Tammy Rinehart Kochel

Examining Police Effectiveness as a Precursor to Legitimacy and Cooperation with Police

Numerous studies by Tyler and colleagues, as well as other scholars, support a normative, process model to account for variation in the public’s cooperation with police in the USA and other developed nations. However, a recent study in Ghana suggests that in developing countries fraught with high levels of violent crime and corruption, cooperation may instead be accounted for by a utilitarian, rational-choice model. Our study examines whether public cooperation with police in the developing nation of Trinidad and Tobago is associated with the process model or rational-choice model. Using in-person structured interviews with residents, we examined whether victims’ decisions to report to police were related to individuals’ perceptions about police effectiveness or police legitimacy. We found support for the process model. We discuss possible explanations for the divergence with Tankebe’s research in Ghana and suggest avenues for future research.

Can Police Legitimacy Promote Collective Efficacy

This research empirically examines the role of police in promoting collective efficacy and in particular, whether higher levels of police legitimacy are associated with more neighborhood collective efficacy. The research is conducted in the developing nation of Trinidad and Tobago—providing important evidence about the generalizability of the antecedents and effects of legitimacy outside of industrialized nations. The results support a potential role for police in promoting collective efficacy, but the mechanism for doing so is not legal institution legitimacy. Instead, the research identifies a relationship between quality routine police services, levels of police misconduct, and collective efficacy. In Trinidad, the amount and nature of interactions with police appear to play an important part in residents’ and neighborhood‐level assessments about police services and misbehavior.

Constructing Hot Spots Policing: Unexamined Consequences for Disadvantaged Populations and for Police Legitimacy

Police practitioners and academics alike have heralded hot spots policing as evidence-based practice. It has encountered few hurdles in its path to widespread implementation in the United States. Examining the social construction of its diffusion, including the empirical, theoretical, social-political, technological, and media contexts that converged to promote its diffusion, reveals a partial, positively skewed image perpetuated among the public, scholars, and policymakers. Through a different lens, hot spots policing might have led to concerns about legitimacy, discussion of bias, and lack of public support. Instead, the infectious popularity of this reform may thus far have buffered it from critical consideration of the potentially disproportionate impact of hot spots policing on disadvantaged community members and its consequences for police legitimacy--evidence that should be important to evidence-based practice. This article promotes a research agenda that extends beyond short term crime-reduction to investigate these important unstudied consequences.Police practitioners and academics alike have heralded hot spots policing as evidence-based practice. It has encountered few hurdles in its path to widespread implementation in the United States. Examining the social construction of its diffusion, including the empirical, theoretical, social-political, technological, and media contexts that converged to promote its diffusion, reveals a partial, positively skewed image perpetuated among the public, scholars, and policymakers. Through a different lens, hot spots policing might have led to concerns about legitimacy, discussion of bias, and lack of public support. Instead, the infectious popularity of this reform may thus far have buffered it from critical consideration of the potentially disproportionate impact of hot spots policing on disadvantaged community members and its consequences for police legitimacy—evidence that should be important to evidence-based practice. This article promotes a research agenda that extends beyond short term crime-reduction to investigate these important unstudied consequences.

Explaining Racial Differences in Ferguson’s Impact on Local Residents’ Trust and Perceived Legitimacy

Public support and trust are critical to effective democratic policing, but scholars have suggested police in the United States may be experiencing a legitimacy crisis. High-profile police-involved shootings like those which have happened over the last 2 years can have negative consequences. This study assesses the consequences of the Ferguson, Missouri unrest and police response on local residents’ views. A panel survey of St Louis County, Missouri residents conducted before and after the police shooting of Michael Brown examines the effects on procedural justice and trust, police legitimacy, and willingness to cooperate with police. Results reveal a significantly different effect on African American versus non-Black residents. African Americans’ views significantly declined while non-Black residents’ perceptions were stable. Qualitative data are used to apply the conflict/group position and accumulated experience theories to explain racial disparities and are used as a basis to offer strategies to improve confidence and trust in police.

Race, Ethnicity, Crime and Criminal Justice in Trinidad and Tobago

This chapter examines the influence of race/ethnicity on criminal offending, victimization, fear of crime and perceptions of safety and police-citizen relations in Trinidad and Tobago. We rely on a variety of data to illustrate the intersection of race/ethnicity, crime and criminal justice, including official crime statistics, citizen surveys, self-report studies and national opinion polls. We highlight significant racial/ethnic differences in criminal offending (particularly for homicide), violent and non-violent victimization patterns, and fear of crime and perceived safety. Given the important role that the police play as the public face of the criminal justice system, we examine how perceptions of the police vary across racial/ethnic groups. Throughout the chapter and in the conclusion, we discuss potential explanations for the racial/ethnic differences reflected in the data.

Police legitimacy and resident cooperation in crime hotspots: effects of victimisation risk and collective efficacy

ABSTRACT This study focuses on police legitimacy and cooperation in high-crime neighbourhoods. Residents’ perceptions of victimisation risk and reduced collective efficacy are investigated as potential threats that may promote police legitimacy and cooperation. An integrated model applying systems justification theory, along with the instrumental and process models, provides potential mechanisms for understanding legitimacy and cooperation in crime hot spots. The multi-level regression analysis uses 947 surveys conducted in 71 crime hot spots. Results demonstrate the value of diffuse support for police and uphold the procedural justice and instrumental models of legitimacy in high-crime contexts. Results also support that risk and collective efficacy affect views. Findings point to the importance of how perceptions about context may foster a perceived dependence on police and, through this mechanism, promote cooperation. Results point to the value of further investigating risk, parochialism, and other aspects of context on police legitimacy and cooperation in future research.

Re-examining the normative, expressive, and instrumental models: how do feelings of insecurity condition the willingness to cooperate with police in different contexts?

ABSTRACT Policing by consent has long been viewed as a fundamental feature of modern policing. Police need citizens to report crime and suspicious activity and to assist police with their enquiries. The procedural justice model is commonly employed to explain cooperation with police, yet few studies consider how social context informs cooperation. In this study we examine the role of contextual factors in developing a better understanding of the procedural justice model of cooperation with police. To do so we compare results in two contexts: St Louis County (US) and Brisbane (Australia). We find similarities and differences in the way contextual factors (including feelings of insecurity and social cohesion and trust) impact the willingness to assist police across our two research sites.

Robustness of collective efficacy on crime in a developing nation: association with crime reduction compared to police services

This study examines police, collective efficacy and crime in the developing country of Trinidad and Tobago to test the generalizability of collective efficacy as protection against crime and to compare the relative influence of public perceptions of police activity versus collective efficacy on crime. The results support that collective efficacy can be generated in a developing country and that its depressive effects on crime are replicated even in that context. The study further shows that police can contribute to collective efficacy and subsequently lower the levels of crime by minimizing police misconduct and improving the quality of services, although the strongest effect of the police variables was between police misconduct on crime. In sum, residents in Trinidad and Tobago, a developing nation with many challenges, report experiencing collective efficacy, that more of it means less crime, and that public impressions about police services and misconduct may affect both collective efficacy and crime.

The Impact of Hot Spots Policing on Collective Efficacy: Findings from a Randomized Field Trial

In disadvantaged neighborhoods, prior research has found reduced social cohesion and less willingness among residents to address disruptive behaviors and violations of social norms. This deficiency is commonly associated with higher levels of disorder and crime. Therefore, recent scholarship has begun to consider whether police can help foster collective efficacy, especially in places struggling with serious crime problems. Early results are somewhat mixed. Yet the cooperation hypothesis asserts that when neighborhood residents see police as a more viable and reliable resource, residents will be emboldened to exert informal social control to address problems. Over the last two decades, hot spots policing has been recognized as an effective method to reduce crime. At the same time, there have been few rigorous studies of whether this approach impacts collective efficacy at hot spots. To investigate this question, we conducted an experiment in 71 crime hot spots, comparing a collaborative problem solving versus a directed patrol (police presence) approach versus standard policing practices. Over time, a substantial increase in police presence did appear to promote modest improvements in collective efficacy. We attribute this finding to the cooperation hypothesis.

Applying police legitimacy, cooperation, and collective security hypotheses to explain collective efficacy and violence across neighbourhoods

ABSTRACT This study examines views about police legitimacy and competence in neighbourhoods over time. The study compares theories about police legitimacy, the cooperation hypothesis, and the collective security hypothesis to predict violence. Findings suggest that when police legitimacy is deficient in neighbourhoods, a culture supportive of violence to resolve disputes may develop. Results show the importance of police competence to suppress violence and build collective efficacy. Finally, police are more successful in neighbourhoods that are collectively efficacious. The cooperation hypothesis is fully supported, but the collective security hypothesis and LaFree’s legitimacy theory receive partial support. Findings underscore the merit of examining neighbourhood consequences of police legitimacy, including how institutions, like police, can impact neighbourhood socialisation processes and are impacted by them.