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What is your general opinion about the author's research findings? 

Why did he go from an observer turned into that of a participant-observer? To the point where offends and other people from a police department thought he was an officer. Would that not disrupt police work and semi-taint the research. Just because he kept the officers and location a secret from the public, the officer and surrounding areas still know about the study, not that it was ever a secret. 

His overall findings I agree with, I just don’t like the methodology used. 

“The police were acutely aware of the distance between them and the communities in which they worked. When asked what the most serious problem facing the police was, most officers indicated a problem with public relations (i.e., the publics’ disrespect of police, mistrust, and lack of cooperation and understand-ing). Nearly three-fourths of the police officers responded that the public ranked the status of the police as “fair” or “poor.” The police felt rejected, alienated, and taken for granted by the very people they were trying to serve. “(Thistlethwaite & Wooldredge, 2014 Page 7)

This research was done in 1966, do you think its findings still apply today?

Yes, and no. I think with the times changes it would be a little different. However, I do agree police might feel like they are being taken for granted by the people they were trying to serve. In this day and age and after all of the backlash of police. I believe that the outcome would be slightly different. 

These are two of the findings that I think still apply today:

Furthermore, most of the officers studied expressed negative attitudes toward blacks in their community (Skolnick 1966). Little appears to have changed 40 years later. In a recent article, Delores Jones–Brown (2007) wrote “ . . . the police are conditioned to suspect blacks, and black males in particular, of wrong-doing even in the absence of actual criminality” (p. 103). 

In addition, the police were more suspicious of male drivers and drivers of older vehicles. The police were also more suspicious during nighttime hours. Evidence of disparate treatment by police results in negative attitudes by citizens toward the police, particularly among minority groups. 

What is your opinion about the methodology used to conduct this research?

 “For example, the police might have responded more harshly with suspects in an attempt to impress an observer with their authority, or (conversely) the police might have been more laid back and informal. During the study period, there were times when a detective would ask Skolnick for his opinion on information received from an informant.” (Thistlethwaite & Wooldredge, 2014 Page 6). 

I disagree with this methodology. Even if he addressed this in his book. When a researcher becomes a participant-observer, one of the difficult decisions to make is how much to become involved in the activities of those being observed. Even if he justified his best judgment, he still affected the results of the outcome. 

 

How would you improve on the author's research?

 I would have been more of a silent observer then a  participant-observer. I also think that the research should have been more broadly, every police department is different. What goes on in rural Tennessee, would be different than what’s going on in Atlanta, Georgia. 

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