Critical Analysis of In the Line of Duty
The article, “In the Line of Duty: A Description Analysis of Police Assaults and Accidents”, by Brandl (1996) examines the risks associated with police work. In Brandl’s study, he uses data from injury reports that were filed by sworn police officers, who were employed by a large municipal police department. The goal of Brandl’s study was to fill the research gap that previous research had neglected to show by comparing accidental incidents that resulted in injury or death to felonious ones.
Literature Review Previous research has concluded that police work is a dangerous occupation. Other researchers have collected data from FBI annual data reports and standard reports from police agencies to …show more content…
The police department employed 1,960 sworn officers at the time of the study. The officers were required to complete a standard Report of Accident form upon sustaining a work-related injury, such as an accident or assault. Each report was to be completed by the officer’s supervisor who was at or near the location at the time the incident occurred. For each person involved in the incident a report was to be filed. The report contained data on the officer’s demographic characteristics, employment information, date and time of the incident, description of the injuries, whether medical attention was sought and the circumstances of the incident. The process of selecting accident reports consisted of several steps. The first step was to collect all incident reports from January 01, 1992 and December 31, 1993 from the police department and the second step was to review and eliminate files based on employment information. The only reports used for the study were reports for patrol officers and detectives. For this reason, only 2,073 reports were included in the study (1,081 from 1992; 992 from 1993). Next, a case data coding form was completed for each of the 2,073 reports. Then, the case data was sorted by the type of incident so that they could be compared (Brandl, …show more content…
The study makes you wonder if the reports were overrepresented or underrepresented from previous research. Unfortunately, Brandls was at the mercy of the individuals who previously completed the reports. Overall, the study was proven to be beneficial to the public and to police departments. The results of the study helped the police departments implement training programs to help reduce incidents inside the department. It also, brought awareness to the public of what the actual risk are of being a police
The article, “In the Line of Duty: A Description Analysis of Police Assaults and Accidents”, by Brandl (1996) examines the risks associated with police work. In Brandl’s study, he uses data from injury reports that were filed by sworn police officers, who were employed by a large municipal police department. The goal of Brandl’s study was to fill the research gap that previous research had neglected to show by comparing accidental incidents that resulted in injury or death to felonious ones.
Literature Review Previous research has concluded that police work is a dangerous occupation. Other researchers have collected data from FBI annual data reports and standard reports from police agencies to …show more content…
The police department employed 1,960 sworn officers at the time of the study. The officers were required to complete a standard Report of Accident form upon sustaining a work-related injury, such as an accident or assault. Each report was to be completed by the officer’s supervisor who was at or near the location at the time the incident occurred. For each person involved in the incident a report was to be filed. The report contained data on the officer’s demographic characteristics, employment information, date and time of the incident, description of the injuries, whether medical attention was sought and the circumstances of the incident. The process of selecting accident reports consisted of several steps. The first step was to collect all incident reports from January 01, 1992 and December 31, 1993 from the police department and the second step was to review and eliminate files based on employment information. The only reports used for the study were reports for patrol officers and detectives. For this reason, only 2,073 reports were included in the study (1,081 from 1992; 992 from 1993). Next, a case data coding form was completed for each of the 2,073 reports. Then, the case data was sorted by the type of incident so that they could be compared (Brandl, …show more content…
The study makes you wonder if the reports were overrepresented or underrepresented from previous research. Unfortunately, Brandls was at the mercy of the individuals who previously completed the reports. Overall, the study was proven to be beneficial to the public and to police departments. The results of the study helped the police departments implement training programs to help reduce incidents inside the department. It also, brought awareness to the public of what the actual risk are of being a police