In the spring of 2010, I conducted interviews with thirteen members of the SFPD. My liaison within the police department was Lieutenant Greg Yee of the Technology Division. In coordination with Lt. Yee, I was able to recruit participants from a wide range of ranks and roles within the SFPD, as well as a mix of civilian employees and sworn officers. Interviews took place at 850 Bryant St, which is the SFPD operational headquarters as well as the Southern Station, and the Taraval station, both in San Francisco. The participants include members of the Risk Management Office, the Investigations Bureau, the Golden Gate Division, the Technology Division, Staff Services, and the Police Commission. The range of years with the SFPD ranged from a few years to over thirty. To preserve the anonymity of the participants their comments will be identified by participant number, as well as by the source of the comment, eg (P99, transcript) or (P99, notes).
All of the interviews were conducted in person, either at the SFPD operational headquarters or the Taraval station. I used a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006) to identify themes and guide participant selection along theoretical grounds. Ten of the thirteen interviews were conducted in a one on one setting, and for the other three, I worked with another member of the CITRIS project team from UC Berkeley School of Law. The interviews were semi-structured, with some deviation to accommodate the wide range of roles and responsibilities of the participants. The interviews lasted between 45 and 120 minutes. Extensive notes were taken during each interview, and audio recordings were made for most of the interviews, except in cases where the participant did not wish to be recorded.
There are several limitations to the research I conducted. While my close collaboration with Lt. Yee allowed for ready access to participants, I had little independent knowledge of the suitable candidates for each of the participant roles I wished to sample. Consequently, the participants I worked with were all deemed suitable, at least informally, by a representative of SFPD. Additionally, given resource constraints, interviews were conducted at two of the ten SFPD stations. It is possible that greater geographic diversity among the participants would affect the findings.