U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Public Attitudes Toward the Police: Methodology and Questionnaire

NCJ Number
140785
Journal
Canadian Police College Journal Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Dated: (1992) Pages: 251- 262
Author(s)
F Linguanti; J McIntyre
Date Published
1992
Length
12 pages
Annotation
To save police organizations time in planning and undertaking their community perception surveys, this article describes the form of the questionnaire now in use by the British Columbia Police Commission to measure the public's attitude toward police and provides information on sample size and sampling procedure as well as data analysis.
Abstract
The first questionnaire was developed by the Commission in 1987 to provide a community measure of satisfaction with the delivery of service by municipal police departments. Several modifications have been made over the years. Determination of sample size depends on the size of the population, the statistical precision requirements, study objectives, time available, budget, and analysis plan. For populations larger than 10,000, a sample size of about 400 proves sufficient. A three-stage random probability sample technique is used. Two stages involve compiling a random list of telephone numbers to be used by interviewers; the third stage occurs once the household is reached. Interviewing generally takes place over a 2-week period. The police department is notified prior to commencing the survey and advised that a survey concerning public attitudes toward the police is being conducted. SPSS is the statistical software package used in British Columbia to analyze the data. The questionnaire now in use is appended. 2 references