NCJ Number
99953
Date Published
1982
Length
302 pages
Annotation
This study examined the capacity of existing empirical data about the police function to indicate (1) what U.S. municipal police actually do, (2) what citizens and police believe the police do, and (3) what citizens and police believe the police should do.
Abstract
The study goal was to determine whether the findings suggest either reform or research agendas for municipal policing. The data sets relevant to project goals included task analyses and other studies of officer activities as well as surveys of citizens and police officers. A literature search identified appropriate studies, and data collection instruments used in the selected studies were obtained. Data collection instruments were content-analyzed to determine their substantive comparability. To determine the codes police agencies used for dispatching calls, 100 police agencies were solicited for copies of their dispatch codes. Police history literature was also reviewed to identify and compare historic police functions. The study concluded that available data do not and cannot support a reform agenda because of inadequacies in existing data sets and substantive gaps in policing empirical literature. This report suggests ways of strengthening the types of data collected and outlines a research agenda for collecting empirical data to be used for developing police reform policies. The appendixes contain methodological materials and an analysis of the literature on the police role by historical period. 58 references.