The Role of Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Shaping Public Confidence in the Police in Eastern Europe

• In Event: Police Work and Perceptions of Police/Criminal Justice System in Various Cultural Contexts

Abstract

Although inter-country variations do exist, research accounts consistently showed that on average, Eastern European citizens have a lower level of trust in their police than residents from other regions of Europe that do not share a communist past. Using data from the European Social Survey (Round 5/2010), this analysis tries to determine to what extent the behavior of police and the perceived police legitimacy impact public confidence in the police, compared to factors, such as interpersonal and institutional trust, experience with victimization, neighborhood safety, and other socio-demographic variables. The analysis examines the public support of police in the region and also compares the attitudes expressed by residents of eight European Union member states to those expressed by citizens of two non-member states (Russian Federation and Ukraine). Overall, results show strong support for the procedural justice model of policing. Out of the 59% of the variance explained by the statistical model, perceived police behavior (in particular, police effectiveness, police procedural fairness, and police integrity) and police legitimacy (obligation to obey and normative alignment with the police) account for 50.3% of the variation in the dependent variable. Nevertheless, the effects of confidence-in-the-police correlates vary in intensity among respondents differentiated by EU-membership.

Author

• Viviana Andreescu, University of Louisville