Background: My research project considers the attitudes, motivations, and experiences of people engaged with overseeing law enforcement at the city and county levels. In addition to extensive archival data, the research draws from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with officials (independent auditors, internal affairs investigators, city bureaucrats, and local politicians), volunteers (police commissioners and review board members), and others (activists, attorneys, and journalists) who participate in community oversight of police and sheriff’s departments. Data collection was conducted between September 2020 and March 2023, yielding 83 interviews (40 from Los Angeles County and 43 from the city of Eugene, Oregon) totaling approximately 100 hours. About three quarters of the transcripts have been coded thus far.

Current status: Although I and co-authors have started working with the coded data, work remains to clean (proofread, anonymize, and copyedit) and code the remaining transcripts. There also may be roles for students interested in literature review design, computer-assisted coding of transcripts (using MAXQDA), and conversion of qualitative data to quantitative data for mixed-methods analysis.