An Evaluation of Criminal Justice Methods for Data Research

This paper explores and serves as a reaction to criminal justice research methods. The purpose of this specific work is to explore methods of data research, in this case survey research. The topic of interest will be the perception of crime and other related crime issues through the eyes law enforcement officers and criminal justice professionals. The paper will contain literature review of three articles published in the American Journal of Criminal Justice: Police Perceptions of Computer Crimes in Two Southeastern Cities: An Examination from the Viewpoint of Patrol Officers, Assessing Police Attitudes Toward Drugs and Drug Enforcement, and Parole Board Members’ Views of Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification. These articles will be examined and reviewed. In addition, methodology for future research will be discussed along with the possible conclusions.

Crime is a seemingly never-ending problem in the United States and it is something that the people of this country are met with on a daily basis. There is also a slew of research regarding public opinion on crime; and crime issues which range from: perception of the “war on drugs,” perceptions of the death penalty, perceptions of the effectiveness of police, and much more. However, how often do we see the perception of crime from a law enforcement standpoint? Who is hearing what the professionals who deal with these problems on a daily basis have to say? This is an area that unfortunately has not been heavily researched. Most of the research and the studies that are conducted focus on perceptions of the public, or families, or offenders. It is seldom to find research that actually surveys the attitudes of law enforcement and how their perceptions relate to criminal issues. It is vital to understand the perceptions and viewpoints of these individuals as they are actively enforcing the laws and dealing with crime.

This paper will explore three different literature reviews that have gathered data regarding the attitudes and perceptions of police officers, patrol officers, and parole officers. The American Journal of Criminal Justice contained these articles which surveyed these law enforcement professions about the following topics: computer crimes, drugs and drug enforcement, and sex offender registration and community notification. These viewpoints are vital as police officers are being tasked with much more responsibility at the first responder level. Most of current research indicates the perspectives of administrators or scholars. Law enforcement perspectives would also be helpful for administrators to determine their course of actions with certain crime trends and problems.

Literature Review:

The first piece of literature to be discussed is, Police Perceptions of Computer Crimes in Two Southeastern Cities: An Examination from the Viewpoint of Patrol Officers. This study was published in 2011 and aimed at understanding how police patrol officers in two different large Southeastern cities understand and perceive computer crimes. This study specifically inquired as to the officers’ feelings on the uniqueness, offenders and targets, and seriousness and frequency in comparison to traditional forms of crime. Since technology is actively controlling our society it is important to know how law enforcement perceives computer crime in comparison with traditional crimes. This is especially important as law enforcement is expected to become more actively involved with these types of computer crimes at the local level (Holt & Bossler, 2011, p. 396-412).

The two police departments used in this study was the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Police Department in North Carolina and the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department in Georgia. Both departments serve large populations and are cities that contain many businesses as well. Charlotte, NC is also an economic hub making it potentially prone to computer crime. The department also has a specialized unit that is dedicated to computer crime. In this study, a survey was used and no one that held a managerial position was surveyed. The researchers received surveys from 124 Charlotte Police Officers (9% response rate) and 144 Savannah Police Officers (36% response rate). 268 total surveys were processed and approximately 86% were completed by white, male police officers. The officers were asked about their comfort level and familiarity with computers, their personal experiences with computer crimes, how much training they received in the area of computers and computer crime, and the extent of their investigations with the same. The officers were also surveyed on their opinion of the internet, computer criminals, and the location of these offenders. These opinions varied as did some of the perceptions of computer crime versus traditional crime. However, the large majority of officers agreed that computer crime is a serious and widespread problem in this country. Overall, this study yielded that the overwhelming majority of the officers do not have strong opinions regarding computer crimes. However, they do acknowledge it as a major problem. Many officers had little training and experience in this field and were unsure of the demographics of the offenders. The officers were, however, supportive of computer crime investigation and enforcement (Holt & Bossler, 2011, p. 396-412).

The second study that features law enforcement perspective is, Assessing Police Attitudes Toward Drugs and Drug Enforcement, which was featured in the American Journal of Criminal Justice. The goal of the researchers who conducted this research was to gather data from drug interdiction law enforcement officers. The authors surveyed 1,000 law enforcement officers who were tasked with drug interdiction and enforcing drug laws. The officers were surveyed to gather data about their feelings and personal attitudes towards specific drugs. The authors’ goal was to ascertain whether the officers’ attitudes affected how aggressively certain law are enforced or not enforced. It was upheld that most law enforcement officers hold traditional views regarding drugs and drug laws in the U.S. Also, opinions did not differ much based upon geographic location or demographics. The majority of officers believed in criminal punishment especially for those that sell illegal drugs. Regarding officers’ attitudes and enforcement is was found that, “there is evidence to suggest that an individual’s attitudes are often poor predictors of that individual’s behavior if the individual’s attitudes are not in harmony with the norms and structure of the individual’s environment.” The authors of this article used data gathered from officers to show a relationship between two variables. The first variable was the officers’ attitudes/opinions and the second variable was their enforcement actions. In this case, the authors were able to ascertain certain data and found that there is not always a direct correlation between the two variables that they examined, which in this case were opinion and enforcement (Petrocelli, Oberweis, Smith , & Petrocelli, 2013, p. 22-40).

The third and last article to be examined is, Parole Board Members’ Views of Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification. According to the authors, the purpose of this study was to learn how criminal justice professionals perceive fairness and efficacy the sex offender registration process and community notification procedures. There is very scant literature that provides information on the attitudes of parole boards and other officials who are responsible for implementing many of these policies. Sex offender registration and notifications have become a widely debated issue in the criminal justice field. As with the other studies discussed in this paper, there is a very small body of literature on the topic (Tewksbury & Mustaine, 2011, p. 413-431).

The researchers of this study used the survey methodology to gather views from parole board members in 48 states. 80 out of the 254 parole board members who were contacted chose to participate in the survey, which yields a 31.5% response rate. The participants were surveyed on several topics to include their thoughts on sex offenders, rehabilitation, and punishment. The majority of the parole board members were supportive of current sex offender registration procedures; and nearly half of the group believed that notification procedures in their state were at the very least “fair.” Many participants also felt that the procedures did not prevent future recidivism and did not have a significant effect on reducing future sex offenses. Also, the overwhelming majority supported sex offender lists being released to other law enforcement agencies. However, less were in agreement with the lists being released to the public and the media. Also, approximately half of the group believed that the offender’s actual offense should be released along with their name, photograph, vehicle, and home address. These figures increased when the offender was living in close proximity to areas where children are commonly present. The study presented overall moderateness in the views and perceptions of parole board members in relation to sex offenders. The study found that some views supported public views and some did not. It was also noted that parole board members are a unique group of criminal justice professionals who mostly deal with only offenders (Tewksbury & Mustaine, 2011, p. 413-431).

Methods:

Since criminal justice and crime research is largely based upon perceptions and views, survey research has become a strong and primary source of data gathering in this field. Since this research would be based upon the perceptions of criminal justice professionals, the study would be best suited toward the survey methodology. This method of research was historically overlooked due to researchers being focused on traditional experimental designs. As with any study, there is a potential of some error or slightly skewed results. It is important to bear in mind that no research is perfect (Hagan, 2014).

Being tasked with job of gathering data via a survey is not something that can be accomplished easily. This can be especially true when dealing with a sensitive or controversial subject matter as many issues in criminal justice are. For this research, the goal would be to gather data on how criminal justice professionals perceive current crime trends to include: America’s growing drug problem, abuse of public assistance programs, and how “community policing approaches” have helped to reduce crime or increas crime. Along with these perceptions, a second goal would be to gather data about how these professionals would go about solving these issues if they were able to propose possible solutions, policies, or other measures (Hagan, 2014).

The target sample or target population would be any “line” level law enforcement officer or criminal justice professional. To obtain the best possible sample with the greatest demographic diversity, this research would be open to any member of a local, county, state or federal police department, any member of a park, tribal, school district, or university police department. Also any officer from any parole, probation, fish and game, railway, or special-jurisdiction police department would be welcome to participate. However, recruitment would be limited to those would did not hold supervisory positions. This would include any supervisors, Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, Majors, Deputy Chiefs, Chiefs, Commissioners, or any other supervisory or administrative position. This is because many of these positions are subject to certain political influence and other factors that can create potential biases (Hagan, 2014).

The actual survey would also require significant preparation and planning. I would consider the goal of my research and would pay close attention to my actual survey. With a topic such as the perception of law enforcement officers, I would focus much of my effort on question wording and how I would like to present my survey questions to the officers. I would want the questions to be neutral and non-suggestive as not to create or add any bias to the survey. The language used in the questioning would need to be done in a way to create a stress-free environment that would elicit the most truthful responses of actual behavior, not just perceived behavior. I would also have to create the appropriate variable list and dummy tables for the research (Hagan, 2014).

In this particular case, the method I would use for surveying law enforcement officers would be a written mail survey or possibly even an email study as this could prove to be more convenient and elicit a higher response rate. Since this is a potentially sensitive, uncomfortable, and controversial topic it may be difficult for many individuals to answer questions in a face-to-face setting or over the phone. A mail or email survey would allow the participants to remain completely anonymous. I would mail surveys to my sample population with a pre-stamped and addressed return envelope so that all participants could be anonymous. This is the best way to receive true, unfiltered responses from participants as their identities will be unknown. Another benefit to using the mail or email method is that is minimizes time use and expenses for the researchers. They do not have to travel to conduct surveys and they do not have to spend time actually asking questions and gathering the responses. Also, the questions will be printed on a survey which will allow an unbiased presentation of the questions. The participants will read the questions the same exact way and will not be influenced by anyone asking the questions. For example, participants’ answers could be potentially influence by a reader’s voice inflection over the phone or body language in person. The mail method eliminates these things. With a mail survey a researcher can also sample any population they desire whether it is nationwide or international, thus being able to gather a larger sample. In the case of this research, it would be limited to a nationwide inquiry (Hagan, 2014).

Some disadvantages of using the mail or email method could potentially be lack of responses. Many people are becoming increasingly busy and it may be difficult to gather a large number of responses. Also, there is a risk that certain departments or demographic of officer may be under-represented with the use of a mail survey due to lack of response. Certain things can be done to help increase responses to mail or email surveys such as: follow-up, appeal, attractive format, sponsorship, endorsement, personalization, short format, and good-timing. Overall, when considering this topic, I feel that the mail or email method would be the most beneficial. There are numerous advantages to this method along with slight disadvantages which can potentially be overcome with proper execution of the survey (Hagan, 2014).

Conclusion:

Based on previous research, I feel as though I can predict certain results that this hypothetical research would yield. My initial predictions would be that the majority of respondents would be white, male officers from local or county police departments as these are the mostly highly represented groups in such departments. I would also assume a response rate of 20-40%. To answer the initial questions of crime perceptions, I can predict that a moderate or high percentage of law enforcement professionals would at the very least recognize issues such as drug abuse, abuse of public assistance, and how community policing has helped or damaged crime reduction efforts, as being serious issues in our society. I can estimate these perceptions to be within the range of 50-80%. Regarding the proposal of possible solutions and alternate forms of punishment, I predict that law enforcement professionals would consider current practices to be ineffective. I predict this to range from 45-70%. This is based upon previous research and the fact that this country experiences an astonishingly high rate of recidivism.