Young People’s Confidence in Policing: An empirical test using the Crime Survey for England and Wales

• In Event: Perceptions of Police: International Perspectives

Abstract

Much is now known about public confidence in the police and its correlates, especially regarding the important role of procedural justice in police-citizen engagements. However, given that this research has tended to focus on the adult population, much less is known about perceptions of the police among young people. This paper utilises survey data of 10-15 year olds from the Crime Survey for England and Wales to explore young people’s confidence in the police. We pay particular attention to the effect of parental transmission of perceptions of policing, and, in light of Skogan’s (2006) findings regarding the asymmetrical impact of police contact on public confidence, to the role of young people’s experiences of police contact. The findings will be discussed in relation to whether young people’s understandings about and orientations toward the police are transmitted from one generation to the next, in addition to whether their (often) increased use of public places, sometimes associated with greater contact with police, may foster particular experiences and opinions of policing that differ to the general adult population.

Authors

• Katy Sindall, University of Southampton

• Ian Brunton-Smith, University of Surrey

• Daniel McCarthy, University of Surrey