accommodate the work and personal schedules of participants. Interview time shall range from 15 minutes to 30 minutes, and this will include time for giving guidelines and instructions to participants as well as clarifying any issues as may be sought by participants. Besides recording the interviews, information will be noted down using handwritten notes, which will later be analyzed through thematic analysis as explained elsewhere.

Sampling Design

Participant selection will be done through stratified random sampling. An assumption will be made for the existence of homogeneity in terms of perceptions of community policing for participants emanating from various neighborhoods within Texas. The stratified random sampling approach has been selected based on its convenience specifically for the way it combines random and purposive sampling techniques, hence ensuring participant representativeness. In the study, the stratification process will involve categorizing the target population into male and female, and those who harbor favorable perceptions of community policing versus those who harbor unfavorable perceptions and attitudes towards the same.

Considering that there are likely to be limitations in terms of time availability and resources, a sample of 30 participants will be used in the proposed study. Hopefully, this will be evenly spread throughout Texas, hence be representative enough.

Human Subject Protection Issues

Since the study will involve human participants, issues of human subject protection will arise and as such be given appreciable consideration. They will mainly have to do with ethical considerations of the study as it were. One aspect in this respect will that of confidentiality whereby, in a bid to protect the identities of aspirants, pseudonyms will be used. This measure will encourage participants to be as open as possible when expressing themselves regarding community policing in Texas neighborhoods. Additionally, participants will be assured that the information they will give will be used specifically for purposes of the research and will not be shared with other parties without due authorization, a point magnified by Parahoo (2006).

Reliability and Validity Concerns

In the proposed study, attention will be paid to the notions of reliability and validity, which will also encompass trustworthiness, hence the idea that findings of the study will be reliable, truthful, extendable for use to other studies, accurately capturing the contribution of subjects, and free of the researcher’s own bias (Rudestam & Newton, 2015). In this respect, trustworthiness in the proposed study will be achieved through research validity and reliability, which will have a lot to do with the quality of data yielded. In a word, validity and reliability will be ensured by ensuring interviews will be conducted at a time of participants’ own convenience, so where a participant will prefer a different time from that proposed by the researcher, the necessary adjustment will be made. This will ensure participants are as comfortable as possible and as such be able to express themselves freely about the topic under investigation. Another way of increasing reliability and validity will be to use triangulation approaches to ensure findings and inferences flow from collected data (Maxwell, 2013). Last yet important will be keenness to allow room for shifting of themes as will emerge once the research begins.

Analysis Plan

Since the proposed study will be qualitative in nature, thematic analysis has been settled upon as the most convenient method for analyzing contextual data. This approach allows for collected qualitative information to be encoded and codes, words, and phrases developed, which become labels for specific aspects of the said data as it were (Taylor & Bogdan, 2001).Given the flexibility of this approach, the researcher will be able to get as close as possible to the data, thereby understanding it better in a bid to uncover the public’s perceptions of and attitudes towards community policing in Texas neighborhoods.

Discussion and Policy Implications

The proposed qualitative study will give insight into citizen’s perceptions of and attitudes towards community policing in Texas neighborhoods. Law enforcement stands to benefit from such insight in the manner they are likely to use it to effect a shift in policing philosophy where officers will be more friendly and understanding as opposed to being aggressive and reactive in their policing efforts. Indeed, findings of this study will go a long way in informing the formulation of creative policies and strategies as far as community policing is concerned. There is no doubt that results of the proposed study will inform better community policing through the creation of better relationships between the citizenry and law enforcement. There will be better policing strategies with an understanding of the lived experiences of citizens, since individual and community challenges will be seen from their perspective.

References

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Foster, S., Knuiman, M., Villanueva, K., Wood, L., Christian, H., & Giles-Corti, B. (2014). Does walkable neighbourhood design influence the association between objective crime and walking? International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 11(100), 1-9.

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