Understanding Public Attitudes towards the Police: Co-variates of Satisfaction, Trust, and Confidence

Prior research on public attitudes towards the police has tended to refer to three concepts—satisfaction with the police, confidence in the police, and trust in the police—entirely interchangeably. Recently, there has been a call to differentiate these three concepts. The current study seeks to addr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hu, Xiaocheng (Author)
Contributors: Dai, Mengyan ; DeValve, Michael J. ; Lejeune, Andrew
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: [2020]
In: Canadian journal of criminology and criminal justice
Year: 2020, Volume: 62, Issue: 1, Pages: 26-49
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
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Summary:Prior research on public attitudes towards the police has tended to refer to three concepts—satisfaction with the police, confidence in the police, and trust in the police—entirely interchangeably. Recently, there has been a call to differentiate these three concepts. The current study seeks to address this research gap by analysing a unique Canadian dataset that includes all three concepts. The main research question that the study tries to answer is whether significant co-variates will differ in predicting the three concepts. The findings indicate that different models have slightly different demographic co-variates, but they share three of the same co-variates: dissatisfaction with prior citizen-police contacts, victimization, and neighbourhood conditions. The study suggests that while differentiating these three concepts may be promising, it is important, efficient, and practical to handle the three shared co-variates to improve overall public attitudes towards the police. (English)
ISSN:1911-0219
DOI:10.3138/cjccj.2019-0011