Excessive Force Research Proposal Lisa McCants Troy University Research Methods PA 6601 March 4th 2015 1

Introduction Scenario: Excessive force has come to the forefront in recent years Who is impacted: Researchers Law enforcement officials Policymakers Local communities Need: Identify ways to impact change in citizen-police encounters 2

Research Problem What do I want to discover? Whether training citizens on police procedures during an encounter will lead to fewer excessive force complaints. 3

Research Question What will my research tell me? How does citizens’ training impact the amount of excessive force complaints against police officers? 4

Hypothesis What do I think will happen? Alternative: Null: Citizen training has a positive impact on excessive force by decreasing the number of excessive force complaints filed by citizens. Null: Citizen training does not have impact on the amount of excessive force complaints filed by citizens. 5

Literature Review What did other research tell me? Dependent variable: Use of Excessive Force is influenced by various factors Independent variable: Citizens’ Police Academy Training 6

Research Methods and Design How will I design my research? Exploratory 5 year study Focus on Birmingham, Alabama CPA group versus the non-CPA Group A Citizens Outcome Survey was used to collect the data from both groups. 7

Research Limitations What are the limitations in this research? Voluntary Self-selection bias External events Control contamination Generalizability 8

Anticipated Conclusions CPA has minor positive impact Gap in perception of excessive force Better awareness of police procedures 9

Recommendations Develop unified definition of excessive force Enhance the structure of CPAs Further research impacts of CPA training 10

Resources References provided to the Class Excessive Force Website created by Shaquna Couch. 11