Police Fairness Research Articles

Trust in and legitimacy of the police among American college students

The purpose of this study is to assess whether police fairness, effectiveness, assistance and fear of crime variables help explain trust in the police among university students. Five hundred questionnaires were distributed to all students in randomly selected summer courses offered by the university in 2012; 414 questionnaires were filled and returned, yielding a response rate of about 83%. Ordinary least square regression was used to estimate the effects of our independent variables on college students’ trust in the police. The results show that police fairness and police assistance were significantly related to trust in the police after accounting for respondents’ demographic characteristics. However, fear of crime and police effectiveness did not predict students’ trust in the police. This study was carried out on a sample of college students in one Carnegie 1 institution, thus findings have limited generalisability and need to be interpreted with caution. Our research and findings add another small piece to the theoretical confusion, and inconsistent findings, on the topics of factors supporting trust in the police which now characterises the literature, but do not undermine the basic policy value of procedural justice. This study can provide useful references for policing scholars, policy makers and police practitioners.

How perceptions and personal contact matter: The individual-level determinants of trust in police in Hungary

In established democracies perceptions about police effectiveness and procedural fairness are the main individual-level determinants of trust in police. However, very little is known about whether this is also the case in different circumstances. By analysing trust in police in Hungary, in an East Central European context, the paper finds that the same micro-level factors have a similar relationship with trust in police there as in established democracies. Both the perceptions of police performance and fairness are significant contributors to trust as well as individual judgements about the country's current affairs. However, people attribute different salience to distinct aspects of procedural fairness: Hungarians are sensitive to police corruption, but less so to discriminative police behaviour. Finally, the overall effect of personal contact with the police on trust is negative, but distinguishing those who reported negative personal experiences from those who were satisfied with how the police treated them shows that only bad contacts have a detrimental effect on trust. Our findings suggest that while positive personal experiences with the police do not improve trust judgements, negative ones damage people's perceptions about the police in virtually every dimension.

Perceptions of Unfairness in Police Questioning and Arrest Incidents: Race, Gender, Age, and Actual Guilt

Much research on the topic of police fairness focuses on a general concept of fairness. However, it has been suggested that when individuals are asked how they feel about police overall, they base their answers on specific incidents (J. Frank, B. Smith, & K. Novak, 2005). The current study examines predictors of the perception of police fairness during the most recent incident of police contact. Results indicate that when individuals are asked to consider specific incidents of police arrest or questioning that they personally experienced, they appear to be very rational in their reason for perceiving that the police acted unfairly.

Perceptions of Policing: Improving Communication in Local Communities

Public perceptions of policing have provided a good deal of concern in recent years. However, there is also a growing body of evidence that suggests that part of the issue for policing local communities may stem from an ability to communicate effectively with the local populace. This article discusses the role of public perception and identifies a number of key factors implicit to the experience of policing. These include fairness in policing, media representation and the use of new (social) media in order to recognise and support the changing demographic in a local population. Among our conclusions, we suggest that further investment is needed in new media in order to provide for a positive front-facing service, aimed at engaging younger — often at-risk — populations, that become the future consumers of service.

Variable links within perceived police legitimacy?: Fairness and effectiveness across races and places

This work examines connections between two threads of community residents’ perceptions of local police legitimacy, effectiveness and procedural fairness, and how those links depend on race, place, and race/place combinations. Previous works have connected these two threads, but have failed (a) to explore the variability of that connection by race, place, and race/place combinations across communities spanning the urban to suburban to rural continuum or (b) to model mutual influence. An extension of the group position thesis and work on minority views of police practices suggest how these variations might be patterned. Data were derived from a 2003 probability-based sampling survey of household respondents across Pennsylvania (n=1289). Generalized confirmatory factor analysis models built procedural fairness and effectiveness indices for four groups: whites in urban core counties, non-whites in urban core counties, whites in non-urban core counties, and non-whites in non-urban core counties. Non-recursive structural equation models revealed variable impacts of perceived police effectiveness on perceived police fairness and, to a lesser extent, of fairness on effectiveness. Implications for a more structurally and contextually aware understanding of links in police legitimacy models are developed.

Aggressive policing and the mental health of young urban men.

We surveyed young men on their experiences of police encounters and subsequent mental health. Between September 2012 and March 2013, we conducted a population-based telephone survey of 1261 young men aged 18 to 26 years in New York City. Respondents reported how many times they were approached by New York Police Department officers, what these encounters entailed, any trauma they attributed to the stops, and their overall anxiety. We analyzed data using cross-sectional regressions. Participants who reported more police contact also reported more trauma and anxiety symptoms, associations tied to how many stops they reported, the intrusiveness of the encounters, and their perceptions of police fairness. The intensity of respondent experiences and their associated health risks raise serious concerns, suggesting a need to reevaluate officer interactions with the public. Less invasive tactics are needed for suspects who may display mental health symptoms and to reduce any psychological harms to individuals stopped.

The Salience of Social Contextual Factors in Appraisals of Police Interactions with Citizens: A Randomized Factorial Experiment

Prior research indicates that public assessments of the manner in which the police exercise their authority are a key antecedent of judgments about the legitimacy of the police. In this study, the importance of context in influencing people’s assessment of police wrongdoing is examined. A randomized factorial experiment was used to test how respondents perceive and evaluate police–citizens interactions along a range of types of situations and encounters. 1,361 subjects were surveyed on factors hypothesized to be salient influences on how citizens perceive and evaluate citizen interactions with police. Subjects viewed videos of actual police–citizen encounters and were asked for their evaluations of these observed encounters. Contextual primes were used to focus subjects on particular aspects of the context within which the encounter occurs. Structural equation models revealed that social contextual framing factors, such as the climate of police–community relations and the legality of the stop that led to the encounter, influence citizen appraisals of police behavior with effects comparable in size to and even larger than demographic variables such as education, race, and income. These results suggest that the understandings and perceptions that people bring to a situation are important determinants of their assessment of police fairness. The police can positively influence citizen interpretations of police actions by striving to create a climate of positive police–community relationships in cities.

Policing and social identity: procedural justice, inclusion and cooperation between police and public

Accounts of the social meaning of policing and of the relationship between police and citizen converge on the idea that police behaviour carries important identity-relevant information. Opinions of and ideas about the police are implicated in the formation of social identities that relate to the social groups it represents – nation, state and community. Procedural justice theory suggests that judgements about the fairness of the police will be the most important factor in such processes. Fairness promotes a sense of inclusion and value, while unfairness communicates denigration and exclusion. Furthermore, positive social identities in relation to the police should on this account promote cooperation with it. This article presents an empirical test of these ideas in the context of the British policing. Data from a survey of young Londoners are used to show that perceptions of police fairness are indeed associated with social identity, and in turn social identity can be linked to cooperation. Yet these relationships were much stronger among those with multiple national identities. Police behaviour appeared more identity relevant for people who felt that they were citizens of a non-UK country, but for those who identified only as British there was a weaker link between procedural fairness and social identity, and here legitimacy judgements were the main ‘drivers’ of cooperation. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

Policing and Social Identity: Procedural Justice, Inclusion, and Cooperation between Police and Public

Accounts of the social representation of policing and of the relationship between police and citizen converge on the idea that police behaviour carries important identity-relevant meaning. Opinions of and ideas about the police are implicated in the formation of social identities that relate to the social groups it represents – nation, state and community. Procedural justice theory suggests that judgements about the fairness of the police will be the most important factor in such processes. Fairness promotes a sense of inclusion and value within the group. Furthermore, positive social identities in relation to the police should on this account promote cooperation with it. This paper presents an empirical test of these ideas in the context of British policing. Data from a survey of young Londoners are used to show that perceptions of police fairness are indeed associated with social identity, and in turn social identity can be linked to cooperation. Yet these relationships were much stronger among those with multiple national identities. Police behaviour appeared more identity relevant for people who felt they were citizens of a non-UK country, while for those who identified only as British there was a weaker link between procedural fairness and social identity, and legitimacy judgements were the main ‘drivers’ of cooperation. Policy and theoretical implications are discussed.

Safety or Liberty?: The Bogus Trade-Off of Cross-Deputization Policy

The discussion of cross-deputization (mandating that police officers enforce immigration policies) is often framed as a referendum on civil rights and racial politics. Those who oppose cross-deputization often maintain that asking police to target individuals based on their immigration status endangers civil rights. Those who support cross-deputization, on the other hand, argue that enforcing immigration laws is necessary to maintain a culture of lawfulness and to preserve public safety. Previous research on the psychology of legitimacy and procedural justice, however, suggests that this is likely a false dichotomy (e.g., Alpert & Dunham, 2004; Jost & Major, 2001; Tyler & Huo, 2002), a perspective we adopt in this article. Drawing on the psychological literature on legitimacy and on our own research in the area of policing and immigration, we find that ensuring civil rights—and the perception of police fairness—does not conflict with public safety in either perception or reality. Rather, the public's belief in the fairness of law enforcement is a necessary precondition of public safety and lawfulness. In other words, because law enforcement requires legitimacy to be effective, wide-ranging concerns about racism actually become a threat to public safety. Implications for public policy are discussed. “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin

Media and public perceptions of the police: examining the impact of race and personal experience

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of crime-related media consumption on individuals' opinions of the police. Using a statewide survey of 4245 California residents, three aspects of police performance – confidence in the police, police fairness and police use of excessive force – were regressed on multiple forms of media. The results suggest that viewing television news and crime-based reality programmes significantly increases confidence in the police. Interactions with arrest, crime victimisation and race were also examined. Victims and those with an arrest experience were not affected by crime-related media consumption, suggesting that first-hand experiences with crime were more important than the media in shaping individual's opinions of the police. Consumption of crime-related media increased confidence in the police among White respondents, but had no effect on Latinos or African-Americans.

Different Things to Different People? The Meaning and Measurement of Trust and Confidence in Policing Across Diverse Social Groups in London

One of the first actions of the new Home Secretary was to scrap public confidence as the single performance indicator of policing in England and Wales. But public trust and confidence will remain important to policing policy and practice. Trust and confidence can (a) encourage active citizen participation in priority setting and the running of local services, (b) make public bodies more locally accountable and responsive, and (c) secure public cooperation with the police and compliance with the law. Analysing survey data from London we find that overall 'public confidence' condenses a range of complex and inter-related judgements concerning the trustworthiness of the police. This is the case across different population groups and those with different experiences of crime and policing. Even recent victims and those worried about crime seem to place less priority on police effectiveness compared to police fairness and community alignment when responding to summary confidence questions. We argue that confidence summarises a motive-based trust that is rooted in procedural fairness and a social alignment between the police and the community. This social alignment is founded upon public assessments of the ability of the police to be a 'civic guardian' who secures public respect and embodies community values (Loader & Mulcahy, 2003). By demonstrating their trustworthiness to the public, the police can strengthen their social connection with citizens, and thus encourage more active civic engagement in domains of security and policing.

Perceptions of police: an empirical study of Chinese college students

PurposeThis study aims to examine Chinese college students' perceptions of police.Design/methodology/approachUsing survey data collected from over 400 college students in two cities, the study empirically analyzes the global and specific perceptions of police among Chinese college students and factors that accounted for the variation in Chinese college students' evaluations of police. The study incorporates a broader range of explanatory variables to explain Chinese college students' attitudes toward the police, including demographic characteristics, crime and criminal justice experience, perceptions of quality of life, and locality. The study reviews research on public perceptions of police published in Chinese academic journals.FindingsCollege students' global satisfaction with police as well as their specific evaluations of police fairness, effectiveness, and integrity were significantly related to their crime and criminal justice experience, perceived quality of life, and locality. Students' background characteristics only had a weak effect on attitudes toward police.Research limitations/implicationsMore empirical research is warranted to gauge the extent of Chinese satisfaction with police and police performance. Future research should continue incorporating crime and criminal justice factors into analysis.Practical implicationsFindings of the study provide Chinese police administrators with useful references and directions to improve police‐community relations..Originality/valueThis study represents one of the few attempts to empirically assess Chinese citizens' perceptions of police. It examines not just Chinese college students' global satisfaction with the police, but also their more specific views of various areas of police performance including fairness, effectiveness, and integrity.

Progress in American Policing? Reviewing the National Reviews

This essay uses three publications—the 1967 President's Crime Commission report on police, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society; the National Research Council's review of research on policing, Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence; and David Weisburd and Anthony A. Braga's edited collection, Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives—as reference points for reflecting on the extent to which the American police institution has moved toward a progressive and professional ideal over the past forty years. I argue that unless the scope and complexity of the policing function is more fully taken into account, and unless the causes of crime and disorder and the police role in controlling and preventing them are reconsidered, the ideals of police reform will remain elusive.

Perceptions of children during a police interrogation: Guilt, confessions, and interview fairness

Jurors are often provided with confession evidence and must determine whether the confession was true, false, coerced, or voluntary. As more juveniles are tried in adult criminal court, jurors must increasingly make these determinations about minors’ statements. In this study, mock jurors read an actual interrogation of a child suspect that included confession evidence, and then provided judgments regarding the coerciveness of the interrogation, the child's and police's knowledge and behaviors, and guilt. Child age (11 versus 14 years) and gender were manipulated and examined in relation to participant gender and pre-existing sympathy levels for juvenile offenders. Factors external to the suspect – participant gender and sympathy for juvenile offenders – interacted with child suspect factors to influence perceptions of the child, the interrogation, and guilt. When multiple factors were considered, perceptions of suspect credibility and police fairness were the strongest predictors of guilt and perceived culpability. The findings have implications for decision-making in cases involving juvenile defendants and confession evidence.

Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence: Edited by Wesley Skogan & Kathleen Frydl. National Research Council Committee to Review Research on Police Policy & Practices, Committee on Law & Justice, Division of Behavioral & Social Sciences & Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004. pp. xiii + 413. $44.95 (hard).

Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence: Edited by Wesley Skogan & Kathleen Frydl. National Research Council Committee to Review Research on Police Policy & Practices, Committee on Law & Justice, Division of Behavioral & Social Sciences & Education. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2004. pp. xiii + 413. $44.95 (hard).

Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence

Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidence

Controlling Street-Level Police Discretion

The Committee to Review Research on Police Policyand Practices’ Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing:The Evidenceprovides a review of research on thecauses of street-level police behavior, but the reportoffers little insight into how to control that discretioneffectively. This is not due to deficiencies in the reportbut rather to limitations of the available research. Thisarticle discusses four problems with that research:underdeveloped theory, weak research designs,insufficient generalizability of findings, and inattention to thekinds of police discretion that really matter to policymakers, practitioners, and the public. The article givesspecial attention to the last problem and makesrecommendations for improving the quality of research tobetter inform choices about how to control policestreetlevel discretion.

Trends in the Policing Industry

Fairness and Effectiveness in Policing: The Evidencedoes a terrific job of discussing the limited research on trends in the policing industry, but what it does not include is perhaps as informative. Large gaps in the body of research limit our ability to make definitive inferences about how the policing industry is changing. These gaps result in part from a lack of systematic, standardized, longitudinal data collection and analysis on the nature and outputs of police organizations in the United States. As a result, we know little about basic descriptive features of policing and how these features are changing over time. Lacking the ability to track even the most basic descriptive trends, the police research industry is at even more of a loss in developing careful empirical explanations of these trends. This article discusses some of these trends, summarizes what we know and what we do not know about them, and provides some recommendations for how the police research industry can do a better job of describing and explaining trends in the police industry.

Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration

Members of some disadvantaged minority groups in every Western country are disproportionately likely to be arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for violent, property, and drug crimes. This is true whether the minority groups are members of different "racial" groups from the majority population, for example, blacks or Afro-Caribbeans in Canada, England, or the United States, or of different ethnic backgrounds, for example, North African Arabs in France or the Netherlands, orirrespective of race or ethnicity-are recent migrants from other countries, for example, Yugoslavs or Eastern Europeans in Germany and Finns in Sweden. Important social policy dilemmas that are seen in individual countries to be uniquely their own, such as race relations in the United States or assimilation of Maghreb-derived guest workers in France or the experience of Aborigines in Australia, are not unique at all but are instead variations on common themes of social structure