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SECTION I
Like other sciences, sociology can be looked at from different perspectives. Some
sociologists focus their attention on society using a micro-macro linkage and others are
extremists and focus only on microsociology or macrosociology. The difference between microand macro- sociology is that micro is primarily interested in subjective culture where macro is
more interested in objective culture. There are countless sociological theories and many of them
can be categorized as either micro- or macro- sociology. Out of all those theories and theorists,
two social theorists that have impacted contemporary sociology the most are Talcott Parsons and
Harold Garfinkel. The interesting thing about micro- and macro- sociology is how
interconnected they are to each other. Even more interesting is that Garfinkel was a student of
Parsons (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
In 1937 Parsons published his first major work, The Structure of Social Action. This
publication did not become an instant classic but with time this become a very important piece of
sociological literature that served as a milestone for the development of sociology as an
academic discipline (Gerhardt 2002). According to Ritzer and Stepnisky (2018), American
theorizing owes a profound debt to The Structure of Social Action since it made a case for the
legitimacy and significance of sociological theorizing. This literature was also the start of
Parsons becoming a structural-functional theorist. Most of his focus up until this point was on
actors and their thoughts and actions since he prescribed to action theory, but at this time he
turned his attention to large-scale social and cultural systems of structural functionalism. Thanks
to him structural functionalism dominated sociology until the 1960s when both Parsons and
structural functionalism fell from grace with major criticisms from the likes of C. Wright Mills
and David Lockwood, to name a few (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
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Parsons’s structural functionalism is easily identified as a macro-sociological theory since
it looks at society from an objective, big picture lens. First, Parsons’s theory had something
called an AGIL scheme that emphasized the four functional constraints needed for all “action”
systems. AGIL is an acronym for adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency or pattern
maintenance. First, the behavioral organism, which is an action system, handles the adaptation
function when a system has to adapt to its environment’s external and situational needs and has
to alter the environment to its own needs. Second, the personality system implements the goal
attainment aspect when the system specifies its main goals, deploys resources, and accomplishes
its goals. Third, the social system deals with the integration process of system balancing the
relationship between the other three parts; adaptation, goal attainment, and latency; and
regulating the interrelationship of its component parts. Finally, the cultural system executes the
latency or pattern maintenance part by presenting individuals with norms and values that will
motivate them while also maintaining and refreshing the cultural patterns that generates this
motivation. These four functions, according to Parsons, must be performed by a system if it is to
survive in society (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
Ritzer and Stepnisky (2018) outline the seven assumptions Parsons’s structural
functionalism had to follow:
1. Systems have the property of order and interdependence of parts.
2. Systems tend toward self-maintaining order, or equilibrium.3
3. The system may be static or involved in an ordered process of change.
4. The nature of one part of the system has an impact on the form that the other parts can take.
5. Systems maintain boundaries with their environments.
6. Allocation and integration are two fundamental processes necessary for a given state of equilibrium of a
system.
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7. Systems tend toward self-maintenance involving the maintenance of boundaries and of the relationships
of parts to the whole, control of environmental variations, and control of tendencies to change the system
from within (321).
These assumptions with his four action systems helped address what Parsons called the problem
of order. These action systems are analytical tools that help one analyze the real world but do not
actually exist in the real world.
The four action systems according to Parsons are social system, cultural system,
personality system, and behavioral organism, as indicated previously. The social system has
structural and functional aspects about it. From a structuralist perspective, Parsons looked at the
large-scale elements like collectivities, norms, and values. The functionalist side of social
systems has seven essentials. First, they must operate compatibly with other systems. Second,
there has to be support from other systems for it to survive. Third, the of needs of the actors must
be met through the system. Fourth, members must want to participate in the system. Fifth, the
system has to have control, at least minimally, over potential disruptive behavior. Sixth,
sufficiently disruptive conflict must be controlled. Lastly, in order to survive, language is
required (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
The most important action system to Parsons was the cultural system. He felt that culture
integrates with the social system through norms and values and personality system when actors
internalize these, but it is also its own individual system as well. The cultural system is the
socially complied knowledge, symbols, and ideas. Parsons felt that culture was so important
because it can control the other action systems due to its symbolic, subjective character that
allows it to flow between the systems so well (Ritzer and Sttepnisky 2018).
The weakest of Parsons action systems is the personality system. Somewhat like the
cultural system, the personality system is controlled by both the social and cultural systems. The
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main element of this system is the need-disposition. Parsons identified three basic types of needdispositions. They are social relationships where actors feel loved and accepted, actors
internalizing values to fight into the cultural standards, and understanding role expectations to
efficiently give and get suitable responses. The final action system that Parsons includes is
behavioral organism. Parsons says little about this residual system, but it is noteworthy because it
shows he was interested in intersectionality of the life sciences and social theory (Ritzer and
Stepnisky 2018).
Interestingly, when looking at the social system, one sees that there is a small amount,
even if only briefly analyzed, of microsociology involved in this macrosociology theory, which
shows the micro-macro linkage that can be involved even in extreme micro- and macrosociological theories. More interesting is that Harold Garfinkel was a student of Talcott Parsons
who decided to look at microsociology instead of following in Parsons steps. Garfinkel was also
a student of Alfred Schutz at the New School. Having been trained by both Parsons and Schutz,
Garfinkel gave way to the field of ethnomethodology. Ethnomethodology was a fusion of
Parsonsian thoughts and Schutzian ideas. Ethnomethodologists study everyday life and
concentrate on social facts that are produced by peoples’ methodological acts that help them
make sense of their society (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
In 1967 Garfinkel published his greatest work, Studies in Ethnomethodology. For
sociology, this became one of the most influential theoretical books. Before this publication,
ethnomethodology, although known, was not taken seriously as theoretical approach to social
sciences, which is why Garfinkel has been credited with the “founding” of the field. Some
sociologists would argue that ethnomethodology has revolutionized sociology and is one of the
most import social theories. This is due in part to the fact that ethnomethodology has triggered
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many different innovative directions for social theorists to go. It is important to point out that
ethnomethodology, despite its importance to sociology, has been kept at arm’s length. This
probably due to ethnomethodologists liked to pass down their work orally from teacher to
student giving it a cult-like feel. Also, ethnomethodology can be considered a hybrid discipline,
which was off putting to many sociologists especially in a time before emphasis was put on
interdisciplinary studies. These reasons are why ethnomethodology found more success in
neighboring fields; like philosophy and anthropology; and distant fields; like linguistics,
technology, and informatics (Meyer and Endreß 2019).
The fact that ethnomethodology studies everyday life makes the possible varieties of the
theory basically infinite. This has led theorists to, in broad terms, study breaching experiments,
analyze conversations, and examine institutional settings. Breaching experiments try to show that
actors are constantly participating in constructing social reality. To do this, researchers violate
commonsense assumptions of norms and behaviors of everyday life and study the reactions of
people around them. Researchers have found that subjects try to quickly normalize the situation
by applying familiar terms to it. There are innumerable of examples of breaching experiments.
Some are as simple as facing away from the doors in an elevator and some are as complex as
imagining the rooms in one’s house are boarders and acting under those assumptions (Ritzer and
Stepnisky 2018).
Another type, and by far the major type, of research within ethnomethodology is
conversation analysis. Conversation analysis is not concerned with the relationship between
speaker and hear but more focused on the relationship between utterances in a conversation. That
is to say, the goal is to study the expected ways a conversation is to be organized and how one
acts when those assumptions are not met. People anticipate conversations to have an opening,
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closing, and regular back and forth between those involved. These anticipations indicate when it
is ones turn to speak, laugh, applause, or boo, as well as how during a conversation a person
produces their sentence to retain its appropriateness. Researchers also study nonverbal activities
in conversations to understand how body language, gaze, and posture influence them (Ritzer and
Stepnisky 2018).
A final type of research ethnomethodologists participate in is examining institutions.
Studies of social institutions are interested in the conversations and interactions that take place.
Some social institutions that have been covered by ethnomethodologists are job interview,
executive negotiations, emergency centers’ calls, and mediation hearings. When
ethnomethodologists study job interviews they typically find people preforming normal
conversations with turn taking where the only difference from it and everyday conversation is the
fact that both parties know it is an interview. Meaning that the job interview is defined by the
nature of the conversation and the interaction as a whole. Like job interviews, executive
negotiations do not differ from normal everyday conversation. Both daily conversation and
executive negotiations require the participates to continuously alter their sentences in order to
keep the appropriateness of the situation. Interestingly, emergency phone calls combine the
findings of the previous two areas of study. The participates let the situations dictate the nature
of the conversation and have to continuously alter their sentences to keep it relevant for the
seriousness of the situation. Unlike these other examples, studying mediation hearings is quite
different. Mediation hearings have their own set of rules that limit when a person can speak, the
topic of the conversation, and who the speaker can speak to, typically only the mediator. An
interesting phenomenon to point out here is that just like how Parsons’s theory of social
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functionalism has hints of microsociology, so does Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology have hints of
macrosociology (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
Macro- and micro- sociological extremists have been a major part of the last century of
American sociological theorizing and have forgotten about the micro-macro linkage of the
classic sociology theorists. In the 1980s and 1990s sociology theorists started to try to go back to
this linkage between micro- and macro- sociological theories. It is interesting that Garfinkel, who
came from a macrosociological foundation as a student of Parsons, founded a microsociological
theory. Both social functionalism and ethnomethodology tried to utilize the micro-macro linkage
but did not perfectly accomplish that goal. Ethnomethodology study the everyday but also know
how to look at those micro-level details in the macro-level world of social institutions. This has
allowed them to use the micro-macro linkage to get a fuller understanding of a macro social
structure (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
Like Garfinkel’s theory, Parsons also tries to employ the micro-macro linkage to his
structural functionalism theory. When discussing his four action systems, Parsons includes the
behavioral organism. Although he says little about this system, it shows that he was attempting
to incorporate this linkage between micro- and macro- sociology. Behavioral organism is
Parsons source of energy for the rest of his systems, but it has never seemed fully developed. The
microsociology to this system is that it looks at the conditioning and learning that happens in a
person’s life. Understanding individual or micro-level sociology can help the macro-level theory
understand how systems survive in society (Ritzer and Stepnisky 2018).
Although macro- and micro- sociology have their extremist, most of the history of
sociological theory has tried to use the micro-macro linkage. Trying to understand the social
world without both levels of sociology is a pointless thing to do. Society has levels and is a
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complex concept that only benefits from being viewed through the lens of both micro- and
macro- sociology. Parsons and Garfinkel realized this as well and tried to incorporate both levels
into their theories. The ideas were never fully formed but the fact that both tried says that even
they understood the importance of the micro-macro linkage in sociology.
References
Gerhardt, Uta. 2002. Talcott Parsons. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Meyer, Christian, and Martin Endreß. 2019. "Harold Garfinkel’S Legacy." Human Studies
42(2):159-163.
Ritzer, George, and Jeffrey Stepnisky. 2018. Sociological Theory. Los Angeles [etc.]: Sage.
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SECTION II
1a. The purpose of Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack’s research is to look at job stress and job
satisfaction for probation, parole, and residential officers. To do this they investigated individual
factors, job characteristics, and organizational variables on job satisfaction and job stress. They
decided to conduct this research because little to no work had been done on probation, parole,
and residential officers. A large majority of previous research has focused on institutional
correction officers. Therefore, this research’s purpose was to expand the literature for community
corrections officers.
1b. The literature review section sets up the research problem quite well. It highlights that
previous research focused most of its attention on institutional corrections officers and their job
stress and job satisfaction levels. This leads the researchers to the conclusion that a big problem
in the existing theories is that there is minimal literature on community corrections officers. The
theories that do exist about job stress and job satisfaction for community corrections officers are
inconsistent. The previous findings give mix results as to what variables cause job stress and job
satisfactions so they could only provide a guide for Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack when they were
ready to start making hypotheses. The previous research helps identify what type of variables to
use and what factors in each variable category to investigate. Also, the researchers use previous
work to see that job stress impacts job satisfaction and that predictors of both need to be studied
to see if they are similar or not.
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2a. Since there has not been much research done on this subject area, this research would mainly
be considered exploratory. The results give no solid answers but sets the groundwork for future
studies to expand on the work done here. Being that the sample size is quite small and
homogenous the results are not very generalizable. This gives the research a bit of a descriptive
tone to it as well since the results speak primarily for the sample size alone.
2b. The authors developed five hypotheses for their research. They are:
Hypothesis 1: The influence of individual factors will differ for job stress compared to job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 2: The influence of job characteristics will differ for job stress compared to job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3: The influence of organizational characteristics will overlap for job stress and job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 4: Job stress will have a negative effect on job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 5: Organizational factors will have a larger impact on both job stress and job satisfaction,
compared to individual and job characteristics. (Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack 2020: 8).
The hypotheses focus on the variables’ impact on job stress and job satisfaction for probation,
parole, and residential officers. Therefore, considering the literature review and the purpose of
the study, the hypotheses make sense.
2c. Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack collected primary data through online surveys. These surveys
were emailed to the director of six Judicial District Departments of Corrections in the state of
Iowa. These surveys were then forwarded from the director to the officers who worked in their
districts. This data is primary data because the researchers collected it themselves from the
officers being studied. The disadvantage with this sample’s representativeness is that Iowa is a
homogenous state. Therefore, the results have a low generalizability. The advantage here is that
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the researchers made sure their sampling was easy to replicate so that future researchers can use
their methods on different populations in more heterogenous places.
2d. The units of analysis and the units of observation for this research are the same: community
corrections officers (probation, parole, and residential officers). The sample size was 277 where
179 were probation/parole officers and 98 were residential officers. The article explains that the
sample group comes from probation, parole, and residential officers who work at 6 of the 8
Judicial District Departments of Corrections in Iowa. A strength of this research is that they
clearly identify the respondents that they sampled so that future research could replicate it in a
different place on a different population and grow the literature on this subject.
2e. This research studies characteristics and actions. Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack study
individual, job, and organizational characteristics as independent variables. These independent
variables make it possible for the researchers to then study the dependent variables, which are the
actions of an individual’s job stress and job satisfaction as a probation, parole, or residential
officer.
2f. This research has three statistical models that the authors present for the readers’
examination. The first model is a table describing the study variables in terms of range, mean,
median, and standard deviation. The dependent variables are job stress and job satisfaction which
are both ordinal. For job stress the range is 1-5 with the mean, median, and standard deviation
being 2.94, 3.00 and 1.04, respectively. For job satisfaction these numbers were 1-4, 3.33, 3.00,
and 0.69, respectively. The independent or predictor variables are supervisor support, coworker
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support, dangerousness, threat of harm, safety training, input into decision making, role
ambiguity, and lack of opportunities which are all ordinal variables. The range, mean, median,
and standard deviation for supervisor support was 4-20, 13.06, 14.00, and 3.93, for coworker
support was 4-20, 14.47, 15.00, and 3.14, for dangerousness was 4-15, 10.63, 11.00, and 2.52,
for threat of harm was 3-15, 7.28, 7.00, and 2.86, for safety training was 2-10, 7.05, 8.00, and
2.12, for input into decision making was 1-16, 9.55, 10.00, and 3.05, for role ambiguity was 420, 7.70, 8.00, and 2.81, and for lack of opportunities was 5-25, 13.47, 12.00, and 4.98,
respectively. The controlled variables are female, degree, educational training, residential officer,
and tenure. Female and residential officer are both dichotomous nominal values, which were
coded as 0 or 1, since they were asked to state if their gender (male, which was coded 0, or
female, which was coded 1) and if they were a residential (coded 1) or probation/parole officer
(coded 0). For female, the range was 0,1, the mean was 0.50, the median was 1.00, and the
standard deviation was 0.50 with a sample size of 126 for males (49.80%) and 127 females
(50.20%). For residential officer, the range was 0,1, the mean was 0.35, the median was 0.00,
and the standard deviation was 0.48 with a sample size of 179 for probation/parole officers
(64.60%) and 98 for residential officers (35.40%). Degree, educational training, and tenure are
all ordinal variables because they were asked to answer using scales from 1 to either 5 or 6. The
range, mean, median, and standard deviation for degree was 1-6, 3.98, 4.00, and 1.02, for
educational training was 1-5, 3.57, 4.00, and 1.00, and for tenure was 1-6, 2.91, 3.00, and 1.42.
The second model represents the variables as an index by looking at the bivariate correlation
between all the variables looked at in the study. They have the 15 variables (job stress, job
satisfaction, female, degree, educational training, residential officer, tenure, supervisor support,
coworker support, dangerousness, threat of harm, safety training, input into decision making,
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role ambiguity, and lack of opportunities) listed horizontally and vertically so that they can
compare each individual variable with all the others to see what the correlation is between each
one. The authors mainly look at the dependent variables of job stress and job satisfaction
correlations with the other 12 variables that are independent or predictor variables. The results
can be between 1 to -1, which makes them interval variables. If the variable is zero there is no
correlation but the closer to 1 or -1 it gets indicates a strong correlation negatively or positively.
From the table the reader can see that there is a negative correlation between job stress and job
satisfaction (-0.45), educational training (-0.27), residential officer (-0.17), supervisor support (0.30), safety training (-0.26), and input into decision making (-0.26), a positive correlation
between job stress and tenure (0.17), dangerousness (0.25), threat of harm (0.32), role ambiguity
(0.37), and lack of opportunities (0.41), and no significant correlation between job stress and
female (0.10), degree (0.01), and coworker support (-0.10). In terms of job satisfaction there is a
negative correlation with tenure (-0.15), dangerousness (-0.19), threat of harm (-0.26), role
ambiguity (-0.33), and lack of opportunities (-0.52), a positive correlation with educational
training (0.16), supervisor support (0.43), coworker support (0.28), safety training (0.45), and
input into decision making (0.47), and no significant correlation with female (-0.03), and degree
(0.01), and residential officer (-0.11). The third table shows how the independent variables
impact the dependent variables (job stress and job satisfaction). The main take away from this
table is figuring out which single independent variables have the biggest impact on the dependent
variables and which of the R2, which indicates what category of independent variables
(individual, job, and organizational), impacts the dependent variables the most. These values are
interval variables. For job stress, the independent variables that were significant indicators were
female (0.16), educational training (-0.20), residential officer (-0.17), threat of harm (0.16), role
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ambiguity (0.17), and lack of opportunities (0.23). The independent variables that were
significant for job satisfaction were residential officer (-0.14), safety training (0.23), and input
into decision making (0.19). Also, job stress had a significant impact on job satisfaction as
shown by the R2 value (0.49). When looking at the R2 values of each category (individual, job,
and organizational) the reader can determine which category had the biggest impact on the
dependent variables. The R2 for the individual category for job stress was 0.15 and for job
satisfaction was 0.08. The R2 for the job category for job stress was 0.19 and for job satisfaction
was 0.26. For the organizational category, the R2 was 0.22 for the job stress and 0.40 for job
satisfaction.
3a. Since the population size is so small and homogenous the authors could not use inferential
statistics to confidently generalize their data from their sample to the general population. Despite
this, Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack were able to use several other statistical techniques to analyze
their data. The first table shows how the authors used descriptive statistics. The table displays the
sample size, the code used, the range, mean, median, and standard deviation. These numbers
describe the data so the reader can easily make sense of the findings. The authors also use
bivariate correlations to see how each variable correlate to the others. This is necessary for the
researchers to see how two variables are related and how they affect each other. The advantage
here is seeing how each variable is affected by all the others. It allows the researchers to see
stronger and weaker correlations between the variables. Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack also use
ordinary least squares regression for their third and final table. It is necessary for the authors to
use this technique so they can see what kind of impact each variable had on the dependent
variables (job stress and job satisfaction). The advantage in this table is that the authors were
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able to find R2 for each predictor variable category (individual, job, and organizational). This
allowed the authors the ability to figure out which category had the most significant impact on
job stress and job satisfaction.
3b. Rhineberger-Dunn and Mack had some rather inconclusive results from their study. First,
they found that job stress was significantly impacted by the individual factors of being female,
having education training, and being a residential officer and that job satisfaction was only
impacted by the individual factor of being a residential officer. Second, it was concluded, that in
terms of job characteristic, that only one variable significantly influenced job stress, and none
were significant for job satisfaction. Third, the researchers found that role ambiguity and lack of
opportunities increased job stress, whereas safety training and input into decision making
increased job satisfaction when looking at organizational variables. Next, it was indicated that
high levels of job stress result in job satisfaction decreasing. Finally, the researchers noted that
out of individual, job, and organizational variables, organizational variables had the largest
impact on job stress and job satisfaction. In the end, the researchers addressed their research
problem head on and discussed their findings for each one of their hypotheses. Unfortunately, the
findings did not help clear up any of the mixed results from previous studies, but it did help
expand the literature on this topic and gives an easy to replicate research design for future studies
to springboard from.
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SECTION III
Improving Police Policy: A Case Study of the Columbus Ohio Police Department
I.
Introduction
In 2020 one would think that the United States of America would have a more
cohesive training standard for local level law enforcement across the country. Since the
United States is made up of 50 different states and the District of Columbia, all having
their own state government, each state government gets to determine the length and depth
of its police training. There is no federal standard to follow when making these
guidelines, which has pros and cons. This leads to some states like Connecticut, New
Mexico, and Minnesota having the most basic training hours required; 1,321 hours, 1,160
hours, and 1,050 hours respectively; while at the same time allowing Hawaii law
enforcement to not receive any basic training at all. The only states in America that
require field training are Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Tennessee, and Vermont. Even for
states that do require basic training, 37 states allow their trainees to work on the force
before ever even attending the training (The Institution for Criminal Justice Training
Reform 2020).
Having such massive differences in police training across the United States of
America has its consequences. Due to police brutality and misconduct, including unjust
police shootings, there have been protests and riots since the 1960s (Spencer 2017). Until
June 16, 2020, the United States had no national databases to keep track of law
enforcement who had either been terminated or put under investigation for misconduct.
On June 16, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order mandating that the
Attorney General create a database that tracks law enforcement officers who have been
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terminated, de-certified, convicted of criminal charges due to on-duty conduct, and have
had civil judgments against them due to improper use of force only where they “were
afforded [a] fair process (The White House 2020).” It has yet to be determined if or how
the national database will be complied and made available for all law enforcement
agencies at local, state, and federal levels.
If a national database is about to be made available to the law enforcement world
of the United States, then it is about time that national standards on training are also
implemented. Law enforcement agencies being able to know they are not hiring a person
who has had previous misconduct charges against them is one step in the right direction.
Another step is requiring that all law enforcement officers go through standardized
training so that they know how to handle a variety of situations in an array of settings. It
is painfully clear, especially after the continued protests and riots of 2020 over police
brutality, that law enforcement training needs to be overhauled across the nation. During
the course of this research the researcher hopes to answer how could the police have
handled the protests in a more productive way, what the limitations are of police training
even in police departments who’s training is above national requirements, and how, as a
country, we can work to improve on those limitations by implementing different policies
and requirements?
II.
Literature Review
Claims of systemic racism and the inequalities, especially with police interactions,
faced by racial minorities in the United States of America were once again brought to the
forefront of global attention in 2020. The protests held in 2020 bare similarities to the
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Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the formation of Black Lives Matter can be
compared to the Black Panthers and Freedom Riders of the same era (Spencer 2017).
Even after achieving legal rights people of color still faced racism.
Police brutality seemed clear to Americans in 1992 when Rodney King was
beaten by several officers on video (Watson 2019). Regardless of why the police
interaction happened as it did with King, the idea of police brutality started to grow.
Then, in the early 2010s report after report of young Black men being murdered by police
started hitting the mainstream media, like Tamir Rice and Eric Garner (Brooks 2016).
The media highlighting these deaths lead to protests in 2014 especially in Ferguson
where Eric Garner and Michael Brown were killed within the same year by police (Nash
2015). The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013 and over the last seven years
have brought a voice to those marginalized by society.
In 2020 police brutality was put under a microscope by the media again. After an
eight minute and 46 second video of an already arrested George Floyd telling an officer
who was kneeling on his neck that he could not breath and begging for his mother was
uploaded on to the internet, protests again exploded (Dreyer 2020). The police this time
were criticized for the way they handled protests across the country. Many used military
grade pepper spray and rubber or wooden bullets on protesters (Go 2020). These tactics
gave a feeling that it was the United State citizens versus the general police force. Once
many of the protests calmed down and most cities returned to normal, it left many
communities wondering how to improve the relationship between themselves and their
police forces.
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Communities wanting their police forces and themselves to have better relations
is not a new concept. Creating new policies for law enforcement has been suggested for
years. There have been hundreds of policy changes outlined that other researchers feel
could promote real change in police and community relationships but there are several
common policy changes that are a recurring theme in many outlines. First, as discussed
earlier, Dunham and Petersen (2017) call for a national database for police shootings so a
full scope of the use of deadly force by police in the United States can be analyzed more
cohesively. Second, it has been suggested to pass more restrictive polices when it comes
to use of deadly force, implement implicit bias tests to raise awareness of implicit bias in
oneself, and updating shooting simulations to involve more White targets to reduce racial
disparities (Dreyer et al. 2020; Dunham and Petersen 2017). On this point, implicit bias
has not had enough research done to determine to what extent it could be effective, if at
all. Third, implementing polices that strengthen early intervention systems by looking at
performance indicators and given additional training and professional counseling to hold
police officers accountable (Dunham and Petersen 2017). Fourth, giving civilian review
boards, who have citizen members and a mix of experienced law enforcement members,
real power to conduct their own investigations outside of the police departments’ control
(Dreyer et al. 2020; Dunham and Petersen 2017). Fifth, ending the broken windows
method of policing where communities of color are more heavily policed and have higher
incarceration rates for minor crimes and victimless crimes (Dreyer et al. 2020). Sixth,
focusing on diversifying police forces so the racial composition matches that of the
community being served (Dreyer et al. 2020; Dunham and Petersen 2017). Finally,
expanding the use of body cameras worn by police officers since currently only 25
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percent of police agencies use them despite data showing reduced rates of police use of
force and citizen complaints (Dunham and Petersen 2017).
Despite there being so many suggested policy changes there has been very little
action taken at any level of government to implement real change. Research has been lax
on current training and policies and many of the suggested policies have not been
implemented to see if they would help improve police interactions. As discussed earlier,
each local and state government has their own set of standards for their police force.
Some cities or regions require more of their trainees than the state requires but still there
are limitations. For example, the case study of this research, the Columbus Ohio Police
Department, requires their trainees to undergo 1,100 hours of training, which is 363 hours
more than the state of Ohio requires (City of Columbus 2020; The Institution for
Criminal Justice Training Reform 2020). They also require their trainees to undergo
courses in defensive tactics, patrol operations, law and legal procedure, human relations,
applied behavioral science, and criminal investigation, as well as physical and firearms
training (City of Columbus 2020).
III.
Theoretical Framework
Countless systems work together to form the functioning society we know. As
systems theory points out, every system serves a particular purpose and has its own set of
boundaries. For example, police departments serve as the system that enforces laws and
are meant to keep order. Laws are enacted by local, state, and federal governments in
order to sanction what society finds as illegal deviant behavior. Law enforcement
agencies are given the task to stop illegal behavior by giving citations or arresting
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offenders who break the law. There is a difference between deviant behavior and illegal
behavior. The Cambridge dictionary defines deviant as a person or behavior that is
considered to be unacceptable to society and defines illegal as something not allowed by
law (2020). This means that not all deviant behaviors are illegal behaviors, for example it
is considered deviant to wear pajamas grocery shopping, but it is not illegal to do so.
In the United States, police are one branch of the justice system, they are not the
judge, jury, and executioner. Unfortunately, all too often we see the police acting as such
as in the cases of Andre Hill, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner. Though, the police are
supposed to work within a very strict boundary where offenders are innocent until proven
guilty. Proof of guilt is determined in court by a jury of one’s peers. It is the prosecutors
job to use evidence found by the police to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
When police departments fail to work within the boundary and act as judge, jury,
and executioner the community the police department serves starts to lose trust in them.
The relationship a police department has with its community is extremely important for
the system to properly work. When communities trust their police force, they are more
likely to assist officers with tips and patrolling neighborhoods. Likewise, when there is
distrust towards the police force in a community, members of that community are less
likely to talk to police and be cooperative on active cases.
Protests and riots due to police brutality, misconduct, excessive use of force-, and
straight-out murder is not new to 2020. Across the United States in the summer of 2020
cities stood together once again to protest after George Floyd’s death. As most cities
returned to normal and focus shifted from police brutality to the 2020 elections, it left
several questions about what could be done to improve how the police interact with the
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communities they serve. First, how could the police have handled the protests in a more
productive way? Second, what are the limitations of police training even in police
departments who’s training is above national requirements? Third, how, as a country, do
we work to improve on those limitations by implementing new policies and
requirements?
The goal of this research is to look at the Columbus Police Department as a case
study and see if officers receive enough of the right kind of training to stay within the
boundaries laid out for the law enforcement system. With the media highlighting police
shootings and killings, it may seem like the police in the United States are constantly
breaking the strict boundary lines and redrawing them. If the police start to redraw their
own boundaries, then they start to infringe on the boundaries of other systems in our
society. This infringement can cause numerous issues in society and lead to a societal
break down. Currently, some Americans are calling for a defund police in response to law
enforcement infringing on the due process of suspects. If law enforcement can shoot an
individual not involved in a police matter for having a gun, then are citizens really
allowed to bear arms as the second amendment states? This leads to the constitutional
system breaking down. When police act as judge, juror, and executioner, there is a break
down of the judicial system. Society only works when every system stays within its
boundaries and when one system starts to break out of its boundaries everything can start
to break down.
IV.
Research Design
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Trying to improve police training and decrease negative interactions with police is
not a new goal in the United States. Many researchers have put forth idea after idea with
little traction in policy change. The research conducted for this paper hopes to look at
limitations of increased training for the Columbus Ohio Police Department, who will be
used as a case study. The case study will involve a qualitative approach to look into the
pros and cons of a large city’s police department in the United States that requires more
training than some other police departments in the country.
Methods
To get a full scope of the limitations of training in the Columbus Ohio
Police Department it is necessary to use a qualitative approach. Face-to-face
interviews will allow for the police officers being interviewed to give an in-depth
and personal response. The interviewer will use an interview guide during the
face-to-face interviews as to ensure the same topics are covered with each
interviewee, but a conversation can still be built around the questions, as well as
record each interview. Along with face-to-face interviews, ride alongs will be
conducted with informal conversational interviews. These ride alongs and
informal conversational interviews will allow the researcher to experience a day
in the life of a Columbus police officer as well as ask questions about situations
that could not have been anticipated. Another qualitative approach that will be
utilized is onlooker observation during training classes as to get an in-depth look
at how training works. Finally, document analysis will be used to examine the
city’s and state’s polices set forth for the police department. Using these methods
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to collect data will allow the researcher to examine how the Columbus Ohio
Police Department functions and find limitations in their extra training. After
finding the limitations in the training, it should be possible to formulate solutions
that could lead to less police brutality and better relations between communities
and the police departments that service them.
During the research process, confidentiality will be of the utmost
importance so that officers feel free to express their real thoughts and opinions
without fear of their names being released. Before officers can participate in an
interview or give a ride along, they will have to sign an informed consent form
acknowledging that there will be confidentiality and anonymity between the
researcher and themselves. To gain access to the training facility, the head of the
academy will need to grant written permission to the researcher. During the
training classes it will only be necessary to obtain the signed informed consent of
the training officer(s) and/or instructor(s). It will not be fully disclosed to the
instructors or officers what the research is looking at beforehand as to not
interfere with authenticity of their behaviors and attitudes. To keep the focus of
the research ambiguous to the instructors and officers, the goal will be to sit in on
as many different training courses as possible. This will also allow for a more
accurate and deeper depiction of the training Columbus police officers receive.
Sampling
The research will be done using the Columbus Ohio Police Department as
a case study. There are numerous reasons for using this particular police
department for this case study. First, Columbus is the capital of Ohio and a large
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city. Second, surrounding cities find Columbus’s police training so good that they
send their officers there to be trained (The City of Columbus 2020). Finally,
Columbus had major protests in the Summer of 2020 for George Floyd and
smaller ones in December of 2020 due to the killings of Casey C Goodson Jr. by
an Ohio Franklin County Sheriff’s deputy and of Andre Hill by Columbus Police
(Salcedo 2020, Sgueglia et al. 2020). For administrating interviews, the
interviewer plans to use purposeful sampling. The ride alongs will end up being
randomly assigned to the interview from the official contact from the police
department. This could raise an issue if there is not variation in what part of town
the ride alongs occur in and if the researcher is continuously assigned to the same
officers repeatedly. Another issue that could arise is getting the limit of ride
alongs lifted from two a year to as many as needed to complete the research.
There may also be an issue of getting access to the training courses but if this
problem arises there is a civilian police academy that the researcher can attend so
as to still obtain a look inside how the training facility works, albeit to a much less
degree. The civilian police academy is an educational program that gives
participates an inside look into the police forces operations. The academy is a
twelve-week program that takes participates into the training facility and teaches
topics such as search and seizure, laws of arrest, and internal affairs. The
participates also learn how one becomes a police officer in Columbus and learns
about the training the cadets are receiving. Upon graduating from the Citizen
Police Academy, individuals are encouraged to join the volunteer program to
work alongside the department (The City of Columbus 2020).
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During the research, the researcher’s presence will affect how the police
officers behave and what they say especially when observing the training classes,
during the interviews, and while out on ride alongs. Most officers will look at the
researcher as a naïve young girl who does not understand the dangers of police
work. This may be true seeing as the researcher was raised in a safe, mainly white
suburb where the police faced very little danger on a daily basis. On the other
hand, the researcher has spent five years living in downtown Akron, Ohio and
another two living in outskirts of Columbus, Ohio. These added experiences have
allowed the researcher to see a different world that is filled with violence, drugs,
and poverty. When discussing the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in downtown
Columbus the researcher will have some bias being that she was in the crowd of
protests, arrested, and spent the night in jail with a pending charge of rioting upon
release. Although the charges were dropped, this could give some of the officers a
different view of the researcher and have them consider her as a possible criminal.
V.
Analysis and Interpretation
In order to analyze and sift through all the raw data that will be collected it will
need to be coded in different ways. The interviews will need to be transcribed verbatim
by the researcher with assistance from others. Once transcribed, the interviews will go
with the notes from the interviews, ride alongs, onlooker participation, and documents.
This raw data will be sifted through and notes will be taken to uncover patterns and
themes. As well, all confidential data will be coded as a means of protecting participates.
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Going into the research there is already some bias that extensive training is not
enough to solve the issues of police brutality and misconduct. This bias is in part from
personal experience in the protests for George Floyd and in part from the fatal shootings
in Columbus of Casey C. Goodson, Jr. and Andre Hill in December of 2020. The
researcher anticipates finding that officers would benefit from more mental health
services being mandatory to assess post-traumatic stress disorder but that there is
resistance to this idea due to lack of education and a stigma around seeking mental health
help. Also, there is suspicion that what the document analysis reveals will not necessarily
match how training and situations are actually handled.
Utilizing data triangulation will allow for more patterns and themes of limitations
to emerge. It will also allow for counterthemes to arise that require more fieldwork. Data
triangulation will help develop possible solutions to the limitations facing police
departments across the country. Although this particular research is a case study of the
Columbus Ohio Police Department, it can be used as a starting point of examining police
departments across the country with much less training. The study’s findings will not be
generalizable to all police departments in the United States. That being said, the study’s
findings will help generate ideas that could be implemented in law enforcement to weed
out individuals with the potential to cause harm to those they are supposed to protect. By
using qualitative research, it will allow the police officers voice and ideas to be heard.
Although, there will be an interview guide for the face-to-face interviews the rest of the
research allows for a more naturalistic approach. Hopefully after analyzing the data the
researcher finds several ways the police can handle protests the next time they arise, what
the limitations of extensive training are, and several solutions to those limitations.
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References
Anon. 2020. "Cambridge English Dictionary." Dictionary.cambridge.org. Retrieved
(https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/illegal).
Brooks, Michael et al. 2016. "Is There A Problem Officer? Exploring the Lived Experience of
Black Men and Their Relationship with Law Enforcement." Journal of African American
Studies 20(3-4):346-362.
City of Columbus. 2020. "Police Academy - Law Enforcement Training." Columbus.gov.
Retrieved (https://www.columbus.gov/copta-lawenforcementtraining/).
Dreyer, Benard P. et al. 2020. "The Death of George Floyd: Bending the Arc of History Toward
Justice for Generations of Children." Pediatrics 146(3):e2020009639.
(https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/146/3/e2020009639/tab-article-info).
Dunham, Roger G., and Nick Petersen. 2017. "Making Black Lives Matter." Criminology &
Public Policy 16(1):341-348.
Nash, Jennifer C. 2015. "Teaching About Ferguson: An Introduction." Feminist Studies
41(1):211.
Salcedo, Andrea. 2020. "An Ohio Deputy Was Seeking a Fugitive. Then He Killed an Unrelated
Black Man Outside His Grandmother’s House." The Washington Post. Retrieved
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/12/08/casey-goodson-police-shootingcolumbus-ohio/).
Sgueglia, Kristina, Taylor Romine, Sonia Moghe, and Amir Vera. 2020. "Andre Hill's Friend
Told Police He Was Just Dropping Off 'Christmas Money' When He Was Shot, New
Body Camera Footage Shows." CNN. Retrieved
(https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/31/us/andre-hill-shooting-columbus-mayor/index.html).
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Spencer, Robyn C. 2017. "The Language of the Unheard – Black Panthers, Black Lives, And
Urban Rebellions." Labor 14(4):21-24.
The Institution for Criminal Justice Training Reform. 2020. "State Law Enforcement Training
Requirements — The Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform." The Institute for
Criminal Justice Training Reform. Retrieved (https://www.trainingreform.org/statepolice-training-requirements).
The White House. 2020. "Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities | The White
House." The White House. Retrieved (https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidentialactions/executive-order-safe-policing-safe-communities/).
Appendix
INFORMED CONSENT FORM
Dear Participate:
I am a graduate student in the field of sociology/criminology at Morehead State University
conducting research looking at training and policy within the Columbus Ohio Police Department.
I am requesting your help with this research. In order to participate you must be actively training
to be or already be an active Columbus police officer. This study has been reviewed to ensure
that participants’ rights are safeguarded and there appears to be minimal risk associated with the
interview questions. Although your participation will greatly strengthen conclusions drawn from
this study you are free to decline to answer any question(s) you do not feel comfortable
answering and may discontinue your participation at any time. The answers and information you
provide will be kept strictly confidential and your anonymity will be preserved. All audio
recording, if you chose to give permission to be recorded, will be stored in an encrypted file on a
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laptop only accessible to myself, as well as on an encrypted USB drive no one else will have
access to. All notes, observations, forms, and other physical data collected will be stored in a
locked filing cabinet only accessible to myself, as well as scanned into and encrypted on to my
laptop. Pseudonyms will be used in the writing to protect identity and no direct quotes will be
used to ensure no one could possibly be identified. Please contact me directly by e-mail at
m1201309@moreheadstate.edu if you have any questions or concerns regarding this research. If
you decide to participate, please print, and sign your name indicating your willingness to
participate voluntarily and indicate if you are willing to be recorded during the interview or not.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Print Name: ______________________________
Signature: ________________________________
Permission to be recorded (please check one of the boxes):
INTERVIEW GUIDE
Feelings on, opinions about, or thoughts about:

George Floyd’s death
o About the officers involved.
o Tactics used?
o George himself?

Protests downtown – George Floyd related
o Where were you stationed?
o Feelings before, during, and after shift?
o Tactics used?
Yes
No
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o Opinions about those arrested?
o Do you feel the protestors were justified to protest?

Casey C Goodson, Jr
o Officer involved?
o Situation?
o Casey himself?
o Training the officer received? At the Columbus training facility?

Protests downtown – Casey C Goodson, Jr
o Crowd compared to the protests during the summer.
o Where were you stationed?
o Feelings before, during, and after shift?
o Tactics used?
o Do you feel the protestors were justified to protest?

Andre Hill shooting
o Thoughts? Feelings? Opinions?

Experience of being a police officer before, during, and after the protests.

How would you have handled the polices’ response to the protesters if it had been your
call?

Training
o Amount?
o Courses?
o Length?

Mental health services
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o What is provided?
o Opinions about mandatory counselling on a consistent rotating basis?

Police brutality
o Solutions you would recommend.
o Is it a problem in Columbus? Other cities in America?
o Is extra training enough? If not, what are your suggestions?

Continued training
o Biannual or triannual refreshment courses?
o Courses in mental health? Addiction? Poverty?
o Requiring a 4-year degree?

Diversifying the force to match the communities served?

Ending arrests or long sentences for victimless crimes and drug crimes?

Utilizing social services for mental health calls more, with less police involvement?

In your opinion, would helping eradicate poverty and homelessness in America help
lower crime rates and incidences of police brutality?

New review board?
o More power or less power than those in other cities?

Do you see implicate bias?
o How could officers be made aware of it?

Race tensions on the force?
o What happens if someone is racist towards another officer?

National database?
o What should it include?
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
Body cameras?
o How long do they run?
o Effective?

Use of deadly force?