Public Expectation of Police Performance in Police-Citizen Encounters

• In Event: Police-Community Partnerships and Attitudes

Abstract

According to the police accountability theory, citizens hold police accountable for the local crime and disorder. Subsequently, citizens’ subjective perception of crime and disorder in their communities are often used as the proxy to measure their evaluation of police effectiveness in public safety. Recently, the actual disorder incidents at the individual level have been incorporated into the measures of police effectiveness as one of the determinants of citizen satisfaction with the police. However, such measures are suffering from not capturing the dynamics of change in the levels of crime and disorder within citizens’ neighborhood. Using the data from a random-sample telephone survey conducted in 2010 and the official crime statistics of the two years prior to the survey in Houston, Texas, this study attempts to examine the relationships among respondents’ perception of crime and disorder, neighborhood crime and disorder dynamics, and respondents’ expectations of the police. More specifically, the paper will test whether the increase in crime and disorder within citizens’ immediate neighborhood will adversely lead to their low expectations of the police. Traditional variables derived from police-citizen contact model and demographic model will be included in the analysis.

Authors

• Yudu Li, Sam Houston State University

• Ling Ren, Sam Houston State University