NCJ Number
251389
Date Published
July 2017
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Since partnerships among residents, community organizations, and police are critical under the collaborative concepts of the federal Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program (BCJI), this paper discusses the importance of positive police-community interactions in building and maintaining community-wide commitment to public safety.
Abstract
In discussing key concepts in police-community relations, this paper focuses on "police legitimacy" and "legal cynicism,"as well as their connection to one another. Police legitimacy is usually understood to have two components: 1) trust and confidence in the police; and 2) a feeling of obligation to obey the police. Legal cynicism occurs among community residents when they perceive that police are disrespectful, unfair, and biased in their interactions with community residents, thus undermining the will to cooperate with and respect police in their enforcement of the law. This paper also discusses common mechanisms for assessing the quality of police-community relations. A table shows examples of measures of police legitimacy and legal cynicism discussed in the literature. Since surveys are a popular means of measuring police legitimacy and legal cynicism, this paper provides a checklist of issues that should be considered in planning such a survey. 17 references