This data collection was undertaken to gather information
on the extent of police officers' knowledge of search and seizure law,
an issue with important consequences for law enforcement. A
specially-produced videotape depicting line duty situations that
uniformed police officers frequently encounter was viewed by 478 line
uniformed police officers from 52 randomly-selected cities in which
search and seizure laws were determined to be no more restrictive than
applicable United States Supreme Court decisions. Testing of the
police officers occurred in all regions as established by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, except for the Pacific region (California,
Oregon, and Washington), since search and seizure laws in these states
are, in some instances, more restrictive than United States Supreme
Court decisions. No testing occurred in cities with populations under
10,000 because of budget limitations. Fourteen questions to which the
officers responded were presented in the videotape. Each police
officer also completed a questionnaire that included questions on
demographics, training, and work experience, covering their age, sex,
race, shift worked, years of police experience, education, training on
search and seizure law, effectiveness of various types of training
instructors and methods, how easily they could obtain advice about
search and seizure questions they encountered, and court outcomes of
search and seizure cases in which they were involved. Police
department representatives completed a separate questionnaire
providing department characteristics and information on search and
seizure training and procedures, such as the number of sworn officers,
existence of general training and the number of hours required,
existence of in-service search and seizure training and the number of
hours and testing required, existence of policies and procedures on
search and seizure, and means of advice available to officers about
search and seizure questions. These data comprise Part 1. For purposes
of comparison and interpretation of the police officer test scores,
question responses were also obtained from other sources. Part 2
contains responses from 36 judges from states with search and seizure
laws no more restrictive than the United States Supreme Court
decisions, as well as responses from a demographic and work-experience
questionnaire inquiring about their age, law school attendance,
general judicial experience, and judicial experience and education
specific to search and seizure laws. All geographic regions except New
England and the Pacific were represented by the judges. Part 3,
Comparison Data, contains answers to the 14 test questions only, from
15 elected district attorneys, 6 assistant district attorneys, the
district attorney in another city and 11 of his assistant district
attorneys, a police attorney with expertise in search and seizure law,
24 police academy trainees with no previous police work experience who
were tested before search and seizure law training, a second group of
17 police academy trainees -- some with police work experience but no
search and seizure law training, 55 law enforcement officer trainees
from a third academy tested immediately after search and seizure
training, 7 technical college students with no previous education or
training on search and seizure law, and 27 university criminal justice
course students, also with no search and seizure law education or
training.