DOI: 10.3886/icpsr37455
title: Assessing Procedural Justice During Police-Citizen Encounters with Officer Surveys, Citizen Surveys, and Systematic Social Observations, Norfolk, VA, 2017-2019
title: Archival Version

description: This study aimed to improve the understanding of procedural justice during police-citizen encounters with a comprehensive approach including officer surveys, systematic social observations, and citizen surveys. First, the study used officer surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of a procedural justice training program in Norfolk, Virginia. In 2017, an eight-hour training was conducted for all Norfolk police officers. A pretest and posttest survey was given to each officer during the training, which asked about their opinions on a multitude of statements representing the key elements of procedural justice in policing (e.g., voice, respect, trustworthiness, and neutrality). In 2019, the officers were given a second-wave survey to assess the long-term effects of the training. The study also examined officers' procedurally fair behavior during interactions and citizens' behavioral responses through systematic social observations of police-citizen interactions captured by the police body-worn cameras. Patrol shifts were randomly selected and observed between December 2017 and March 2019. The third component included a survey of citizens who interacted with the police during the observation period. Randomly selected officers were, prior to the shift, encouraged to hand out survey cards to all citizens they encountered. These cards invited the citizens to take a survey online. Citizens could also give their phone numbers to the officers so that they could be contacted to take the survey over the phone. The goal of the citizen survey was to obtain information about the citizens' opinions of the Norfolk police in general and the specific encounters they had with the Norfolk police. Taken together, the three components of this study offered a systematic understanding of the policing issues related to procedural justice, including officers' perceptions about procedural justice, officers' procedurally fair behavior during interactions, citizens' behavioral responses, and citizens' subjective evaluations of their encounters.
description: The purpose of this project was to improve the knowledge and understanding of procedural justice through a partnership with the Norfolk Police Department. It aimed to better understand officers' perceptions about procedural justice, officers' procedurally fair behavior during interactions, and citizens' behavioral responses and subjective evaluations of their encounters. Specifically, the research objectives were: To document officer behavior related to procedural justice through systematic observations conducted over a twelve-month period; To compare the characteristics of police-citizen interactions across different situations with a focus on the levels of procedural justice exercised by the police during interactions; To assess officers' attitudes toward procedural justice and how they are related to officers' behavior during encounters; To examine the dynamics of citizen interactions with the police, especially in response to procedural justice during encounters; To compare citizens' behaviors during encounters and their evaluations of the encounters in a follow-up survey; and To examine any possible changes in officers' behavior and attitudes during the project period that occur after procedural justice principles are incorporated into the department's management and training system.
description: The research subjects of this project included police officers in the Norfolk Police Department (NPD), the police-citizen encounters captured by police body-worn cameras, and the interacting citizens. All research was conducted with the cooperation of the NPD, and data collection was carried out using three major research methods: officer surveys, citizen surveys, and systematic social observations of police-citizen encounters. The department-wide procedural justice training conducted from June 2017 to November 2017 in Norfolk, Virginia, provided the opportunities for the research team to evaluate officers' perceptions about procedural justice with an officer survey. The research team used a pretest-posttest design to evaluate the effectiveness of the training and analyze the short-term changes in officers' perceptions. The second wave of officer surveys (conducted in 2019) used the same questionnaire as in the posttest survey of the first wave. During the project, trained observers coded body-worn camera videos from 656 randomly selected shifts (including both day shifts and night shifts) from all three patrol precincts (consisting of 28 patrol zones) in the City of Norfolk. Specifically, the research team employed a random selection method that randomly selected one day shift and one night shift from each patrol zone each month from December 2017 to March 2019 for the observation. The total length of the videos observed was about 1,194 hours, and 2,872 encounters were coded. The observation protocol was formulated based on the platform of more than 40 years of systematic social observations of the police in the field. The observers coded information about the characteristics of the encounter and the behaviors of the police and the interacting citizens. The citizen surveys corresponded with the observations and assessed the interacting citizens' perceptions about the police during encounters. During the observational period, randomly selected patrol officers were required to encourage citizen participation in the survey by completing and distributing survey information cards. The random selection method was similar to that in the observational study, and the sample size was doubled. In addition, all officers in the observational study were included in the citizen survey study. In total, officers returned 597 completed citizen cards. The research team conducted phone interviews with those citizens who agreed to participate. An online version of the survey was also available as an alternative to the phone interview. The citizen survey questions tapped citizens' subjective experiences with the police regarding their specific encounters along with their broader perceptions about the local police in terms of procedural justice and legitimacy.
description: Not applicable.
description: Response Rates: <strong>Police surveys:</strong> 668 sworn Norfolk Police Department employees completed the procedural justice training, among whom 547 completed the pretest, and 552 completed the posttest, resulting in a response rate of approximately 82 percent. The second wave of officer surveys had a response rate of 78 percent, suggesting that 531 out of 677 officers completed the second wave of the officer survey. <strong>Observational data:</strong> Response rates are not applicable for the observational data. <strong>Citizen surveys:</strong> Officers returned 597 completed citizen cards. By the end of data collection, a total of 221 citizens completed the survey, resulting in a response rate of 37 percent.
description: Presence of Common Scales: None.
description: Random sampling was used when applicable.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: NPD Officer Survey: First Wave Pretest DS2: NPD Officer Survey: First Wave Posttest DS3: NPD Officer Survey: Second Wave DS4: Observational Data: Encounter Characteristics DS5: Observational Data: Primary Citizen Interactions DS6: Observational Data: Non-Primary Citizen Interactions DS7: Survey of Interacting Citizens
description: Police officers from Norfolk Police Department Interactions involving Norfolk police officers and citizens Norfolk citizens observed in police interactions. Smallest Geographic Unit: City
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI); coded video observation; on-site questionnaire; web-based survey