The Public, The Police, and The Puzzle of Information
(2024) FLMU16 20232Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety
- Abstract
- When humans are involved, things can go wrong. This is a statement as factually true and yet dramatically undefined and dangerously ambiguous as any. No matter the industry or domain, where humans interact with other humans, perfect predictability is impossible and a focus on negative outcomes can seem natural. When outcomes are anything less than ideal and when these events and outcomes are made public, the perceptions and judgements that follow can become flashpoints in history and have very real impacts on those domains and professions.
So, what drives public perception? How is it influenced? Both questions are incredibly nuanced with branches in the “tree” of research and study that go beyond the scope of this specific research. In... (More) - When humans are involved, things can go wrong. This is a statement as factually true and yet dramatically undefined and dangerously ambiguous as any. No matter the industry or domain, where humans interact with other humans, perfect predictability is impossible and a focus on negative outcomes can seem natural. When outcomes are anything less than ideal and when these events and outcomes are made public, the perceptions and judgements that follow can become flashpoints in history and have very real impacts on those domains and professions.
So, what drives public perception? How is it influenced? Both questions are incredibly nuanced with branches in the “tree” of research and study that go beyond the scope of this specific research. In US policing, there are battles waged over what data and information is confidential, too personal, too hard to understand or explain and what information should the public know and be made aware of? When such delineations are defined, how does the public gain access to the information and what is made of that information in terms of how the public may perceive the incident they are exploring? Most often when it comes to these events, the public is fed very small amounts of information facilitated through 30 second clips as edited and provided by media channels, void of much context-rich information.
In this paper, the authors set out to research how the type of information provided to the public, regarding the police use of deadly force, impacts public perception of the officer’s action(s). Focus groups were utilized to represent public perception. Two types of information were provided to each group: context light information- which is representative of the safety science concept of first story and context rich information -which is representative of the safe science concept of the second story. The context light information left the participants to make assumptions about what occurred, filling in the gaps with personal opinions heavily shaped by previous media releases from similar occurrences. The context rich information showed a shift in perception with participants no longer making assumptions but instead trusting the information provided and expressing empathy for all parties involved including the officer. Participants noted understanding the complexity of the work environment and began to note how the work environment influenced the officer’s decision in real time.
Despite the small sample size same/similar themes emerged within the participant groups that suggest a marked impact that context-rich accounts of such events may have on public perception shifting from individual blame to a much wider systems view of such incidents. Future research with larger samples may yield additional primary and sub-themes that could be explored and integrated into systems mapping of police – citizen encounters. Not only for after-action discussions but reverse engineered into police training, budgetary efforts, and citizen awareness campaigns among many efforts to positively impact both outcomes and the (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9150171
- author
- Duggan, William LU and Ellis, Librain Natia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- FLMU16 20232
- year
- 2024
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Policing, Public Perception, Safety Science
- language
- English
- id
- 9150171
- date added to LUP
- 2024-03-25 09:21:16
- date last changed
- 2024-03-25 09:21:16
@misc{9150171,
abstract = {{When humans are involved, things can go wrong. This is a statement as factually true and yet dramatically undefined and dangerously ambiguous as any. No matter the industry or domain, where humans interact with other humans, perfect predictability is impossible and a focus on negative outcomes can seem natural. When outcomes are anything less than ideal and when these events and outcomes are made public, the perceptions and judgements that follow can become flashpoints in history and have very real impacts on those domains and professions.
So, what drives public perception? How is it influenced? Both questions are incredibly nuanced with branches in the “tree” of research and study that go beyond the scope of this specific research. In US policing, there are battles waged over what data and information is confidential, too personal, too hard to understand or explain and what information should the public know and be made aware of? When such delineations are defined, how does the public gain access to the information and what is made of that information in terms of how the public may perceive the incident they are exploring? Most often when it comes to these events, the public is fed very small amounts of information facilitated through 30 second clips as edited and provided by media channels, void of much context-rich information.
In this paper, the authors set out to research how the type of information provided to the public, regarding the police use of deadly force, impacts public perception of the officer’s action(s). Focus groups were utilized to represent public perception. Two types of information were provided to each group: context light information- which is representative of the safety science concept of first story and context rich information -which is representative of the safe science concept of the second story. The context light information left the participants to make assumptions about what occurred, filling in the gaps with personal opinions heavily shaped by previous media releases from similar occurrences. The context rich information showed a shift in perception with participants no longer making assumptions but instead trusting the information provided and expressing empathy for all parties involved including the officer. Participants noted understanding the complexity of the work environment and began to note how the work environment influenced the officer’s decision in real time.
Despite the small sample size same/similar themes emerged within the participant groups that suggest a marked impact that context-rich accounts of such events may have on public perception shifting from individual blame to a much wider systems view of such incidents. Future research with larger samples may yield additional primary and sub-themes that could be explored and integrated into systems mapping of police – citizen encounters. Not only for after-action discussions but reverse engineered into police training, budgetary efforts, and citizen awareness campaigns among many efforts to positively impact both outcomes and the}},
author = {{Duggan, William and Ellis, Librain Natia}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Public, The Police, and The Puzzle of Information}},
year = {{2024}},
}