WS - E - Conducting Community Surveys

reduction programs by police in Houston, Newark and Baltimore County made use of community surveys. During the late 1980s, many police came to view the public as customers or consumers of police service. Police often used citizen or customer satisfaction surveys to gauge the reaction of citizens to contact with police. These surveys were often mailed surveys, sent to citizens who had complained, received traffic citations, or had other formal contact with police. Telephone surveys were also used for this purpose. As part of the trend towards community policing and problem-solving in the mid- and late 1990s, community surveys have increasingly been used to collect local-level information from citizens about specific problems in their communities. For the most part, these surveys have been administered to sub-units within cities & public housing developments, neighborhoods or other geographic entities. Many of these surveys have been administered face-to-face at the homes of residents; however, door-to-door surveys are very costly to carry out. While all of these approaches to collecting information from citizens have been used, surveys have not always provided reliable information to police. Because of the way people were selected for surveys, police surveys have typically not met scientific standards of reliability, and some have been subject to criticism. To provide feedback about community policing, there has been increasing interest among police, city councils, and mayors’ offices in obtaining reliable survey information that meets scientific standards by using probability samples. In fact, some cities now routinely conduct citizen surveys to provide feedback on police performance. ù Scottsdale, Arizona, conducts (through a contractor) an annual citizen satisfaction survey to assess service delivery. (See the questionnaire at www://ci.scottsdale.az.us). The telephone survey queries approximately 400 citizens through a random digit dialing approach. The sampling procedure is so standardized and the survey so routinized that information is used to guide the city’s budgetary process. ù Similarly, police in Reno, Nevada, completed their 17th semi-annual community survey in early 1999. The Reno department primarily uses volunteers, such as university students and seniors, to carry out the survey of 430 citizens. (For more information contact the deputy chief for planning, training and research via http://www.reno.gov) Use of telephone surveys As a method of research, telephone surveys have many benefits. The telephone interview is typically non-threatening to the respondent and allows the respondent to feel the degree of confidentiality or anonymity assured by the interviewer. Telephone surveys also preclude the need for interviewers to conduct interviews 4 A Practical Guide for Police