Systematic Observation of Public Police: Applying Field Research Methods to Policy Issues

Systematic Social Observation (SSO) is a field research method used to study police and has shown promise in answering many of the questions regarding how police work is conducted today. This report describes the method and explores SSO's potential as a field research tool in a variety of venues. SSO systematizes field methods for teams of researchers who observe the object of study (in this case, the police) in its natural setting. In SSO of patrol work, trained observers accompany police officers in their cars, on foot, or on bicycle to observe everything they do during a typical tour of duty. Researchers record events as they see and hear them and do not rely upon others to describe or interpret events. The researchers follow well-specified procedures that can be duplicated.