Fifty Shades of Blue: Officer Sexualities and Citizen Trust in the Police

• In Event: Crime, Law and Deviance Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 6: Gender, Sexuality, and Crime

Abstract

This research offers a novel inquiry exploring potential linkages between people’s attitudes about sexual behaviors among police officers and their trust in the police in the United States. Drawing on a sample with an overrepresentation of racial minority individuals (N = 324), we first determine the public perceptions of the universal moral quality and ethicality of a series of normative (e.g., dating app and intramarital courtship) and non-normative sexual and romantic practices (e.g., BDSM and polyamory) as practiced by law enforcement officers. We then build multivariate regression models to test their connections to citizens’ trust in the police. Results suggest that citizen perceptions are sensitive to officers’ private lives and associate officers’ engagement in non-normative and socially stigmatized behaviors (e.g., BDSM and marital infidelity) with lower tendencies to trust the agency. Practical implications of building and repairing police legitimacy are discussed.

Authors

• Yang Vincent Liu, Oakland University

• Joseph Hamm, Michigan State University