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In this chapter, I reflect on the foundations of the “fair policing from the inside out” approach to identify elements that may complement and refine this theoretical framework.
Abstract
Purpose
In this chapter, I reflect on the foundations of the “fair policing from the inside out” approach to identify elements that may complement and refine this theoretical framework.
Methodology/approach
I address the question of how fair policing can be achieved from a multidisciplinary perspective. Insights and empirical evidence from criminology, psychology, management, and political science/public administration are used to theorize the relationship between internal and external procedural justice.
Findings
Both the theoretical framework itself and the conceptual model that has been derived from it are refined. In total, four aspects are elaborated: (1) I stress more explicitly the potential mediating role of moral alignment with citizens; (2) I point more explicitly at the potential mediating role of trust in supervisors and moral alignment with supervisors; (3) I hypothesize that strain/stress may mediate the relationship between internal and external procedural fairness; and (4) I hypothesize several links between mediators.
Originality/value
This chapter contributes to the challenge of theorizing the origins of fair policing. It aims at widening the scope of police research.
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Michael K. Dzordzormenyoh, Claudia Dzordzormenyoh and Jerry Dogbey-Gakpetor
The COVID-19 pandemic provides researchers and practitioners with an opportunity to examine the effect of emergency policing on public trust in the police and augment our…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic provides researchers and practitioners with an opportunity to examine the effect of emergency policing on public trust in the police and augment our understanding. Therefore, the primary purpose of this study was to examine the effect of police enforcement of COVID-19 health measures on public trust in the police in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
A multivariate binary logistic regression was utilized to assess the effect of police enforcement of COVID-19 health measures on public trust in the police in Ghana using national representative data.
Findings
Our analysis suggests that emergency policing positively influences public trust in the police in Ghana. Additionally, we observed that police-related issues such as corruption and professionalism, as well as demographic factors of the public, influence trust in the police. These observations are helpful for emergency policing and policy development in Ghana.
Originality/value
This study is unique because it uses national representative data to assess the effect of police enforcement of COVID-19 health measures on public trust in the police in Ghana. Furthermore, this study is among the first or among the few from Ghana and the sub-region to examine the nexus between health emergencies and policing.
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This paper aims to assess COVID-19 as presenting both a crisis and opportunity for police trust and legitimacy by considering the role of police in delivering the legislative…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess COVID-19 as presenting both a crisis and opportunity for police trust and legitimacy by considering the role of police in delivering the legislative requirements of government and enforcing various health orders across Australia and New Zealand.
Design/methodology/approach
The research relies on a mixed-methods analysis of national, commonwealth, state and territory policy, corporate police reports, academic commentary and media coverage throughout the pandemic. Survey data gathered during the pandemic relevant to trust and legitimacy in police and government is also analysed.
Findings
Five findings relating to police trust and legitimacy are identified. They reveal that police mostly did seize the pandemic as an opportunity to implement practices that enhanced perceptions of trust and legitimacy. However, even where police were able to leverage COVID-19 as an opportunity, the protracted nature of the pandemic posed a challenge for maintaining trust and legitimacy gains. The findings also underscore the importance of a continued focus on building trust and legitimacy post-pandemic to counter any lingering consequences.
Research limitations/implications
The applicability of the findings outside the Australian and New Zealand context may be limited, given differences in jurisdictional legislative frameworks and policing operational environments.
Practical implications
This study identifies good community engagement practice for pandemic policing, contributes to communication strategies for managing trust decay during an emergency, forecasts ongoing trust and legitimacy challenges to policing’s post-pandemic operational environment and enhances aspects of post-pandemic recruitment approaches.
Originality/value
The findings contribute to emerging police practice and research on building and sustaining trust and legitimacy during periods of uncertainty and volatility, such as during and after a pandemic.
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Natasha S. Madon and Kristina Murphy
Since 9/11, Muslims have experienced discrimination and scrutiny from authorities. For many, this experience has damaged their trust in law enforcement and left them with the…
Abstract
Purpose
Since 9/11, Muslims have experienced discrimination and scrutiny from authorities. For many, this experience has damaged their trust in law enforcement and left them with the impression that they are viewed as suspect. This study seeks to better understand the relationship between Muslims' perceived police bias and trust, and how procedural justice may shape this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected survey data from 398 Muslims in Sydney, Australia, as part of a larger study on immigrants' views of police. Participants were surveyed on a range of topics including contact with police, global assessments of police procedural justice and how they believe police treat their cultural group.
Findings
Overall, the authors find that the extent to which people perceive police bias is associated with their level of trust in police. Greater preconceived bias is associated with lower trust in police. The authors also find that perceiving police as procedurally just is positively related to trust. Importantly, this study finds a significant interaction effect between perceptions of police bias and procedural justice on Muslims' trust in police. Specifically, for those who hold the view that police are unbiased, perceiving police as generally procedural just has a strong positive effect on trust. For those who view police as biased against Muslims, procedural justice has a weak but positive effect on trust. This interaction effect suggests that perceived bias may shape how Muslims interpret police treatment of Muslims.
Originality/value
This study is the first to explore how perceived police bias and perceptions of procedural justice predict and interact to shape Muslims' trust in police, advancing existing procedural justice policing scholarship.
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Arabella Kyprianides, Julia A. Yesberg, Jenna Milani, Ben Bradford, Paul Quinton and Oliver Clark–Darby
The range of tactical force options available to police is increasing, while public debate about police use of force is never far from the headlines. This paper aims to examine…
Abstract
Purpose
The range of tactical force options available to police is increasing, while public debate about police use of force is never far from the headlines. This paper aims to examine what factors shape how people accept police use of force.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use two online experiments to test whether different force options affected judgments about the acceptability of police action and to explore the role of trust and legitimacy in people's judgments.
Findings
The authors found across both studies that respondents judged scenarios involving a weapon (baton, CS spray, Taser) as less acceptable compared to scenarios that did not (talking down, handcuffs), but they did not draw much distinction between the specific weapon used. In study 1, exposure to different police tactics had no effect on trust and legitimacy. In study 2, prior perceptions of trust were strong predictors of acceptability judgments.
Originality/value
There is a comparative paucity of British-based empirical research examining public attitudes toward different use of force resolutions by police. In this paper, the authors explore how use of force affects people's views of police at a time in which the nature and scope of force applications, how these are understood and indeed the basic enterprise of policing itself is being reconsidered and renegotiated.
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Tammy Rinehart Kochel and Wesley G. Skogan
This paper examines the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing's recommendation that police promote trust and legitimacy by creating a culture of transparency and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing's recommendation that police promote trust and legitimacy by creating a culture of transparency and accountability.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a panel survey of 841 Chicago residents that was interrupted between the waves by a momentous local policing event that proved to be known to virtually every participant. The reinterview period encompassed this event, its political repercussions and subsequent efforts to hold Chicago Police accountable and increase transparency. The authors examine whether these events and reform efforts improved African Americans' assessments of police legitimacy and trust relative to other respondents.
Findings
Trust in Chicago Police improved by 21%, and trust in neighborhood police increased 30% among Black residents. In contrast, views of Whites became more negative, declining by 62% in their assessments about Chicago Police and by 39% regarding neighborhood police.
Originality/value
Events occurring between the waves of a panel survey created an opportunity to examine the impact of events on residents of a large and diverse city. The authors discuss why reforms promoting transparency and police accountability can alter levels of trust in the police but in different and politically consequential ways.
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Harry Barton and Malcolm J Beynon
The maintenance of public order and the control of crime are clearly amongst the primary objectives of global law enforcement agencies. An important antecedent to this is the…
Abstract
Purpose
The maintenance of public order and the control of crime are clearly amongst the primary objectives of global law enforcement agencies. An important antecedent to this is the consideration of public trust in their police force. The purpose of this paper is to utilise data from the fifth round European Social Survey (ESS), to investigate how public social indicators may be highlight the level of trust in a country’s police force.
Design/methodology/approach
The results from the ESS are analysed using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), multiply conjunctional causal configurations of the considered social indicators are then established and analysed.
Findings
A consequence of using fsQCA, asymmetric causal configurations are identified for the relative high and low limiting levels of trust towards the police in the considered countries. The results offer novel insights into the relationship between social indicators and police trust, as well as expositing a nascent technique (fsQCA) that may offer future potential in this area.
Originality/value
This paper introduces a nascent technique (fsQCA) to analyse a major European data set relating to citizens perceptions of the police. The findings might prove useful for policing organisations as they develop strategies to maintain/improve the level of trust and confidence of citizens in the policing services they provide.
This paper aims to explore the potential impact on policing by consent and trust in the police of diminished political and generalised trust.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the potential impact on policing by consent and trust in the police of diminished political and generalised trust.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on a range of academic literature on trust, the legal foundations of policing by consent, police occupational culture, disproportionality and neighbourhood policing.
Findings
An analytical framework is developed by recognising that policing by consent can be conceived as comprising two complementary facets, police state consent and police citizen consent and drawing lose mappings between police state consent and political trust and police citizen consent and generalised trust. This supports the argument that the importance of tackling disproportionality in policing practices and an increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing are not only valuable for reasons recognised in existing literature but also because they may bolster policing by consent in circumstances of reduced political trust and contribute to increased generalised trust across society.
Originality/value
This paper builds upon existing work on trust in the police and policing by consent to give novel insights into the importance of neighbourhood policing and tackling disproportionality. The analytical frame developed also highlights new areas for nuanced research questions in the field of trust and provides grounding from which policy objectives for policing can be developed.
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Ivan Y. Sun, Yuning Wu, Ruth Triplett and Shun-Yung Kevin Wang
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.
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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The purpose of this paper is to differentiate clearly between three frequently used concepts found in the research literature on public perceptions of the police: confidence in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to differentiate clearly between three frequently used concepts found in the research literature on public perceptions of the police: confidence in the police, satisfaction with the police and trust in the police.
Design/methodology/approach
Systemic literature review and thematic analysis are employed to assess each key term in the official English language dictionary and in the research literature. Their individual origins, their evolvement and their current usages are examined with great care.
Findings
The findings of the study suggest that the three phrases are indeed distinct in their connotation. It is concluded that “confidence in the police” is the preferred choice when we survey the citizenry about the level of support for the police and when the police is evaluated as a political institution.
Practical implications
Given that most criminologists believe that we are doing scientific research, it is our duty to be attentive to the pitfalls of lack of conceptual clarity.
Originality/value
The essay advances the conceptual clarification of one of the popular themes in the study of the police.
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