Police Departments with Community Citizen Review Boards (Research Proposal Sample)

Police Departments with Community Citizen Review Boards
Question 2: Develop a study proposal for research to test the research hypothesis below:
Police departments with community citizen review boards have fewer incidents of police misconduct than departments without community citizen review boards.
Research Proposal
This research proposal sets to establish a foundation for the testing of the following hypothesis: Police departments with community citizen review boards have fewer incidents of police misconduct than departments without community citizen review boards. Based on the hypothesis, the main objective of the study will be to find out whether community citizen review boards within police departments help curb police misconduct.
Independent and Dependent Variables
To test the above hypothesis, it is necessary to identify all the relevant variables. The most important are the independent and dependent variables. The independent variable does not depend on other factors and will not be affected by other variables being measured; in this case, the independent variable is the community citizen review board. On the other hand, the dependent variable depends and changes based on other conditions and factors. In this case, the dependent variable is police misconduct, which depends on the presence or absence of citizen review boards. The study will measure the independent and dependent variables to test the hypothesis and either nullify it or validate it.
Dependent Variable (DV) = Police Misconduct
Independent Variable (IV) = Community Citizen Review Boards
Level of measurement: The level of measurement provides the scope and description of the type of information that will be collected and stored for each variable (Harkin, 2015). In this case, the independent variable (community citizen review boards) will be measured at a nominal level, as the primary information being collected will be the presence or absence of review boards within the various police departments. A direct answer of a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ will suffice. On the other hand, the dependent variable (police misconduct) will be measured at an interval level, as this will represent the frequency of police misconduct within a particular precinct under a particular police department. Based on the above information, some of the important units to identify will be the community and the police departments sampled for the study. Furthermore, there will be a need to identify police precincts for more accuracy. The interval level measurement will make it easy to identify the differences in the number of reported cases between the sampled police departments and police precincts. It will make it easier for the research to establish and compare the exact numbers of police misconduct reported per police department. The nominal level will also enable the grouping of the responses based on the presence or absence of community review boards within police departments as collected.
Unit of analysis: The main unit of analysis is the community as it is the main entity under analysis and observation, while the units of observation are the individuals in the community who are affected by the misconduct of the officers while on duty.
Control variables: In addition, the research will use control variables, which will help increase the validity of the findings at the end of the research study. The control variables are the elements that will not change throughout the experiment, as they allow the relationship between the independent and dependent variables to be established without affecting the data between them (Rogers & Coliandris, 2015). Control variables to be used include location and crime rate in the community, the rank of the officers, their age, types of police misconduct cases, and the outcomes of the police misconduct. A defense for selecting the control variables is to dissect the information available about the officers and the community. The control variables will influence the experimental results by a large margin as the study will identify specifics about the relationship that exists between the community citizen review boards and the number of incidents occurring using the specific constants as a basis.
* Community Location
* Police Precinct
* Sex of the police officers
* Age of the police officers
* The rank of police officers
* Tenure of the officers
* The crime rate in the community/police precinct
* Police misconduct complaints
* Types of police misconduct cases
* Cases of bias and misreporting of police misconduct
Justification for each element: These control variables will help in encompassing the data in categories that provide a measurement standard. The sex and age of police officers help categorize any reported cases per standard groups of age and sex. Age may be done in ranges while sex will be a nominal entry. Notably, the reports on police misconduct may increase or decrease depending on the location of the community (Maxfield & Babbie, 2005). A community that leaves near the officers may know each officer by name, which makes it easy for the police to commit or restrain from committing misconduct, as the community may have been able to report them. In addition, police precincts with high crime rates may push the officers to handle them in a ruthless manner, which may come off as misconduct while those with low crime rates may not need the constant presence of the police. The high-ranking officers may have fewer misconduct reports as they protect the position they hold, while the age of the police also affects the way they behave. Harkin (2015) argues that older officers have no time to engage in misconduct activities as they have matured and gained experience in how to deal with different pressures at the workplace.
Research Design
The methods that will be used to collect the data for the study will include administering surveys to the affected communities and the various police departments, recorded data from the review boards, and official data from the governmental websites. (Maxfield & Babbie, 2014) The surveys will also help collect firsthand information from those who have experienced or observed the misconduct by the police and will encompass the extent of areas that do have review boards and those without. Notably, the respondents will feel secure taking part in the surveys as long as they remain anonymous which validates the information they provide for the research as reliable (Rogers & Coliandris, 2015). Official data collected on the community citizen review boards will also add to the statistics to be used by the research study as well as the governmental websites that give information about police misconduct cases. Moreover, there are reviews from the public on the website where they can report unanimously on the conduct of the officers who serve them.
The study will use the longitudinal approach to test the hypothesis by measuring the data collected from the community citizen review boards over a period of 10 years. Moreover, observing the misconduct of the officers in different areas of the community will help compare with the entries from the community review boards. This will also help identify whether some of the cases are not reported (Harkin, 2015). It will also help compare the number of cases reported over a specific period and those that go unreported. The longitudinal research design is appropriate for the research hypothesis as it will enable the study to relate to the past data on the law enforcers' conduct with the recent trends assuming the independent variable remains unchanged. The design will also enable the study to highlight the underlying issue of why the police have misconduct by providing a detailed analysis of the triggers (Maxfield & Babbie, 2005). This will help create a relationship between the rates of occurrence of misconduct issues and the role the community plays. It will offer a detailed description of the cases and specifics of the misconduct.