This first part of a two-part series on public satisfaction with police contacts in Australia uses data from the 2002-03 National Survey of Community Satisfaction With Policing (NSCSP) to examine the various types of police-initiated contacts with citizens and to determine whether specific situational and individual factors affected citizens' views of police service quality.
The 2002-03 NSCSP pertained to the period from July 1, 2002, to June 30, 2003, and involved telephone interviews with 22,433 Australians ages 15 and older. Types of police-initiated contacts were classified as either nontargeted (occurred at random, such as random breath tests, or were informal) and targeted (police approached particular persons for a specific purpose). Targeted contacts were further divided into neutral outcomes and negative outcomes for the respondent. Almost half of the respondents reported at least one contact with police during the past year, and 58 percent of these respondents indicated their most recent contact was police-initiated. Approximately 87 percent of respondents were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the service they received during their most recent police-initiated contact. Nontargeted contacts received a higher average satisfaction rating than targeted contacts (both neutral and negative). Women ages 20-39 were more satisfied with police contacts than men in this age category, and older respondents were generally more satisfied than younger respondents across all three types of contact. Unilingual respondents were more satisfied than multilingual respondents with nontargeted and negative-targeted contacts. Officer demeanor determined satisfaction for nontargeted contacts, and officer action and respondent interpretation of this action were the main reasons for satisfaction with targeted contacts. 1 table, 7 figures, and 6 references