Religious policing: how religion and level of religiosity shape officer’s interaction with minority groups

Abstract

Like other Western nations, policing in Australia is considered a secular practice. Whilst policing in Australia is meant to be free from the influence of religious ideals and religious doctrine, it is unknown whether Australian police officers are influenced by the social practices, morals, beliefs, cultural practices, and laws fortified by religious ideologies. Arguably religious beliefs may influence police officers’ adherence to retributive policing practices, police prejudice towards certain groups, and intergroup anxiety, but research examining this is missing from the extant Australian policing literature. As such, this study determines how Australian officers’ religious identity and individual level of religiosity (religious belief, religious knowledge, religious experience, religious practice, and religious consequence) may shape policing of people from minority groups during police–citizen interaction. Using a logistic regression, the results from this research conducted with police officers from one Australian state police organisation (N = 1172) indicate that many officers with high levels of religiosity perceive that they are likely to follow their religion's teachings and doctrines closely and will apply them in different contexts at work, which may also shape their judgement of people from minority groups during police–citizen interaction.