Neighborhood Characteristics and Confidence in the Police in the Context of South Korea

• In Event: Context and Public Perceptions of Police

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which recent research on neighborhood influences on confidence in the police conducted in the United States and other Western countries is generalizable to South Korea. In addition, we propose and test a theoretical model in which neighborhood economic level, residential stability, disorder, and crime risk have indirect effects on confidence in the police via changes in collective efficacy. To address these questions, we estimate multilevel models using data from the 2008 Korean National Crime Victimization Survey (KNCVS), which is a nationally-representative random sample of approximately 10,000 respondents across 425 neighborhoods.

Authors

• Hyounggon Kwak, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

• Susan McNeeley, Minnesota Department of Corrections