Police-citizen encounters and perceptions: procedural justice, crime reporting, contested encounters and bystanders

Session Submission Type: Pre-arranged Panel

Abstract

Police-citizen encounters have a large influence on public attitudes of the police. Experiences of fair treatment have a positive effect on trust and legitimacy of the police, while negative encounters have the opposite effect. Favorable police perceptions, in turn, promote citizen cooperation, compliance and support. Therefore, this thematic panel revolves around different types of police-citizen encounters, and both citizen and police perceptions of these encounters.

The first presentation discusses the role of situational factors of an arrest on procedural justice perceptions of the police among detainees. The second presentation focuses the effect of procedural justice enactment by police officers on the self-reported behavior of bystanders during a police encounter, and the role of social relationships between the bystander and the suspect. The third presentation is about what bystanders do when officers police the streets, and how police officers perceive bystander actions. The fourth presentation will explore the content and context of crime reporting conversations, and how citizens and police front desk staff experience these conversations. The fifth presentation introduces a video observation study of body-worn camera footage of police-citizen interactions, in which citizen self-presentation types and officer behavior are analyzed.

Subtopic

• Topic 5: Social Control and Criminal Justice / Policing and Law enforcement

Chair

• Marly van Bruchem, Open University

Individual Presentations

• Determinants of encounter-specific police procedural justice perceptions among Dutch detainees - Emmeke Kooistra, NSCR; Amy Nivette, Utrecht University; Anja Dirkzwager, NSCR

• Understanding bystander behavior during police interventions: a test of the procedural justice effect under different social relations with targets - Nette Vandenhouwe, KU Leuven; Karin Proost, Open University and KU Leuven; Lieven Brebels, KU Leuven; Philip Germeys, KU Leuven

• Bystander actions from a police perspective - Marly van Bruchem, Open University; Karin Proost, Open University and KU Leuven; Joris van Ruysseveldt, Open University; Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard, NSCR and University of Amsterdam

• Police-Citizen Interactions at the Stations’ Front Desk: An Exploratory Study of Crime Reporting Conversations and Experiences - Roselle Petra Jansen, NSCR; Ronald van Steden, NSCR and VU University; Stijn Ruiter, NSCR

• A video observational study of citizen self-presentation types in contested police-citizen encounters - Lenneke van Lith, NSCR; Vana Hutter, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, the Netherlands Department of Human Movement Sciences, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherla; Marie Rosenkrantz Lindegaard, NSCR and University of Amsterdam