Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T06:43:39.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Crucial Element: Finding Research Sites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

Geoffrey P. Alpert
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Roger G. Dunham
Affiliation:
University of Miami
Get access

Summary

researching a high-risk issue, such as police use of force, makes it difficult to find police departments willing to share their data and to cooperate in activities that help verify the accuracy and usefulness of that data. After carefully defining terms, choosing the best research method, and designing forms to capture all pertinent information, the researcher must also find cooperative research sites. The success of the earlier study (Alpert and Dunham 1997) highlighted both the difficulty and the necessity of finding cooperative agencies in order to produce meaningful research, albeit research that is limited to site-by-site findings. In this chapter we detail our contact with the various police departments we approached in connection with the various studies that led to the writing of this book. It is an account that demonstrates the many potential difficulties associated with this field, and again underscores the need for far more research into the use of force, research that would benefit from the sound conceptual framework we suggest in Chapter 8.

Miami-Dade Police Department

The Miami-Dade Police Department(MDPD) is located in Dade County, Florida. The agency is responsible for all law enforcement activities in the unincorporated areas of the county (it was formerly known as the Metro-Dade Police Department and the Dade County Sheriff's Department). In addition, MDPD also contracts with many of the municipal agencies within Dade County to perform specialized services. In 1998, the unincorporated areas of Dade County covered 1,840 square miles with a population of approximately 2,140,000.

Type
Chapter
Information
Understanding Police Use of Force
Officers, Suspects, and Reciprocity
, pp. 54 - 64
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alpert, Geoffrey, and Roger Dunham. The Force Factor: Measuring Police Use of Force Relative to Suspect Resistance. Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 1997
Alpert, Geoffrey, and Smith, Michael. “Police Use-of-Force Data: Where We Are and Where We Should Be Going.” Police Quarterly 2(1999): 57–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael, and Petrocelli, Matthew. “Racial Profiling? A Multivariate Analysis of Police Traffic Stop Data.” Police Quarterly 4(2001): 4–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×