Abstract
The topic of this study is how different demographics and crime rates in police beats differ in their perceptions of interactions with police officers. The research questions for this study are: ‘Do citizens of a mid-sized city in California differ in their perceptions of interactions with police based on demographic?’ and ‘Do differences in neighbourhood crime rates affect different perceptions of the police?’ The participants in this study were 307 residents from households of an anonymous city in California, chosen through stratified random sampling. Mailed surveys were sent out to 1,500 households, with canvassing done several months later to increase response rate. The results of the study were determined using frequency distributions to determine the descriptive statistics of the study, Kruskal–Wallis H tests and Mann–Whitney U tests for determining differences in predictor variable groups, and crosstabs and Spearman’s Rho to determine any correlations between the predictor and outcome variables. The results show that, outside two weak correlations, demographics and crime rates do not cause differences in people’s perceptions of interactions with the police.
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