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This paper aims to use three theoretical perspectives to understand variation in public opinion regarding the frequency with which police use race/ethnicity unfairly in making stops: procedural and instrumental justice, local government responsiveness, and intra‐racial differences.

The paper looks at data from a telephone survey of 1,431 Oregon residents: 741 from a stratified state‐wide random sample by county; 164 African‐Americans and 161 Hispanics over samples.

Perceived negative treatment during recent involuntary police contacts is related to a perception that police are more biased. Instrumental judgments regarding local government responsiveness to constituent needs and personal safety showed a negative relationship to perceptions of police bias. African‐American respondents exhibited the strongest police bias opinions; however, intra‐racial analyses showed that perceptions of government responsiveness weaken bias perceptions across race/ethnicity.

Research needs to explore how the public's relationship to their local government influences perceptions of police. The conclusions of the study are limited by the cross‐sectional design.

The study illustrates that proper police‐citizen communication tactics, stop and investigatory procedures, and ethical decision making should continue to be reinforced along with better promotion of local government and police success in meeting constituent needs through the media.

The paper examines the influence of both procedural and instrumental justice perceptions, and voluntary and involuntary police contacts. The sample contains sufficient numbers of African‐Americans and Hispanics and diverse communities (urban, suburban, and rural) to gain a representative view.

The purpose of this paper is to examine differential perceptions of neighborhood problems by the police and residents.

This study uses interview and survey data collected from 50 neighborhoods a mid‐western city to assess whether police officers and citizens differ in their perceptions of neighborhood disorder, drug‐gang, and property crime problems. Multivariate regressions were conducted to examine the effects of neighborhood structural characteristics, social organization, perceptions of the legitimacy of local authorities, and actual crime rates on police's and citizens' perceptions of neighborhood problems.

Police officers rate neighborhood problems more seriously than do local residents. Neighborhood structural characteristics and perceptions of the legitimacy of local authorities significantly affect variation in perceptions of neighborhood problems by citizens and police. Actual property crime rates influence police perceptions of disorder and property crime problems.

Future research should continue to explore the factors that contribute to perceptual differences between citizens and police officers. Research should also pay more attention to variables such as informal control, social capital, and collective efficacy. More research efforts should be devoted to explore how variation in officers' perceptions of neighborhood problems affects their behavior toward local residents.

The study incorporates neighborhood contexts in its analysis and tests both officers' and citizens' perceptions of neighborhood problems simultaneously, which have rarely been done in previous research.

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.

Much of the current criminological research regarding police and the autistic community focuses on police training for interacting with autistic individuals or the experiences, fears and perceptions of parents or caregivers. Largely absent from the criminological research are the opinions and perceptions of autistic adults. The purpose of the paper is to examine perceptions of the police and police-led initiatives among these individuals.

The authors analyze data from 121 autistic adults regarding their perceptions of the police and police-led autism awareness efforts using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Variables of interest include perceptions of procedural justice, police treatment of autistic individuals, fear of interacting with police and perceptions of police autism awareness campaigns.

Findings indicate that autistic respondents vary in perceptions of the police. Prior negative experiences with police have a stronger influence on perceptions than do positive experiences. Support for awareness campaigns is also varied.

Despite high-profile police incidents involving autistic individuals, there have been no empirical examinations of autistic adults' global perceptions of the police or police-led autism awareness campaigns. The current study addresses that oversight by directly examining autistic adults' perceptions. The approach is particularly salient given the ongoing police public scrutiny surrounding officer interactions with individuals from special populations, which is largely uninformed by research centering the voices of impacted individuals.

This study advances our knowledge about the effectiveness of body-worn cameras (BWCs) through exploring the perceptions of English police officers in three principal areas: positive perceptions, negative perceptions and evidence-focussed perceptions. In doing so, the purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the democratising process in the habitus of policing.

This study presents a novel data set that evaluates the introduction of BWC to police officers in the East Midlands area of England. The authors conducted an extensive survey to explore the perceptions of 162 police officers about the BWCs. The authors examined the empirical data using Stata within the theoretical framework of Pierre Bourdieu concerning the concept of habitus.

The authors have found that most police officers perceive that BWCs have a positive impact on policing practices and evidence collection. The positive perceptions and evidence-focussed perceptions increase the importance of BWCs; however, there are also negative perceptions regarding effective policing, administrative functionality and establishing a better relationship with the community. The authors argued that all three areas: positive perceptions, negative perceptions and evidence-focussed perceptions play a stimulating role to democratise the habitus of policing. On the other hand, BWCs do not guarantee the consolidation of democratic principles in the habitus of policing because of the authority of police to decide when, where and how to use BWCs.

The research is limited to the perceptions of 162 police officers in East Midlands before they actually started using it. A future study to analyse their real-life experiences after using the BWCs may help us to compare their perceptions before using it with real-life experiences after BWCs are used. In addition, a comparative approach between countries in future research will help to explain the role of technological applications in different social geographies and legal systems.

This study offers new insights about the perceptions of police on BWCs before they started using them. The authors introduce the democratic habitus of policing as an innovative concept and explored power dynamics in the habitus of policing through BWCs. The findings provide a strong empirical contribution to determine the conditions of democratic habitus of policing. In doing so, this study develops our theoretical knowledge about the habitus concept in sociology by employing BWCs in policing activities.

There is a prevailing perception that police officers are antagonistic to any civilian review process. This perception also includes the assumption that all police officers are one in denouncing any civilian review. This research examines the degree to which these prevailing perceptions about police officers' views of civilian reviews reflect reality. This research contends that there is reason to question the overwhelming assumption in the literature that police officers are united in their views about civilian review. The research found that police officers have varying perceptions about civilian review. Furthermore, these differences in perceptions are correlated with the experience of being subjected to these reviews. The data indicate that experience with civilian review tend to draw positive perceptions from the police. On the other hand, police officers who have never been subjected to civilian review have less than positive perceptions of review boards. The research findings also indicate that civilian review boards need to overcome these initial negative perceptions especially among police officers who have never had a case adjudicated by a civilian review board.

Given the heightened scrutiny of police by the media in the post-Ferguson era, the purpose of this paper is to test hypotheses derived from the cultivation theory regarding possible media-related effects on perceptions of police legitimacy.

A sample of 1,197 residents from a mid-size California city was surveyed. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the relative effects of media consumption and personal experience on perceptions of police legitimacy.

Partial support for the cultivation theory was found. Those who reported local TV as their most important news source saw police as more legitimate than those who reported the internet as most important. Consistent with past research, procedural justice was the strongest predictor of perceptions of police legitimacy for those recently stopped by the police. Awareness of negative media depictions of police, however, also had independent effects indicating that media consumption does impact perceptions of police legitimacy.

While a wealth of research on the relationship between procedural justice and perceptions of police legitimacy exists, no previous research has examined the role media consumption plays in shaping such perceptions.

Recently, the interest of scholars studying procedural justice in policing has shifted from the relationship between procedural justice and citizen compliance to trust in police officers’ perceptions of who exercises it. This study explores the relationship between organizational justice and the perception of procedural justice from the perspective of police officers. Furthermore, it investigates the mediating roles of discretion and responsiveness.

Using 441 survey responses from South Korean police officers, a mediation model is outlined and tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice had indirect effects on the perceived importance of procedural justice. Moreover, discretion and responsiveness mediate the relationship between organizational justice and perceived procedural justice.

Officers who perceive police fairness are more likely to have a positive perception of procedural justice toward citizens when they have a higher level of discretion and responsiveness. However, police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice are not directly linked to their perceptions of procedural justice.

This study contributes to the generalization of knowledge by empirically testing Van Craen’s theoretical model of the Korean police. It also expands the existing theoretical model by investigating the influence of overall organizational justice and its possible mediators on procedural justice.

This study uses a diverse sample of residents living in Northern California to study factors that are associated with public perceptions of police bias. The authors also investigate whether perceptions of racial discrimination mediate the relationships between race/ethnicity and perceptions of police bias.

The sampling frame of the study was constructed through two stages. First, the frame included 212 census tracts in the study setting that comprise the study population. The authors stratified the census tracts by using demographic information from the most recent American Community Survey. The authors also used a multi-mode address-based design in which a household adult was invited through mail to participate in a web-based survey.

The authors found that racial/ethnic minorities (i.e. Latino, African American and Asian respondents) were more likely to experience racism and report police as biased than White residents. Racial and ethnic disparities in assessments of police bias, however, disappeared when controlling for direct and indirect experiences of racism, suggesting that experiences with racism are key factors explaining variations in perception of police bias across racial/ethnic groups.

The generalizability of the findings is unclear. Future research should focus on multiple cities to advance the understanding of perceptions of police bias. Second, the measures of direct and indirect experiences with racism do not identify the source of the problematic encounters, and thus the authors are unaware of the experiences respondents had with police officers.

This paper includes the implications for the perceptions of police bias and how to improve police-citizen interactions.

This paper will facilitate ongoing debate on police-citizens interactions. Specifically, how experiences of racism can improve the understanding of bias toward the police.

This paper fulfills an research need to study perceptions of police bias among diverse immigrant populations.

This paper is drawn from a larger study investigating community perceptions of police legitimacy in the Monash Local Government Area (LGA), in the Australian state of Victoria. Monash had seen declining results in the official government survey in the indicators that assessed police legitimacy over the preceding decade. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of both migrant and non-migrant participants to understand the role of migrant status in influencing assessments of police legitimacy in Monash LGA.

Through six focus groups, 18 interviews and one e-mail response with 31 individuals, perceptions of Victoria Police among the communities of Monash were collated and analysed.

One of the key findings of the study was that ethnic diversity and/or migrant status of community members were a key factor raised in response to questions about community perceptions of the legitimacy of Victoria Police in Monash LGA. Demographic change had been significant in Monash LGA over the preceding decade, including increasing ethnic diversity in the population and a shift in migration patterns from predominantly European to migrants from East and South Asia. In this paper, the authors suggest that the migrant status of Monash residents was a key factor that both migrant and non-migrant participants thought influenced perceptions of the police. Accordingly, because migrants make up a significant cohort of Australia’s population, we afford due attention to this previously overlooked topic.

The practical implications of this paper are as follows: existing Victoria Police partnerships in the Monash community should be continued and expanded where possible; Victoria Police should also prioritise partnerships with large, new migrant communities, for example, Monash’s Chinese communities; orientation for new migrants to Victoria around the criminal justice system, including Victoria Police, would help new migrants be more aware of their rights and what to expect of law enforcement in their new host country; police should continue to increase representation of ethnic diversity in the force via recruitment of greater numbers of ethnically diverse police members.

Although there have been previous Australian studies on migrant status as a factor in perceptions of criminal justice (see Murphy and Cherney, 2011, 2012; Hong Chui and Kwok-Yin Cheng, 2014), the paper identifies a distinct narrative around migrants’ views of Victoria Police which the authors believe warrant further investigation using an example from a local context. Furthermore, most research in this field has been quantitative. The current study provides additional new insights through an in-depth qualitative approach.