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Exploring the factors related to citizens' willingness to report police misconduct

Sanja Kutnjak Ivkovich (School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA)
Yang Liu (School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA)
Valentina Pavlović Vinogradac (Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia) (City Office for Local Self – Administration, Civil Protection and Safety, City of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia)
Irena Cajner Mraović (University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia)

Policing: An International Journal

ISSN: 1363-951X

Article publication date: 6 September 2022

Issue publication date: 15 November 2022

358

Abstract

Purpose

This study examines the effects of diffuse support for the police, specific support for the police, experience with the police, and demographic characteristics on citizens' own expressed willingness to report police misconduct. The authors surveyed immigrants from Croatia who now reside in Germany and Ireland to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relative role these factors play in regard to immigrants' willingness to report misconduct in Croatia.

Design/methodology/approach

The study, based on a survey of 358 Croatian immigrants to Germany and 226 Croatian immigrants to Ireland, utilizes multivariate logistic regression models that assess factors affecting the respondents' expressed willingness to report police misconduct in their homeland and their current countries of residence.

Findings

The authors' multivariate models reveal that diffuse support for the police (e.g. confidence in the police and perceptions of widespread police corruption) plays a strong and significant role in explaining the respondents' willingness to report misconduct in the authors' initial models. However, the direct effect of the diffuse support completely disappears in most of the models once scenario-specific police integrity measures (e.g. views of expected discipline severity and estimates whether police officers would report misconduct) are included as well. With the exception of age, other demographic characteristics and contact with the police were not systematically and significantly related to the respondents' willingness to report.

Originality/value

This is the first empirical study to provide an in-depth exploration of various factors associated with the citizens' willingness to report police misconduct.

Keywords

Citation

Kutnjak Ivkovich, S., Liu, Y., Pavlović Vinogradac, V. and Cajner Mraović, I. (2022), "Exploring the factors related to citizens' willingness to report police misconduct", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 45 No. 6, pp. 1037-1050. https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-06-2022-0081

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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