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The purpose of this paper is to examine how celebrated cases affect attitudes toward police, controlling for key demographic, police contact, and neighborhood contextual variables.

The paper presents two waves of public opinion data measuring attitudes toward police, police services, police harassment, and officer guilt before and after a celebrated police misconduct trial. Data were collected by telephone from residents living in three areas.

The findings in the paper suggest that news consumption of this celebrated case had no significant effects on general attitudes toward police, police services, and concerns about police harassment. Media coverage, however, did effect citizen evaluation of the guilt of the officers involved in the case. The more a citizen read a newspaper or read about the case, the more likely she was to think that the officers were guilty. Concern about crime in the neighborhood was an important predictor of attitudes toward the police, and race effects were much more pronounced after media coverage of the case.

This paper highlights the need to examine more closely media coverage of celebrated cases and the effects of such high profile cases. In addition, it illustrates that public opinion research must be careful of contextual variables when conducting a study at a single point in time.

These findings also have critical implications for law enforcement agencies. The findings highlight the importance of police departments being prepared to respond to crisis events.

This paper is valuable to scholars and police practitioners because of its close examination of the effects of a celebrated case on various measures of public opinion of the police. Although there have many studies examining this general topic, research has ignored the impact of media coverage generally and coverage of high profile incidents.

This research updates and expands upon Decker’s article “Citizen attitudes toward the police: a review of past findings and suggestions for future policy” by summarizing the findings from more than 100 articles on perceptions of and attitudes toward the police. Initially, the value of research on attitudes toward the police is discussed. Then the research pertaining to the impact of individual level variables (e.g. race) and contextual level variables (e.g. neighborhood) on perceptions of the police is reviewed. Studies of juveniles’ attitudes toward the police, perceptions of police policies and practices, methodological issues and conceptual issues are also discussed. This review of the literature indicates that only four variables (age, contact with police, neighborhood, and race) have consistently been proven to affect attitudes toward the police. However, there are interactive effects between these and other variables which are not yet understood; a finding which indicates that theoretical generalizations about attitudes toward police should be made with caution.

Citizens' opinions of the police are important indicators of how well the police are performing their duties and can help to shape police practice as well as public policy. However, little research exists in Canada on people's opinions of the police. This paper aims to provide a more robust understanding of citizen attitudes toward the police in Canada by examining a variety of factors that have been deemed important in shaping people's attitudes in other countries (predominantly from research conducted in the USA).

The paper utilizes path analysis to decompose and better understand the relationships between sociodemographic/non‐sociodemographic variables and attitudes toward the police. Data were drawn from the 1999 General Social Survey conducted by Statistics Canada. A random sample of Canadians was surveyed regarding victimization, personal safety and attitudes toward the criminal justice system.

Several distinct groups of people (i.e. young people, visible minorities, males, those who have experienced criminal victimization, those dissatisfied with their safety and those who perceive their neighborhoods as being high in crime) emerged as having negative views toward the police, which is consistent with much of the research conducted in the USA.

Police practice should more closely resemble the principles inherent in community policing if certain groups' negative views of the police are to be improved. This can be partly accomplished by the police being more inclusive of diverse opinions in the community and actively seeking out this opinion in order to better inform policing practices and strategies.

This scoping review thoroughly scanned research on race, contacts with police and attitudes toward police. An exploratory meta-analysis then assessed the strength of their associations and interaction in Canada and the USA. Key knowledge gaps and specific future research needs, synthetic and primary, were identified. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A germinal methodological framework for conducting scoping reviews was used (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005). The authors searched for published or unpublished research over the past 15 years and retrieved 33 eligible surveys, 19 of which were included in a sample-weighted meta-analysis.

The independent association of contact with attitudes toward police was estimated to be three times larger than the independent race association. Three large knowledge gaps were identified. Almost nothing is known about these associations among specific racial groups as they were typically aggregated into visible minority groupings. The authors have essentially no knowledge yet about specific racial group by a specific type of contact interactions. There is also a lack of generalizable knowledge as research has been largely restricted to locales.

This is the first research synthesis of race and attitudes toward the police that incorporated contacts with the police. Its observation of the relative importance of contacts suggested a great preventive potential. This scoping review identified needs for a full systematic research review and a formal meta-analysis to plan future primary research including large national studies that are truly representative of Canada and America’s diversity. Such will be needed to advance more confident knowledge about the factors that would support more trusted relationships between police and people in the communities they aim to serve.

Undertakes research in Omaha, Nebraska on factors found to be predictors of attitudes toward the police (ATP). Addresses the question of whether ATP are primarily a function of police‐citizen interaction or if they derive from the transmission of cultural values. If the former, strategies to modify police and citizen behavior are required; if the latter, an impact on socialization may be needed to improve ATP. Summarizes the nature and measurement of ATP. Finds, in common with earlier research, that although age, gender and police contact have significant effects, race variables have the greatest effect. In contrast with other research, finds that social class has some influence on ATP. Compares Hispanic, black and white respondents’ ATP. Suggests that neighborhood is an important influence on ATP. Recommends further studies on the development of ATP in youth.

Recent research suggests that there is not widespread support for the police among juveniles. Unfortunately, this research typically involves either examining the attitudes of boys toward the criminal justice system, or includes gender as one of many factors that explains attitudes. The present study, using survey responses from 431 females, examines the differences in the attitudes and experiences of girls as related to the police.

Data for this study were collected using self‐administered surveys distributed to 9th through 12th grade public high school students in the greater Cincinnati (Ohio) area.

The findings suggest that overall attitudes of black and white girls toward the police are significantly different from one another. Moreover, when a regression equation was estimated, race continued to be a significant predictor of less positive attitudes. However, seeing and hearing about police misconduct aimed at a third party (vicarious experiences of misconduct) was a stronger predictor of girls' attitudes toward the police.

This study was limited to juveniles residing in and around a metropolitan area. Future research should explore the experiences of teenagers in rural areas with the police, and how these experiences may impact on their attitudes toward law enforcement.

Highlights the different attitudes of black and white girls towards the police.

Surveys attitudes to police (ATP) in Santa Ana, California by asking respondents what they most like or dislike about police. Finds inter alia that the primary indicator of ATP is how people feel about their location. Contrasts sharply with previous research in finding that ethnicity is not a very good predictor of ATP. Points out that unrealistic expectations for law enforcement may be ameliorated by community policing, which involves citizens in decision making and neighborhood improvement.

This study assessed citizen attitudes toward police performance and their perceptions of policing strategy in a small, northwestern town. At the neighbourhood‐level, significant differences in attitudes toward police performance (i.e. officer demeanour and citizen‐police relations) were revealed; however, variations in perceptions of community policing initiatives (i.e. collaborative police‐community partnerships) were not observed. At the individual‐level, results showed that attitudes toward police performance were not significant determinants of citizen perceptions of community policing. This evidence suggested that citizens were receptive to the idea of co‐production of order, and specifically of partnerships between residents and the police to address neighbourhood crime‐related issues. As such, these findings call into question the long standing assumption that positive attitudes toward police are a necessary precursor to the establishment of meaningful, co‐operative ties between citizens and the police.

The primary purpose of this paper is to examine attitudes toward the police in a sample of Canadian adolescents.

Using survey data collected from 262 students attending 14 different high schools in a western Canadian city, the paper analyses adolescents' attitudes toward the local police. Criminal victimisation experience, police harassment or mistreatment experience, engagement in delinquent behaviour, and attitudes toward school among respondents were also explored.

The results demonstrated that respondents were only marginally positive in their evaluations of the police. Multiple ordinary least‐squares regression analysis demonstrated that respondents who were older and those who held more positive school attitudes, experienced no police mistreatment or harassment, reported no criminal victimisation, and exhibited lower propensity to engage in unlawful activities were found to rate the overall police performance significantly more favourably.

As this study reports data based on a non‐random sample of high school students in one Canadian city, caution must be exercised in interpreting the results. Continued research attention should be devoted to high school student populations in other geographical locations.

Survey findings underscore the importance of the implementation of programs to foster a positive relationship between the police and young people, the promotion of student engagement with school, and the adoption of intervention strategies to reduce delinquent behaviour among at‐risk adolescents.

As only very few studies have explored police‐youth relations in Canada, this analysis offers insights into adolescents' perceptions of the police and factors contributing to their attitudes.

Examines the attitudes of Thai police regarding drug enforcement in the following areas: drug laws, prosecutors and judges. Assesses the accuracy of officers’ knowledge of drug laws. Explores the effects of 16 independent variables, derived from personal background, institutional support and drug offense information, on officers’ attitudes and knowledge. Using data collected from a survey of 672 Thai police officers, employs ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to examine the aggregate effect of independent variables on officers’ attitudes about drug enforcement and to identify the most significant independent variables. Finds that the officers have positive attitudes regarding drug enforcement but are not knowledgeable about the drug laws, and that several institutional variables have a positive significant influence on these attitudes.