We Are Not Stool Pigeons: Conducting Police Research in Community Settings

Notable surges were observed in shootings and homicides across most large metropolitan areas in 2016 and 2020. A metric often referenced to evaluate the effectiveness of criminal legal responses to violent death are “clearance rates”, i.e. the number of homicides “charged” divided by the total number of homicides. Chicago has frequently been framed as not only having an ongoing problem with violent crime, but also struggling with low clearance rates. To support local law enforcement offices in addressing homicides and improving clearance rates the US Department of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the Police Executive Research Forum have released guidelines of standard best practices. Absent from these reports are the perspectives of families of homicide victims and communities disproportionately burdened with violent death.

The overarching goal of this study is to identify best practices to improve homicide investigation processes and outcomes through centering the experience of surviving families and the communities they come from. This study will discuss how research assistants collected survey data on community perspectives related to homicide investigations. As implied in the title, the presentation will discuss the challenges of conducting research related to policing practices in communities with legacies of police abuse and racially motivated disinvestment. The study will discuss strategies to address these research barriers in addition to the results of the community surveys on perceptions of homicide investigation processes.

The data comes from two sources; process recordings of weekly meetings with research assistants and a community advisory board associated with the project, and survey data results. There were 550 community surveys collected and analyzed using logistic and linear probability regression models, as well as multilevel modeling. The analysis of survey results includes and examination of how individual survey responses are associated with broader community-level factors, such as poverty and unemployment rates, violent crime rates, and reports of police misconduct.

Analysis of process recordings indicate that research assistants conducting police research in community settings must possess high levels of “community capital.” The presentation discusses strategies to both surveying a “representative” sample while also intentionally engaging marginalized populations within community settings, such as crime victims, persons affected by human trafficking, gang members, and homeless populations. Analyses of survey results highlight a paradoxical perspective on homicide investigation processes: over 90% of survey respondents desire an increased police presence; however, less than 25% of the respondents would feel comfortable cooperating with the police in a homicide investigation process. The results are disaggregated and compared across race, gender, age, and proximity to violence.

The study highlights the importance of centering community perspectives in criminal legal research and the challenges of equitably engaging their perspectives. The discussion analyzes the dangers of presenting “community” as a monolithic entity and the dangerous implications of doing so on topics related to violence and police practices. Implications are discussed related to the contextual, ecological, and historical dynamics between research institutions, communities disproportionately burdened with violence, and police practice, and how social workers can navigate these challenges in direct practice and policy work.