Police: Confidence is good, but so is control. Attitudes in the population towards police control and dealing with misconduct

• In Event: Independent Police Complaints Bodies: Results of Cross-Country Comparative Research on Police Accountability

Abstract

In public debates in Germany, efforts to control the police are regularly opposed with the argument of the public’s high level of confidence in the institution, making a more intensive control of police practice unnecessary. In this regard, the paper examines perceptions and attitudes in the German population towards problems in the police, police control and dealing with misconduct, as well as the consequences for legitimacy and confidence in the police, using a quota sample. The relationship between legitimacy, confidence and control resp. police accountability will be discussed. The category of confidence will then be extended to include the dimension of justified trust respec¬tively confidence. The empirical findings show that society is capable of a nuanced view of the police: from the respondents’ perspective, control and confidence are not contradictory. Although confidence is high in the present sample, problems in the police such as unequal treatment, racism and excessive use of force are seen and a transparent, more victim-sensitive approach to misconduct is favoured. External and independent police accountability mechanisms such as police ombudspersons are preferred to internal and other traditional control mechanisms, while internal investigations by police against themselves and the handling of suspected misconduct by the judiciary are assessed with scepticism.

Authors

• Marie Theres Piening, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main

• Julia Habermann, Ruhr-University Bochum

• Tobias Singelnstein, Goethe University Frankfurt/Main