Testing Intent to Cooperate: Whether Perceptions of Police and Willingness to Cooperate Translate into Crime Reporting by Victims

• In Event: Advancing Legitimacy Theory VIII

Abstract

A deficiency in police legitimacy research is the reliance on survey respondents’ intention to cooperate as a potentially important outcome. Legitimacy theory draws its importance based upon the outcomes that police legitimacy is believed to produce—cooperation, compliance, and law abidance. Yet, much of the evidence supporting the association between legitimacy and cooperation with police is based upon residents’ reported beliefs that they will take action in the future and assumes that their intentions will translate to action. The current study begins to address this shortcoming by testing whether the utilitarian and process-based models operate through intentions to produce action. The study integrates three household panel surveys to examine whether victims’ intentions to cooperate with police translate into reporting their victimization experiences to police. The study evaluates the indirect impact of perceived legitimacy, procedural justice, and effectiveness of police on residents’ willingness to cooperate and subsequently on actual cooperative behaviors.

Authors

• Tammy Rinehart Kochel, Southern Illinois University

• Rasheed Ibrahim, Southern Illinois University Carbondale