Police referral practices and social service agency practices in three metropolitan areas, 1977
By: principal investigators, Elinor Ostrom, Roger B. Parks, and Gordon P. Whitaker
Series: ICPSR -- 7791; ICPSR (Series) -- 7791
Publisher: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor
Published: 1980
Place of publication: Ann Arbor, Mich
Language: und
Format: [computer file] /
Subjects: Police social work
Description: The dataset contains two related studies conducted in the metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Missouri, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, and Rochester, New York. The study of police referral practices provides information on the types of calls made to police departments, the referrals made to social service agencies from these calls, and the pattern of citizen demands. Data for this study were collected from 26,465 calls for police service at 21 police departments. The 36 variables include the nature of the call, characteristics of the caller, and the type of agency receiving the referral. The sampling frame for the study of social service agency practices was any agency within the three metropolitan areas that agreed to participate in the study, accepted police referrals, and dealt with at least one of ten selected social problems (e.g., drug abuse, suicide prevention, aid to the elderly). The study classifies agencies according to the extent of their cooperation with the police, the range of the social services they provide, and their history of service provision. Budget information was also obtained to calculate the costs of alternative methods of social service delivery.
Notes: Holding archive: Criminal Justice Archive and Information Network.

ICPSR data class: Class IV.

Data collected: 1977.

St. Louis, Missouri, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, and Rochester, New York.

Data generated by the Social Service Agency questionnaire are available in two machine-readable formats: precoded data and narrative text.

Representatives of 103 agencies were interviewed and data were collected for 139 variables.