DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02654
title: Developing a Problem-Oriented Policing Model in Ada County, Idaho, 1997-1998
title: Archival Version

description: To explore the idea of community policing and to get an understanding of citizens' policing needs, representatives from the Ada County Sheriff's Office and Boise State University formed a research partnership and conducted surveys of county residents and sheriff's deputies. The county-wide survey of residents (Part 1) was designed to enhance the sheriff's current community policing program and to assist in the deployment of community policing officers by measuring citizens' perceptions and fear of crime, perceptions of deputies, knowledge of sheriff's services, and support for community policing. Questions in the citizen survey focused on feelings of safety in Ada County, such as perception of drugs, gangs, safety of youth, and safety at night, satisfaction with the Sheriff's Office, including ratings of the friendliness and fairness of the department and how well deputies and citizens worked together, attitudes regarding community-oriented policing, such as whether this type of policing would be a good use of resources and would reduce crime, and neighborhood problems, including how problematic auto theft, vandalism, physical decay, and excessive noise were for citizens. Other questions were asked regarding the sheriff's deputy website, including whether citizens would like the site to post current crime reports, and whether the site should have more information about the jail. Respondents were also queried about their encounters with police, including their ratings of recent services they received for traffic violations, requests for service, and visits to the jail, and familiarity with several programs, such as the inmate substance abuse program and the employee robbery prevention program. Demographic variables in the citizen survey include ethnicity, gender, level of schooling, occupation, income, age, and length of time residing in Ada County. The second survey (Part 2), created for the sheriff's deputies, used questions from the citizen survey about the Sheriff's Office service needs. Deputies were asked to respond to questions in the way they thought that citizens would answer these same questions in the citizen survey. The purpose was to investigate the extent to which sheriff's deputies' attitudes mirrored citizens' attitudes about the quality of service.
description: The Ada County Sheriff's Office had traditionally been a reactive rural police agency, deploying its personnel in accordance with perceived service needs. In 1996, under the leadership of the Ada County Sheriff, Idaho began to explore ways to increase citizen input into its policing activities. The need for police-citizen linkages in Ada County had taken on a particular urgency due to intense population in-migration in traditionally rural areas of the county, which resulted in an increasingly diverse citizenry with unclear crime control needs and police expectations. The Sheriff's Office elected to convert the entire patrol division to a community policing model using a problem-oriented policing structure of proactive policing. To explore this new idea and to get an understanding of citizens' policing needs, representatives from the Ada County Sheriff's Office and Boise State University formed a research partnership. Together, they designed a project with research and evaluation components. The research component assessed citizens' fear of crime, satisfaction with current sheriff services across the jurisdiction, and knowledge and attitudes regarding elements of community policing. The evaluation component assessed citizens' knowledge of community-oriented policing services currently available and the use of these services in the community, as well as the community-based initiatives put forth by the Sheriff's Office. The purpose of the survey was to measure citizens' perceptions and fears of crime, perceptions of deputies, behavior and knowledge of sheriff's services, and support for community policing. Specific questions that the citizen survey aimed to answer included: (1) What is the citizens' level of satisfaction with law enforcement? (2) How are different service areas of the Sheriff's Office received by the public? (3) What are the citizens' principal concerns/fears that can be addressed by law enforcement? (4) How can the Sheriff's Office improve its image with county residents? (5) Are there particular crime control/order maintenance needs of county citizens, and do these needs vary by location within the county? (6) Will the public be receptive to alternative forms of patrol? A second survey was created for the sheriff's deputies. This survey used questions from the citizen survey about the Sheriff's Office service needs. The purpose was to investigate the extent to which sheriff's deputies' attitudes mirrored citizens' attitudes about the quality of service. The survey addressed the following questions: (1) Were deputies giving citizens the services they wanted? and (2) Did deputies have accurate perceptions of citizens' service needs?
description: The citizen survey (Part 1) was a county-wide survey that focused on rural areas of Ada County. It was designed to enhance the sheriff's current community policing program and to assist in the deployment of community policing officers by measuring citizens' perception and fear of crime, perceptions of deputies, knowledge of sheriff's services, and support for community policing. Surveys were conducted by phone to allow researchers to elicit a comprehensive and in-depth profile of perceptions of current police policies and procedures, and citizen interest in the expansion of community policing policies and tactics. Topics covered in the survey included overall feelings of safety in the county, county drug and gang problems, satisfaction with the deputy department's demeanor, and individual reactions to the quality of police response with regard to community issues. The deputy survey data (Part 2) came from local deputies in Ada County who chose to participate in the study. Questions for this survey were taken directly from the section of the citizen survey that focused on the Sheriff's Office service needs. Deputies were asked to respond to the questions in the way they thought that citizens would answer these same questions in the citizen survey. This allowed for comparisons to be made between citizens' actual responses and the deputies' perception of citizens' attitudes.
description: Questions in the citizen survey focused on feelings of safety in Ada County, such as perception of drugs, gangs, safety of youth, and safety at night, satisfaction with the Sheriff's Office, including ratings of the friendliness and fairness of the department and how well deputies and citizens worked together, attitudes regarding community-oriented policing, such as whether this type of policing would be a good use of resources and would reduce crime, and neighborhood problems, including how problematic auto theft, vandalism, physical decay, and excessive noise were for citizens. Other questions were asked regarding the sheriff's deputy website, including whether citizens would like the site to post current crime reports, and whether the site should have more information about the jail. Respondents were also queried about their encounters with police, including their ratings of recent services they received for traffic violations, requests for service, and visits to the jail, and familiarity with several programs, such as the inmate substance abuse program and the employee robbery prevention program. Demographic variables in the citizen survey include ethnicity, gender, level of schooling, occupation, income, age, and length of time residing in Ada County. The second survey (Part 2) created for the sheriff's deputies, used questions from the citizen survey about the Sheriff's Office service needs. Deputies were asked to respond to questions in the way they thought that citizens would answer these same questions in the citizen survey. The purpose was to investigate the extent to which sheriff's deputies' attitudes mirrored citizens' attitudes about the quality of service.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Standardized missing values.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Presence of Common Scales: A Likert-type scale was used.
description: Response Rates: Part 1: Unknown, Part 2: 73 percent.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Citizen Survey Data 
 DS2: Deputy Survey Data
description: The user guide, codebook, and data collection instrument are provided as a Portable Document Format (PDF) file. 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.
description: Random sample and convenience sample.