This study examined the sources of trust in the police.
Tyler's process-based model of policing suggests that the police can improve their perceived legitimacy and trustworthiness with the public when they exercise their authority in a procedurally fair manner. To date, most process-based research has focused on the sources of legitimacy while largely overlooking trust in the police. The current study examined whether individuals' perceptions of collective efficacy acted as a social-psychological cognitive orientation that influenced levels of trust in the police. This was done because emerging research has shown that neighborhood context influences attitudes toward the police; however, much less attention has been given to exploring the role that individuals' perceptions of their neighborhood play in shaping such evaluations. The study used data from a recently conducted mail survey of a random sample of 1,681 residents from a metropolitan city in showing that procedural justice evaluations are a primary source of trust in the police; simultaneously, level of perceived collective efficacy was positively associated with trust, even after accounting for procedural justice. These findings suggest that police procedural fairness is vitally important in establishing trust with the public, but peoples' cognitive orientation toward their neighborhood context partially shapes the level of trustworthiness they afford to the police. (Publisher abstract modified)