DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A POLICE PERCEIVED MISCONDUCT MEASURE: A MIXED-METHOD DESIGN

Obasanjo Sanya Adegbite    [email protected]

Nyitor Alexander Shenge    [email protected]

 

Abstract

Police in Nigeria have been alleged to be involved in misconduct in daily papers across various states of Nigeria. This aberrant behaviour among the police called for an investigation into police misconduct. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and validate the PPM scale to fill the knowledge gap. The study used a mixed-method design involving qualitative and quantitative methods. The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved item generation through Focus Group Discussion (FGD), and twenty police officers were involved. The second phase involves the administration of a questionnaire, and 1,275 sampled police officers attend to the questionnaire. The cross-validation design through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) yielded six-dimensional factors that explain the 75.57% variability on the scale, including humiliation, emotion, authority, mutilation, victimization, and assault. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) through goodness-of-fit statistics was run as a composite of EFA and yielded four factors after some questionable items and two factors were eliminated. The reliability analysis revealed that the scale is reliable. The newly developed scale can be applied to diagnose the involvement of police personnel in misconduct, allowing police administrators and police service commissions to formulate policies that will eliminate police misconduct. The scale can also be integrated into the police personnel training manual to give them a better and more comprehensive understanding of the psychological aspects of police misconduct and their implications for police and security.

Keywords: Police misconduct, psychometric properties, victimization, assault, humiliation.