NCJ Number
165712
Journal
Journal of Security Administration Volume: 19 Issue: 1 Dated: (June-July 1996) Pages: 1-15
Date Published
1996
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Data from 1,088 students, parents, faculty-administrators, and staff of an eastern State university formed the basis of an analysis of their knowledge and attitudes toward the campus police.
Abstract
The participants completed self-administered questionnaires that gathered their assessments of the everyday activities, duties, functions, and goals of the campus police. Results were consistent with previous police research. Younger individuals rated the police much more unfavorably than did older individuals. The strongest single predictor of unfavorable attitudes toward the police was whether the person had had a negative contact with a police officer. The probability of negative contact was primarily a function of the person's status as a student, young age, and male gender. Findings may not be generalizable to urban campuses with larger and more diverse populations. However, the research suggests that age and negative contact are constant in their importance but that their pervasiveness in explaining overall perceptions of the police may be a function of other important variables such as the type of campus, the variety of law enforcement activity, the perceptions of crime, the campus environment, and the degree of diversity. Tables and 27 references