Search results

The purpose of this paper is to assess the influences of social trust and neighborhood cohesion on public trust in the police in China.

This study used survey data collected from roughly 5,600 respondents by the 2012 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). Multivariate regression was employed to analyze the effects of two forms of social trust, generalized trust and particularized trust, and three types of neighborhood cohesion, neighbor solidary, support and interaction, on public trust in the Chinese police, controlling for personal background characteristics.

Both generalized trust and particularized trust exerted a significant positive effect on trust in the Chinese police. Greater neighborhood cohesion also enhanced public trust in the police. Elderly, women, less educated and people with rural hukou and higher perceived social class were more likely to trust the police.

The CGSS data contained only a single item that could be used to measure public trust in the police. Future studies should consider using multiple survey items to reflect Chinese people’s trust from different conceptual dimensions, such as procedural- and outcome-based trust and police legitimacy. The CGSS data also did not contain information on some relevant predictors, such as victimization and fear of crime, personal and vicarious contact experiences with the police, and news and social media usage and exposure. Future studies, if possible, should incorporate these theoretically relevant and empirically proven variables into the analysis.

Improving neighborhood cohesion is a clear path to cultivate stronger public trust in the police. Policy-makers and officials must bring the neighborhood-centered approach back to local governance by working closely with police leaders and other private and parochial social institutions to launch programs that can effectively stabilize and strengthen local communities and actively promoting positive interactions and social bonds among residents. Policies and programs aimed at enhancing public trust in the police should target at younger, better educated and urban Chinese who are more likely to be critical of the police.

Despite their high relevance, social trust and neighborhood cohesion have received only limited attention in past research on Chinese attitudes toward the police. This study represents one of the first attempts to examine different forms of social trust and neighborhood cohesion on public trust in the police in China.

The purpose of this paper is to assesses whether supervisor justice is linked to COVID-19 negative and positive impacts directly and indirectly through the mechanisms of stress and resiliency among auxiliary police in China.

This study utilized survey data from more than 300 auxiliary police in a large Chinese provincial capital city in 2020. Structural equation modeling was conducted to analyze the direct and indirect relationships between supervisor justice and COIVD-19 impacts.

Results indicate that supervisor justice connects to COVID-19 negative impacts indirectly through stress. Supervisor justice is also indirectly related to positive impact through resiliency.

The findings' generalizability is limited due to using a nonrandom sample of officers. Officers' emotional states in the forms of stress and resiliency are important in mediating the association between supervisory justice and COVID-19 impacts.

The present study represents one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the occupational experiences of a vital group of frontline workers in Chinese policing. This study also generates evidence to support the importance of officers' emotional conditions in reducing negative COVID-19 impacts in an authoritarian country.

This paper comparatively assesses the connections between individual demographic traits, occupational characteristics, and organizational factors and officers' attitudes toward important groups in China and Taiwan.

Survey data used in this study were collected from 722 police officers from mainland China and 531 officers from Taiwan. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to assess the correlates of police attitudes toward peers, supervisors, and citizens.

The Chinese and Taiwanese officers do not differ in their trust in peers, but the Chinese officers hold significantly more positive views on the trustworthiness of supervisors and citizens compared to the Taiwanese officers. Supervisor justice and organizational identification are significant predictors of officers' attitudes toward all three groups in both countries.

A major limitation revolves around the inability to test and explain exactly why findings from the two groups vary in their ways. Future research should include specific social, political, and cultural predictors.

This study represents one of the few studies that compare police attitudes toward important groups of peers, supervisors, and citizens across nations/cultures.

This paper aims to assess whether internal procedural justice is directly and indirectly through self-legitimacy connected to external procedural justice among Taiwanese police officers.

Survey data used in this study were collected from 316 Taiwanese police officers in 2019. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the direct and indirect relationships between internal and external procedural justice.

Supervisors' internal procedural justice is directly related to the external procedural justice rendered to the public by police officers. Internal procedural justice also directly enhances officers' perceptions of internal legitimacy and external legitimacy. Greater senses of internal legitimacy are then accompanied by higher external procedural justice.

Survey data collected from a non-random sample of officers limit the study findings' generalizability. Organizational justice in the form of supervisory justice is instrumental in promoting officers' perception of self-legitimacy and their delivery of fair treatment to the public.

The present study represents a first attempt to link two important veins of studies in recent policing literature, organizational justice and officer self-legitimacy. This study provides needed evidence to support the value of supervisory justice in policing in a non-Western democracy.

While the past few decades have witnessed a substantial number of studies on public attitudes toward the police, a relatively thin line of inquiry has focused exclusively on low income urban Black-Americans, and especially street-identified Black populations. The purpose of this paper, however, is to examine trust in police amongst street-identified Black men and women.

Relying on a street participatory action research methodological approach, the authors collected survey data (N = 520) from two low-income unban Black neighborhoods, to examine the effects of an instrumental model versus an expressive model on procedural- and outcome-based trust in police.

The findings suggested a community sample of street-identified Black men and women were able to differentiate between procedural- and outcome-based trust. The instrumental model was better in predicting procedural-based trust in police, while the expressive model accounted better for outcome-based trust in police.

Implications for street participatory action research methodology, future research and policy are also discussed.

This paper is an original manuscript.

The purpose of this paper is to explore factors that shape police behavior in juvenile interactions occurring in rural communities.

Using data collected in rural Kentucky through a factorial survey instrument, this study assessed the effects of situational, officer, organizational and community variables on officers’ authoritative and supportive behavior toward juveniles.

Officer background characteristics, such as race, sex, education, and having children, and occupational attitudes, such as rehabilitation and dispositional beliefs, were significantly related to both authoritative and supportive behavior. While organizational variables affected officer supportive actions, they were weakly linked to authoritative behavior. Neighborhood social disorganization was ineffective in predicting both types of police behavior.

Although a considerable amount of research has been conducted in the past several decades to examine police behavior, a relatively small number of studies have empirically assessed factors that shape police behavior toward juveniles with an even smaller number assessing juvenile interactions in rural communities. This research provides a comprehensive theoretical explanation of police-juvenile encounters in rural communities which will allow for a more complete understanding of the factors that account for police attitudes and behavior in these interactions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of media exposure and political party orientation on public satisfaction with and trust in the police in Taiwan.

Survey data were collected from more than 2,000 respondents in three large metropolises and two rural counties in Taiwan in 2011. Multivariate regression was used to assess the effects of media exposure and political party affiliation on public satisfaction with and trust in the police, controlling for crime experience, neighborhood conditions, background characteristics, and locality.

Taiwanese who were exposed to media reports of police misconduct and believed in the authenticity of such reports were more likely to have lower levels of satisfaction with national police and trust in the police. Though it varied somewhat by whether it was satisfaction with national or local police, the Taiwanese respondents who identified themselves as supporters of the opposition party, or politically neutral, showed lower levels of satisfaction with and trust in the police than supporters for the ruling party. Respondents who shared the same political party orientation expressed higher levels of satisfaction with local police.

The measures of media influence, while classic and straightforward, were relatively simple and future research should not only quantify the links between media use and public trust, but also develop a qualitative cultural understanding of the communicative roles that the media play in shaping public perceptions of the police. In addition, while this study relied on a scientific sampling procedure, the sample cannot completely represent the general population in Taiwan.

It is important for police departments to cultivate good relations with the news media and to adopt a balanced role between law enforcers who are capable of curbing crime and reducing fear of crime, and moral guardians who are willing to uphold community social cohesion and value structures.

Despite a growing number of studies on public assessments in the police in Taiwan, empirical research on the impact of media and political orientation on satisfaction with and trust in the police remains very limited. This study represents one of the first attempts to assess factors related to media and political party orientation in Taiwan.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Asian Americans' perceptions of the police, specifically how they construct support. Although such literature has been growing in recent years, research on Asian American interactions with the police remains limited. Additionally, this paper is situated within the theoretical framework of system justification theory to account for Asian Americans' views of the police.

This study relies on interview data collected from 20 Asian Americans residing in mid-Atlantic states. Participants were either recruited directly by the researchers or through the snowball-sampling method.

Police support is influenced by perception of neighborhood safety, personal police contact and empathetic feelings toward the police. Specifically, regarding the latter component, humanizing or empathizing with police officers is a form of rationalizing individual police misconduct that reinforced police legitimacy. Most participants had similar characteristics and displayed police justification. Additional research is needed regarding what characteristics or patterns are likely to lead to lower levels of police justification.

This article's findings improve our understanding of system justification among Asian Americans, particularly as it relates to policing.

Following social disorganization theory and the process-based model of policing, the present study aims to examine how characteristics of communities are meaningful in shaping citizens' willingness to work with the police in urban China.

Based on survey data from Shanghai, China, the study adopts a generalized hierarchical linear modeling (GHLM) approach to examine the effects of both individual- and neighborhood-level predictors on the outcome, while taking into consideration the unobserved additional neighborhood-level variations.

Results suggest potential need of the process-based model to be modified in a Chinese context in that while police presence matters, measures on legitimacy are nonsignificant in shaping willingness to help the police, after controlling for neighborhood characteristics. More importantly, collective efficacy at the neighborhood level is related positively to residents' willingness to work with the police. Constant attention should be paid to the promotion of a collaborative and collectively caring environment, which can contribute to better coordination with the police, and greater willingness to be part of the larger cause of public safety.

The paper advances the scholarship with multi-level modeling and the role of communities in building stronger relationship with the police.

This paper examines whether dissimilarities in societal cultures impact the path by which a key component of organizational culture—supervisory procedural justice (SPJ)—influences police officer compliance with police agency rules.

The study utilized structural equation modeling across a data set of 1,189 Croatian and Taiwan police officers to test whether a societal value (individualism/collectivism) impacts the role of three intermediary variables (trust in the public, job satisfaction and pro-organization initiative) in a procedural justice model of officer compliance with the rules.

The study found that, despite a strong statistical similarity in the individual attitudes of Croatian and Taiwan police officers, the intermediary variables in the model significantly differed between the two countries. Most notably, the role of trust in the public and pro-organization initiative supported past research suggesting that collectivist versus individualistic societal cultures lead to divergent organizational attitudes and policing outcomes.

This is the first empirical study to compare the impact of societal values on a model of SPJ on officer compliance with agency rules.