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Police legitimacy presents a social value of the institution based on citizens' normative, moral and ethical feelings that they should voluntarily comply with and support the authority of the police. The present study focuses on residents' perceptions of police legitimacy in different settings in Slovenia.

Drawing on data from a survey of 1,022 citizens in Slovenia, this study examined the correlates of police legitimacy and differences in citizen perceptions of police legitimacy in urban, suburban and rural settings.

Multivariate statistical analyses showed that feelings of obligation to obey, trust in police, procedural justice, police effectiveness, relations with police officers and gender influence perceptions of police legitimacy. Significant differences between residents' perceptions of police legitimacy, obligation to obey, trust in police, procedural justice, police effectiveness and legal cynicism in urban, suburban and rural settings were also observed. In general, residents of rural areas were found to have more positive attitudes towards the police than those in urban and suburban settings.

The article is useful for police leaders and practitioners planning policies and training of police officers for democratic policing.

Police legitimacy reflects the legitimacy of governance, as the police are the most visible representatives of the state authority. Therefore, police legitimacy is crucial for policing in urban, suburban and rural settings.

The study presents the first test of police legitimacy in a non-Western cultural environment based on a national sample of citizens, which enables the generalisation of concepts of legitimacy, and its correlates in a different cultural setting. The study also presents the first attempt to test and compare the effect of the settings (i.e. rural, suburban and urban) on variables influencing residents' perceptions of police legitimacy.

The research aim of this article is to generate novel insights into how public sector organizations (PSOs) strategically communicate with the public about critical issues on social media. To this end, the study explores the public's experiences of the Swedish Police's sense of safety communication on Instagram in the third largest city in Sweden, where the lack of a sense of public safety is a main societal challenge.

The research was designed as a case study employing photo-elicitation interviews as a method to collect the empirical material. A phenomenography approach was used to analyze public experiences of the Swedish Police's Instagram communication in Malmö, Sweden.

Findings show that the police's strategic communication of safety on Instagram is experienced along the dimensions of a sense of protection, a sense of proximity and a sense of ambiguity. Taken together, these dimensions broaden and develop the knowledge of what communicating a sense of safety in the public sphere entails.

This study adds to previous research on strategic communication in public sector organizations by demonstrating what strategic communication accomplishes at the receiving end outside of the organization.

This paper investigates the determinants of subjective well-being in Europe using the European Living, Working and COVID-19 (ELWC) Survey carried out by Eurofound (2021). Socio-demographics characteristics, employment status, measures of economic distress, inequality and work life balance are considered. Particular attention is paid to how quality of government support (QGS), that considers the dimensions of good governance such as integrity, fairness, reliability, responsiveness and influences subjective mental well-being (WHO-5) through the mediation of trust in other people and in institutions.

To this end, the authors estimate a moderated mediation model for analysing the indirect role of QGS on WHO-5 through institutional trust and trust in people.

The results support the hypothesis that the reduction in WHO-5 in the European population during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID--19), particularly marked in the 18–34 age group, is related to the perceived inadequacy of government interventions in managing economic and social uncertainty through supportive measures. This outcome is also due to reduced trust in institutions and other people, as both are significant mediators that reinforce the impact of public support on WHO-5.

Government should pay greater attention to this relationship amongst good governance, trust and mental health of citizens because a healthy human capital is a significant factor for the long-run economic growth, in a special way when the authors refer to the young workforce with a greater life expectancy.

In the literature, the role of trust as a mediator has been analysed in the relationship between individual economic situations and subjective well-being before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To the best of the authors' knowledge, no studies have examined the role of perceived QGS on subjective mental well-being using the mediating and backing effects of trust in people and institutions.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-08-2022-0549.

This article aims to (1) increase the knowledge of how coworkers experience voicing the organization on external social media and (2) deepen and nuance the knowledge of the sources of voice control involved in such communication processes. The study helps understand coworker voicing on social media as situated identity expressions through which coworkers negotiate and contest the organizational identity, thereby co-constituting a polyphonic organization.

The study draws upon a constitutive perspective on communication and a communication-centered perspective on identity and organizational identification to investigate the voicing of organizational members of the Swedish Police Force on social media. The article is based on a qualitative study where interviews with police officers and communication professionals at the Swedish Police Authority constitute the main empirical material. A content analysis of selected social media accounts provided important background information to the interviews and enriched the understanding of coworker voice.

This analysis shows that coworkers voice the organization differently. Furthermore, the study of how coworkers experience this voicing indicates that these variations in how coworkers voice the organization depend on how strongly they identify or disidentify with organizational identity and image expressions voiced by significant others. Based on the analysis, this study presents four voice positions highlighting coworkers' varying degrees of identification/disidentification when voicing their organization on social media and reflecting upon their experiences of voicing. Furthermore, the analysis also demonstrates four sources of voice control: (1) management, (2) colleagues, (3) significant non-members and (4) the status and position of the coworker's voice. These four sources of voice control influence coworkers' voices on social media.

This study also contributes with practical implications, for example that the traditional idea of monophonic organizations must be revised and also embrace a polyphonic, bottom-up approach to strengthening internal trust and organizational identity. This comes naturally with the price of less control and predictability by management but with the benefits of increased coworker engagement and pride.

This study contributes new knowledge and a nuanced understanding of coworker voice on social media and the sources of control that influence coworkers' voices.

This paper aims to explore police perspectives on community engagement strategies within the context of crime prevention in South Africa, focusing on Johannesburg metropolitan police stations. The study’s objective is to scrutinise the effectiveness and challenges of community policing strategies.

Through a qualitative research approach, this study conducted unstructured interviews with station commanders and visible policing officers across 10 Johannesburg metropolitan police stations.

The findings reveal that community policing strategies, such as community–policing forums, sector policing, street patrollers and social media utilisation, can effectively engage communities as partners in crime prevention. However, certain challenges such as resource limitations and difficulties in policing-specific regions, were also identified.

This study contributes to the broader understanding of community–policing partnerships and the practical implications of community–policing strategies in South Africa, suggesting areas for improvement and adaptation to the unique South African context. This knowledge can help optimise efforts to foster stronger relationships between police and communities, bolster public trust and ultimately improve crime prevention outcomes.

The purpose of this study is to explore the ideological gaps across a range of policing interactions with the public.

In a survey distributed via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (n = 979), the authors explore the role that respondents' political ideology plays in the agreement of 13 aspects of policing services, their demeanor and decorum.

Attitudes toward policing interactions are slightly positive. Conservatives steadfastly hold positive attitudes about police. Liberals vacillate from negative to positive attitudes across the 13 policing interaction statements.

Although small, there is an ideological consensus that police adequately protect citizens and are knowledgeable about the law.

Even at record lows of public confidence in the police, some subsections of the sample, such as conservatives, firmly hold positive attitudes about police. The unwavering support for police by conservatives continues across the multi-item measure of policing interactions, whereas liberals illustrated less uniformity in their attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to identify whether there is a lower willingness to report a crime if a victim must hand in their mobile phone as evidence. If that is the case, the research seeks to examine whether privacy concerns and lower willingness correlate with one another and thereby investigate whether privacy concerns could lead to fewer crimes being reported and resolved.

A mobile phone survey was distributed to 400 Swedish adults to identify their hypothetical willingness to report certain crimes with and without handing in their mobile phones as evidence. The results were then analysed using inferential statistics.

The result suggests that there is no meaningful correlation between privacy attitudes and willingness to report crime when the handover of a mobile phone is necessary. The results of this study however show a significant lower willingness to report crimes when the mobile phone must be handed in.

Because the chosen target group were Swedish adults, the research results may lack generalisability for other demographics. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test other demographics.

This paper’s contribution is the novel exploration of attitudes and behaviours regarding the combination of privacy, digital forensics, mobile phones and crime reportage. This research effort examined the problematic situation that can arise for victims of crime, the invasion of privacy when providing evidence by handing in a mobile phone to the police’s forensic unit for examination.