Table 2.
Descriptive statistics of pre- and post-training police-youth engagement survey items.
| Pre-training survey | Post-training survey | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Survey item | n | Mean | SD | Median | Mode | n | Mean | SD | Median | Mode |
| Relationships between police and young people can be improved | 1344 | 4.21 | 0.69 | 4 | 4 | 1219 | 4.47 | 0.65 | 5 | 5 |
| Having positive interactions with young people in the community is an important part of my job | 1342 | 4.66 | 0.54 | 5 | 5 | 1212 | 4.64 | 0.59 | 5 | 5 |
| Race/ethnicity affects interactions between police and young people locally | 1337 | 3.31 | 1.08 | 3 | 4 | 1211 | 3.50 | 1.02 | 4 | 4 |
| Police have a role to play in keeping young people out of the justice system | 1337 | 3.75 | 0.92 | 4 | 4 | 1204 | 3.99 | 0.86 | 4 | 4 |
| Young people often overreact when dealing with police | 1340 | 3.73 | 0.81 | 4 | 4 | 1216 | 3.60 | 0.82 | 4 | 4 |
| Police often overreact when dealing with young people | 1333 | 2.65 | 0.84 | 3 | 3 | 1208 | 3.07 | 0.89 | 3 | 3 |
| Young people are more likely to take risks with a group of friends than when alone | 1221 | 4.55 | 0.63 | 5 | 5 | 1103 | 4.48 | 0.68 | 5 | 5 |
| Young people are often afraid when they interact with police | 1339 | 3.55 | 0.83 | 4 | 4 | 1212 | 3.84 | 0.80 | 4 | 4 |
| I have some control over whether young people show me respect | 1325 | 3.72 | 0.87 | 4 | 4 | 1213 | 3.94 | 0.85 | 4 | 4 |
| Police should show respect when interacting with young people | 1222 | 4.48 | 0.66 | 5 | 5 | 1095 | 4.56 | 0.62 | 5 | 5 |
| There are techniques I can use to make stopping young people safer | 1329 | 3.79 | 0.72 | 4 | 4 | 1204 | 4.15 | 0.71 | 4 | 4 |
| I trust many of the young people that live in my district | 1339 | 3.03 | 0.84 | 3 | 3 | 1204 | 3.33 | 0.87 | 3 | 3 |
| Explain to the young person why you stopped him or her | 1342 | 4.72 | 0.55 | 5 | 5 | 1212 | 4.73 | 0.55 | 5 | 5 |
| Approach the young person differently than you would an adult | 1340 | 3.75 | 1.09 | 4 | 4 | 1204 | 3.95 | 1.03 | 4 | 5 |
| Try to talk to one young person at a time away from the group | 1342 | 3.96 | 0.85 | 4 | 4 | 1208 | 4.33 | 0.77 | 4 | 5 |
| Work to remain calm when young people get upseta | 1336 | 4.57 | 0.61 | 5 | 5 | 1203 | 4.64 | 0.58 | 5 | 5 |
| Try to keep another officer calm if you see him or her getting worked upa | 1342 | 4.76 | 0.50 | 5 | 5 | 1211 | 4.74 | 0.54 | 5 | 5 |
| Say hello and talk to young people in your district even when not responding to a call | 1223 | 4.61 | 0.61 | 5 | 5 | 1099 | 4.68 | 0.55 | 5 | 5 |
Note: Scales ranged from 1–5 (i.e. ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ or ‘definitely not’ to ‘definitely’).
a
For every item other than the two with this superscript, recruit responses ranged from 1 to 5 on both the pre- and post-training survey. For the two items with this superscript, recruit responses ranged from 2 to 5 on the pre-training survey only, whereas recruit responses to these items on the post-training surveys ranged from 1 to 5.