Addressing the Players in the Area of Community Policing - Research Proposal Example

Topic: Introduction to Research Skills Introduction Police Community Support Officers are recruited to support regular police officers working within a given community. The main aim of engaging these officers is to use them in handling cases of petty crimes so as to relieve the regular officers to spare some time to concentrate on more serious crimes. These PCSOs do their duties by repeatedly patrolling their areas of jurisdiction thereby increasing the sense of security among the people in the community. Incidentally, the introduction, implementation and effectiveness of these officers within the police service have been viewed with various attitudes. I need to develop a questionnaire to be used in collecting the relevant data to investigate these attitudes. My questionnaire will contain thirty items and will attempt to address all the players in the area of community policing. THE QUESTIONNAIRE I appreciate your answering the questions in this booklet. The questionnaire is designed to collect information to investigate attitudes associated with the introduction, implementation and effectiveness of Police Community Support Officers within the police service. It is important that you answer each question as thoughtfully and frankly as possible. This is not a test, and there is no right or wrong answer. Your individual responses will not be used to identify you but only to study how different groups of people respond to the questions. To ensure complete confidentiality, please do not write your name anywhere on the questionnaire. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Most questions have five responses. Please record your answers by selecting one of the choices next to each question. If none of the choices matches your perception exactly, use the one that is closest to it. 2. Please use a HB pencil to make heavy black marks against the appropriate answer numbers among the choices. 4. Do not staple or fold the questionnaire. CODING INFORMATION For all the responses; Please indicate your status by choosing one category only from below: 1. Public 2. Police officer 3. PCSO 4. Other Please refer to this "EXTENT SCALE GUIDE" In answering the following questions ------------------ To a Very Great Extent 1 To a Great Extent 2 To some Extent 3 To a little Extent 4 To a very little Extent 5 To what extent do you; 1. Agree with the fact that PCSO be in uniform................................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 2. Support the idea of intergrading PCSO in police service..............................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 3. Feel confident and reassured in the presence of a PCSO..............................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 4. Believe PCSO be allowed to address anti-social behaviour..........................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 5. Believe PCSO should involve themselves in environmental issues other than providing high-visibility patrols........................................................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6. Believe PCSO form a critical part of the police force...................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 7. Believe PCSO should wield same powers as regular police officers............1, 2, 3, 4, 5 8. Support the fact that PCSO should have any security responsibility............1, 2, 3, 4, 5 9. Believe the implementation of PCSO has been successful...........................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 10. Believe that a PCSO should have good communication skills...................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 11. Believe that a PCSO should be able to handle complex paperwork....1, 2, 3, 4, 5 12. Think PCSO should offer a paid service..1, 2, 3, 4, 5 13. Support the idea that PCSO provide a visible and reassuring presence on the streets...........................................................................................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 14. Believe that PCSO really work to reassure the public.....1, 2, 3, 4, 5 15. Support the idea that PCSO should work under the direction of a police commander.........................................................................................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 16. Believe that PCSO recruitment campaigns can give rise to sufficient candidates to fill the pressing needs...................................................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 17. View PCSO as a response to the failure of authority figures...................... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 18. Believe that PCSO is a response to an increase in crime.............................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 19. Like the idea that PCSO spend much time patrolling the community.........1, 2, 3, 4, 5 20. Feel free in approaching a PCSO with any questions about anti-social behaviour in your area........................................................................................1, 2, 3, 4, 5 In your own view; 21. Do you believe that PCSO need to work alone or in small teams 22. State whether PCSO need to be interested in the issues of the local community. 23. Suggest the gender you would feel comfortable to work in your area as a PCSO. 24. Explain how PCSO should be funded. 25. W hat age limit should be set for entry into PCSO 26. For how long should the recruits into PCSO be trained 27. What qualifications should be set for entry into PCSO 28. What other functions should PCSO allowed to perform 29. Suggest other forces in which PCSO should be engaged apart from the police service. 30. Assess the success of the introduction, implementation and effectiveness of PCSO within the police service in your community. THANK YOU. Let me take this early opportunity to sincerely thank all the respondents who participated in completing this questionnaire. I highly feel indebted to all of you and I do hope that the results of this study will play a big role in improving the services of PCSO in community policing. Once again, thank you so much. Identification of a sample for this questionnaire. This study attempts to address a very important issue in the area of community policing. To come up with the right data to successfully conduct this study, the researcher aims to target three categories of subjects in sampling his population. These include members of the public, regular police officers and the PCSO of the sampled area. The members of the public will be selected because the researcher believes that they are better placed in pointing out the attitudes they associate with the introduction, implementation and effectiveness of PCSO within the police service. The regular police officers on the other hand will participate in the study because they are the ones to orientate and work with the PCSO in the field and are therefore capable of learning these attitudes best. Finally, the PCSO will play a major role in this study since they are the ones to take up these support jobs and thus harbour their own attitudes. They also experience first hand treatment from the community and the police force alike, thus greatly influencing most of their decisions (Weisberg, Krosnick & Bowen, 1996). Distribution of the questionnaire. My method of distributing the questionnaire will be two fold. Firstly I'm intending to personally administer the instrument to the majority of the subjects I can reach. For those ones in far flung areas, mailing will be my best option. My reasons for employing these two methods will be to ensure that the instrument is received by all the subjects in the sampled population. Bell (1993) argues that the questionnaires should be handled very professionally and safely to reach a big majority of the respondents depending on the importance of the study. Also, it is important for the researcher to personally explain the instructions of the instrument to all the respondents for better interpretation of the questions (Bell, 1993). Mailing the instrument to the target population is also a very sensitive undertaking. For instance, the envelope used must appear professional and clearly distinguishable from junk mail so as to instill confidence in the subjects and stress the importance of the study (Mangione, 1995). This fact is further emphasized by using the correct size of the envelope to hold the questionnaire without unnecessary folding. To ensure fast delivery of my mail, I will use first class mail since it presents a positive impression (Mangione, 1995). Finally, I will opt to using stamps on the envelopes rather than postage meters because this seems to increase the response rate (as cited in Dillman, 1978). Most of these mailings will be handled early in the week for best results, but very much avoiding Monday due to mail buildup over the weekend (Dillman, 1978). Justification of my use of odd number responses in the likert scale. In my questionnaire I have decided to use odd number responses of five point scale so as to increase validity and reliability. The five point scale offers a middle scale position which acts as a neutral position. This helps in assisting the respondents to make a choice in one way or the other as opposed to items without these neutral positions (Likert, 1986). Similarly, the use of odd number responses makes it easy for respondents to select a particular response while taking comparatively little time (Foddy, 1993). It has been established that unordered close-ended questions are not valid and reliable if there are more than five values. In fact, response rate declines rapidly as the number of items increase, especially those that require time and thought. For this reason, the number of items must be limited to insure a good response (Fowler & Mangione, 1990). Based on this argument therefore, I intend to limit the number of items in my questionnaire to five scale points since it will quite sufficiently stimulate a reasonably reliable indication of response direction in my subjects (Foddy, 1993). This will be ideal since respondents tend to choose from the top or middle of the list. Finally, my use of five scale points will be based on the fact that multiple choice questions with more than two values are known to be easy to analyse resulting in increased reliability (as cited in Likert, 1986). Ethical issues to consider in conducting this research. This is a very crucial survey investigating a very sensitive aspect of security in the community. Since the study involves asking peoples' attitudes and beliefs about something, I will need to motivate them to respond most truthfully. This is because research has found out that there is a strong tendency for respondents to give answers that are socially desirable and pleasing to the researcher (Bell, 1993). To ensure that the questionnaire does not cause annoyance and frustration on the part of my respondents, the questionnaire should be short and succinct. This will increase truthfulness and response rate in both mailed and personally administered questionnaires (Dillman, 1978). Because it is ethically wrong to ask very personal questions to people well known to the researcher, I will as much as possible refrain from asking relational questions. Any early appearance of disconcerting questions may result in respondents discontinuing the questionnaire (Foddy, 1993). Finally, the issue of cost in conducting this study should not evade the interest of the researcher. Efforts should be made to keep costs at the minimum. Fowler & Mangione (1990) recommends the use of another researcher's questionnaire, especially when doing a use and user survey in order to cut costs. Evaluation of questionnaires as a research method. Questionnaires are easy to prepare and administer and thus form the most commonly used method of gathering information in any study. They are also easily accepted as a less expensive way to reach more people, including those at some distance (Foddy, 1993). Another benefit of the questionnaire is that it eliminates interviewer prejudice or prompting that can impact on the validity and reliability of the data collected. The issue of anonymity also helps to elicit more valid responses (all cited in Foddy, 1993). Finally, the quality of response is improved because respondents may meet and consult sources needed when completing the questionnaires (Fowler & Mangione, 1990). On the contrary, there are some pitfalls associated with the use of this instrument. For one, the use of the instrument requires the respondents to clearly understand the questions to respond appropriately. Secondly, there is no opportunity for the researcher to develop rapport with the respondents (Bell, 1993). Finally, the response rates have been known to decrease over time even after numerous follow-ups. References: Bell, J. (1993). Doing your research project: a guide for first-time researchers in education and social science (2nd ed.). Buckingham; Philadelphia: Open University Press. Dillman, D. A. (1978). Mail and telephone surveys: The total design method. New York: John Wiley. Foddy, W. (1993). Constructing questions for interviews and questionnaires: theory and practice in social research. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. Fowler, F.J., & Mangione, T.W. (1990). Standardized survey interviewing: minimizing interviewer-related error. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Likert, R., & Likert, J. (1986). The profile of a school. New survey for public schools to improve organizational effectiveness. Ann Arbor, MI: Rensis Likert Inc. Mangione, T.W. (1995). Mail surveys: improving the quality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Weisberg, H.F., Krosnick, J.A., & Bowen, B.D. (1996). An Introduction to survey research, polling, and data analysis (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Read More