Attitudes Toward the Police in Communities Using Different Consolidation Models

• NCJ Number: 252549
• Author(s): Steven Chermak; Jeremy M. Wilson
• Date Published: 2018
• Length: 10 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2013-IJ-CX-0019
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical); Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored); Program/Project Description

Annotation

This study surveyed residents' attitudes toward police in four communities with different models of policing, i.e, a merged department, two agencies that contracted for police services, and a regional agency.

Abstract

Due to continuing fiscal constraints, an increasing number of communities have sought to reduce policing costs by providing law enforcement services in non-traditional ways. Although a considerable amount of previous relevant research has examined community opinion about policing services, to the authors of this article's knowledge, no previous work has focused on what residents think of these non-traditional policing models. The current study surveyed residents in the four communities about their confidence in policing services. The survey found that the type of policing model used by a community was an important predictor of confidence in police, controlling for other traditional measures of resident attitudes toward the police. The article concludes with suggestions for future research, both regarding community attitudes toward police generally and specifically among communities with the types of policing models examined in the current study. (Publisher abstract modified)