reinterpretation of past behavior through which the actor recasts activities in a manner consistent
with ‘what should have been’ rather than ‘what was.’
Worden and Brandl provide a solid explanation as to why protocol analysis could strengthen and
improve our knowledge of the police (1990: 303):
Given the ambiguity and uncertainty of police officers’ task environments, models that
include only situational and/or organizational factors, without specifying the processes whereby
these cues are translated into choices, are unlikely to explain the performance of any but rather
simple police tasks. The cues that are salient, the meaning(s) imputed to them, the goals or
objectives toward which officers responses are directed, and their beliefs about how much each
of the alternative courses of action will contribute to meeting those objectives, are the premises
on which officers’ decisions are likely to rest.
In other words, as officers make observations in the field, they are asked for verbal reports of the
cognitive steps they took to reach any decision or conclusion. They are asked to “think out loud”
and verbalize their cognitive steps. This method allowed the observers to record their
observations of events and to record the officers’ version of the steps taken to make decisions
during the event. In our case, officers are asked to respond almost immediately after the process
of decision-making takes place. In fact, as officers became comfortable with the “thinking out
loud,” many would start speaking as they made their decisions. The content analysis of the
officers’ protocols (cognitive steps in making decisions) can increase our knowledge of which
cues or indicators are important in officer decision-making, and the meanings of the cues and
indicators, when formulating suspicion or a decision to intervene formally. Protocol analysis has
the potential to uncover officers’ working rules, cognitive strategies, and to determine
differences among officers’ decision-making processes.
Our study takes the next step in research on policing by investigating the discretionary
police-citizen interactions in Savannah, Georgia. By design, the present study is limited to
discretionary actions taken by the police. Unlike the previous research, we are interested in the
formation and creation of cognitive suspicion as well as formal actions (stops) taken by the
police. Obviously, our observations are limited to behavioral cues given by officers. That is, if
officers think that something is suspicious but do not say anything or make any visible motion;
these suspicions will not be captured by our methodology. Further, our study design does not
capture situations when officers perceptions or biases cause them to ignore certain groups of
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This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not
been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.