DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03491.v1
title: Survey of Citizens' Attitudes Toward Community-Oriented Law Enforcement in Alachua County, Florida, 1996
title: Version 1

description: This study sought to identify the impact of the
 communication training program given to deputies in Alachua County,
 Florida, on the community's attitudes toward community law enforcement
 activities, particularly crime prevention and neighborhood patrols. To
 determine the success of the communication training for the Alachua
 deputies, researchers administered a survey to residents in the target
 neighborhood before the communication program was implemented (Part
 1: Pretest Data) and again after the program had been established
 (Part 2: Post-Test Data). The survey instrument developed for use in
 this study was designed to assess neighborhood respondents' attitudes
 regarding (1) community law enforcement, defined as the assignment of
 deputies to neighborhoods on a longer term (not just patrol) basis
 with the goal of developing and implementing crime prevention
 programs, (2) the communication skills of deputies assigned to the
 community, and (3) the perceived importance of community law
 enforcement activities. For both parts, residents were asked how
 important it was to (1) have the same deputies assigned to their
 neighborhoods, (2) personally know the names of their deputies, and
 (3) work with the deputies on crime watch programs. Residents were
 asked if they agreed that the sheriff's office dealt with the
 neighborhood residents effectively, were good listeners, were easy to
 talk to, understood and were interested in what the residents had to
 say, were flexible, were trustworthy, were safe to deal with, and were
 straightforward, respectful, considerate, honest, reliable, friendly,
 polite, informed, smart, and helpful. Demographic variables include
 the gender, race, age, income, employment status, and educational
level of each respondent.
description: Meeting the challenges of providing effective law
 enforcement in today's climate is a more complex task than ever,
 particularly for very small and rural law enforcement agencies. An
 innovative approach that has the potential to increase law enforcement
 presence and effectiveness is that of locally-initiated
 partnerships. Collaboration is a necessary component of success for
 many smaller local law enforcement agencies, and the benefits often
 extend to larger partners. Continuing and enhancing partnerships among
 smaller law enforcement agencies provide benefits to citizens of all
 jurisdictions participating in such partnership initiatives. Six
 sheriff's offices (Alachua County, Gilchrist County, Columbia County,
 Putnam County, Levy County, and Union County Sheriff's Offices)
 located in North Central Florida and the University of Florida were
 partners in a National Institute of Justice grant designed to enhance
 research skills among the partners as they related specifically to
 community law enforcement. To this end, the Florida Research Survey
 Center developed various training presentations/workshops for the
 partners, one of which was communication for law enforcement
 personnel. This particular training workshop was presented to deputies
 in the Alachua County Sheriff's Office. The workshop was designed to
 provide deputies with the skills they needed in order to interact
 effectively with community residents. The training consisted of four
 modules: (1) effective interpersonal communication, which provided
 deputies with a basic understanding of what is meant by effective
 interpersonal communication, (2) effective listening, the goal of
 which was to teach deputies the distinction between hearing and
 listening, (3) nonverbal communication, which dealt with how and when
 to make eye contact and the meaning and effective use of other
 nonverbal communication, and (4) conflict management, which focused on
 how to avoid conflict and develop long-term cooperative relationships
 with the community. This study sought to identify the impact of the
 communication training program on community attitudes toward
 community law enforcement activities, particularly crime prevention
and neighborhood patrols.
description: To determine the success of the communication
 training received by the Alachua deputies, researchers administered a
 survey to residents in the target neighborhood before the
 communication program was implemented (Part 1: Pretest Data) and
 again after the program had been established (Part 2: Post-Test
 Data). The survey instrument developed for use in this study was
 designed to assess neighborhood respondents' attitudes regarding (1)
 community law enforcement, defined as the assignment of deputies to
 neighborhoods on a longer term (not just patrol) basis with the goal
 of developing and implementing crime prevention programs, (2) the
 communication skills of deputies assigned to the community, and (3)
 the perceived importance of community law enforcement activities. In
 creating the survey instrument, researchers drew from a variety of
 concepts and existing scales. The first set of concepts used related
 to the Communication Competence Scale (Wiemann, 1977), which assesses
 the ability to choose among available communication behaviors to
 accomplish one's own interpersonal goals during an encounter. Another
 set of concepts was drawn from the Feelings of
 Understanding/Misunderstanding Scale (Cahn and Shulman, 1984), which
 measures perceptions of feelings of understanding and misunderstanding
 when communicating with another person. The Individual Trust Scale
 (Wheeless and Grotz, 1977) was developed to measure certain favorable
 perceptions of another individual in risky situations in which the
 expected outcome of the interaction depends upon another individual
 and the outcome is not known. As such, citizen interactions with law
 enforcement personnel would be a good fit with measurement objectives
 of this particular scale. The final set of concepts for the survey was
 drawn from the Source of Credibility Scale (Berlo, Lemert, and Mertz,
 1970), which refers to the believability of information and the
 dimension of credibility of perceived expertise. Other scales
 developed for the survey were taken from validated instruments
 contained in Communication Research Measures (Rubin, Palmgreen, and
 Sypher [eds.], 1994). These exact scale items were not directly used,
 but served merely as a reference for the researchers in creating their
 survey instrument. Once the target neighborhood was chosen, research
 staff went door-to-door administering the survey in person, because
 many of the residents in the chosen neighborhood did not have
telephones.
description: For both the pre- and the post-test surveys,
 residents were asked how important it was to (1) have the same
 deputies assigned to their neighborhoods, (2) personally know the
 names of their deputies, and (3) work with the deputies on crime watch
 programs. Residents were asked if they agreed that the sheriff's
 office dealt with the neighborhood residents effectively, were good
 listeners, were easy to talk to, understood and were interested in
 what the residents had to say, were flexible, were trustworthy, were
 safe to deal with, and were straightforward, respectful, considerate,
 honest, reliable, friendly, polite, informed, smart, and
 helpful. Demographic variables include the gender, race, age, income,
employment status, and educational level of each respondent.
description: Response Rates: Not available.
description: Presence of Common Scales: Several Likert-type scales were used.
description: Convenience sampling and random sampling.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Pretest Data
DS2: Post-Test Data
description: Households in Alachua County, Florida.
description: The user guide, codebook, and data collection instrument
 are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The PDF 
 file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be 
 accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe Acrobat Reader. 
 Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is provided on 
the ICPSR Web site.