Watching the Police Watch Society in Western Kansas
| Author | Angele Woydziak,Tammy Nash,Deon Brock |
| Published date | 01 January 2001 |
| Date | 01 January 2001 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X0107400302 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
TAMMY NASH* and ANGELE WOYDZIAKt
Fort Hays State University
DEON BROCK*
University
of
Texas
at Brownsville
WATCHING THE POLICE WATCH
SOCIETY IN WESTERN KANSAS
Introduction
Field research in the form of participant observations, or ride-alongs,
has been used to address a number of important law-enforcement issues
in the past. Topics such as evaluations of community policing (Parks et
al. 1999; Skogan &Hartnett 1997), differential arrest patterns (Conley
1994), police violence (Uildriks &van Mastright 1991), and methods
of dispute resolution (Cooper 1997) have been examined.
Following such tradition, we compare the police activities of two
mid-western Kansas towns with populations of approximately 20,000
each.IThe populations are quite dissimilar in that Town A is very
diverse with a substantial percentage of the population being Hispanic
and Mexican National- while Town B is culturallylracially predom-
inantly homogeneous. For each agency we examine what factors are
associated with whether or not an individual is arrested during certain
police/citizen confrontations. Issues such as type of offence or race/
ethnicity of an offending party are examined. Finally, we check for the
presence of formal or unofficial community-oriented policing and/or
problem-oriented policing methods to determine how this might be
associated with decision to arrest for different types of offending (order
maintenance v serious offences).
The Utility of Police Observation
When examining the functioning of a police agency, different issues
must be addressed. To begin, one must be aware that focusing on one
stage of the police/citizen confrontation can be misleading. Much can
be missed, for example, by focusing only on disposition/arrest data
(Bishop & Frazier 1988). From such data it is impossible to derive the
extent that race/ethnicity status possibly influences the decision making
of officers. The ethnographic study of Conley (1994) supports this fact.
As a result of observation Conley discovered there was differential
treatment of juveniles at different times during the process for different
offences and that 'youths of colour' were repeatedly approached and
questioned by the police (Conley 1994).
It
is important to note, however, that stopping and questioning
when an officer has reasonable suspicion is not a violation of rights
(Alabama vWhite 1990). But obviously, if officers continue differ-
entially to process citizens of different race/ethnicity for the same
The Police Journal, Volume 74 (2001) 189
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