Rivereside County Sheriff's Department Case Study

In the study conducted by McElvain et al., data was studied involving 186 officer shootings with just over 300 officers involved (McElvain & Kposowa, 2008, p. 506). The data that was examined occurred over a 15 year period of time, enough time to provide an adequate amount of data (McElvain & Kposowa, 2008, p. 506). The department involved, Rivereside County Sheriff’s Department, deals with a large amount of diversity for a population. The county consists of 47% Hispanics, 37.8% Caucasian, and 6% Asians (California). The county has a 16.8% poverty level, much less than the poverty level located in the New Jersey cities found in Chapman’s study (California). This county was chosen by due to the department overseeing many city departments and the fact that the department serves both small and large communities and …show more content…
In this case, Terrill and a new author paired up and looked back on the research findings that Terrill had previously gathered. Terrill wanted to look more in depth on the results and split up the use of force category into two different categories, verbal force and physical force, to provide a better answer for a truer relationship. They found that officers with a high school diploma had a greater likelihood of using verbal force then officers with a college experience of either a two year degree or a four year degree (Paoline & Terrill, 2007, p. 189). In regards to the more in depth results for physical force, Terrill and Paoline made an intriguing finding. When comparing the results for the high school diploma, two year degree, and four year degree, they found that there was absolutely no significant difference in the relationship of physical force and the officer’s education level (Paoline & Terrill, 2007, p. 189). In this case, officers from the three different education backgrounds, employed physical force about the