Determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward police: Procedural justice

• In Event: Emerging Issues in Policing

Abstract

One of the major components of community-oriented policing is citizen attitudes toward police based on citizen satisfaction with police performance. One may assume that a citizen with more positive attitudes toward police would be more willing to cooperate with the police than a citizen with negative or less positive attitudes toward police. Tyler (2006) argues that citizen attitudes toward police are more affected by the procedure of policing (procedural justice) than the outcome of one (distributive justice). Since his theory has multiple implications for community-oriented policing, this study will examine the effects of procedural and distributive justice using the Police-Public Contact Survey developed by the U.S. Department of Justice. Data will be collected from South Korea and will be compared to American data. Implications and limitations will be discussed.

Authors

• Jeong Lim Kim, Tarleton State University

• Hyungjin Lim, Police Science Institute

• Yongsok Kim, Bemidji State University