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MODEL ACADEMIC CURRICULUM

MODULE 7

Tools for Researching Problems

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Module 7 Topics

• Identifying and Researching Problems

• Using Available Research Tools

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What is a “Problem”?

• One possible definition – “a group of incidents occurring in a community, that are similar in one or more ways [emphasis added], and that are of concern to the police and the public”

• Problems can be defined or described in many ways – based on an offense type, the people involved, where and when the problem occurs, etc.

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6 Required Elements of a Problem:The CHEERS Test

• Community

• Harmful

• Expectation

• Events

• Recurring

• Similarity

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Defining Your Problem

• Focus on the largest component of your problem.

• Begin with a very specific definition and broaden it progressively until you find relevant material. For example:– Car theft from parking lots downtown– Car theft from parking lots– Car theft from parking facilities (lots and structures)– Car theft

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Nature of Activity

Classification of problem activity – Allows the comparison of different levels of activity – Whether levels are related – Understand the causes and routine behavior

Two Criteria– Environment– Behavior

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Nature of Activity

Environment • Residential• Recreational• Offices• Retail• Industrial• Agricultural• Educational• Human Service• Public Ways• Transport• Open/Transitional

Behavior• Predatory• Consensual• Conflicts• Incivilities• Endangerment• Misuse of Police

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Examples

Problem

• Assaults in bars• Construction site burglaries of homes• Accidents at intersections• Thefts from vehicle at a mall• False burglary alarms at factories• Street prostitution in a neighborhood• Intimate violence at work• Loud parties at an apartment complex• Robbery of bus drivers

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Research Assumptions

• You are familiar with POP.• • You are willing to consider new responses.

• You have limited time and resources.

• You are not writing a formal literature review.

• You have Internet access.

• You have library access.

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Some Places to Start Your Research

• The Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at www.popcenter.org

• The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services at www.cops.usdoj.gov.

• The Crime Reduction Toolkits at http://www.crimereduction.gov.uk/toolkits/index.htm

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Begin Your Search By Formulating Search Terms

• Phrases

• Boolean operators

• Truncation symbols

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Refining Your Search Broadening Your Search

• Try using synonyms and keywords that are more general.

• Try using fewer keywords.

• If you do need to search using a number of words, search them individually (or possibly in pairs) first.

• Use the "or" operator and truncation * symbol.

• Use lower case, even for proper nouns. This will broaden your search.

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Refining Your Search Narrowing Your Search

• Be more specific. Evaluate your keywords and synonyms.

• Capitalize when appropriate. Some search engines are case sensitive.

• Use AND. The Boolean operator "and" will limit your search to only those occurrences that include both terms.

• Use phrases.

• Try using NOT. The Boolean operator "not" narrows the search by excluding certain words.

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On-line Exercise

• The NCJRS Online Tutorial can be a useful exercise for students who are not familiar with searching the abstract database.

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Expanding Your Internet Search from Your Home or Office

• Make a general search of the Internet using Google or similar search engine.

• Search online archives of some large newspapers.

• Search online databases.

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Searching the Internet Using Google (www.google.com)

• Google is considered the premier search tool on the Internet.

• Google Scholar (www.scholar.google.com)

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Online Newspaper Archives

• San Francisco Chronicle

• Washington Post

• New York Times

• Chicago Tribune

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Online Databases (may sometimes require a fee)

• Questia (www.questia.com)

• Ingenta (www.ingenta.com)

• PsycINFO (www.apa.org/psycinfo)

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Getting Advice

• Crime Analysts

• Police Departments

• Local College or University Faculty

• National Experts

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Visiting a Library

• Public Libraries

• University or College Libraries

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Public Libraries

• Computers with high speed connections to the Internet.

• Subscriptions to online databases.

• ProQuest, Ebsco, InfoTrac

• Interlibrary loan

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University or College Libraries

• The library's collection

• Online resources

• Criminal Justice Abstracts

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Evaluating Sources of Information

• Academic Article Format– Abstract– Literature– Methods– Results– Conclusions/Recommendations

• Reports of Police Projects– Format can vary depending on the purpose

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Utilizing the Information

Understanding Your Problem– Who is involved? – What exactly do they do? – Why do they do this? – Where do they do this? – When do they do this? – How do they carry out the crime?

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Researching a Problem

Ten Tips For Researching a Problem

1. Check the Problem-Oriented Guides for Police Series. 2. Browse the Tilley and Goldstein awards at www.popcenter.org. 3. Browse www.crimereduction.gov.uk 4. Try to get access to Criminal Justice Abstracts. 5. Visit your local library and speak to a librarian. 6. Use a computer with a high-speed Internet connection. 7. Make copies of the best articles and reports that you find. 8. Look for additional material in the reference lists of any useful article. 9. Develop a hypothesis about the causes of your problem. 10. Organize information about responses in a summary grid.*

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Conclusion

• The Internet and online social science databases have made it much easier and faster to find research articles and identify best practices.

• Public or college libraries can unearth a wealth of relevant material.

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Exercise 1

• Choose a research article on a specific problem and have the students find the article (perhaps online and in the library), copy the article, summarize the contents in one page, and describe the findings in class.

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Other Useful Research Websites

• National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Abstracts Database (http://abstractsdb.ncjrs.org)

• Australian Institute of Criminology (www.aic.gov.au)

• The Home Office, United Kingdom (www.homeoffice.gov.uk)

• Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) (www.policeforum. org)

• Community Policing Consortium (www.communitypolicing.org)

• Police Foundation (www.policefoundation.org)

• International Association of Chiefs of Police (www.theiacp.org)

• RAND (Public Safety and Justice Center) (www.rand.org/psj)