Understanding citizen satisfaction with the police: results from a community survey

ABSTRACT

Over the last few decades, law enforcement has come to value aspects of its role as essential to its crime-fighting capacity, including legitimacy, procedural justice, quality of life matters, and partnership with the community. While evolving law enforcement strategies have improved crime control, many departments still strive to enhance satisfaction among community members while balancing crime control and community-oriented approaches. Citizen satisfaction with police has been found to promote community buy-in and participation in identifying and addressing both criminal and non-criminal matters. Predictors of citizen satisfaction with law enforcement, however, have generally been assessed in larger, urban contexts. This study extends the literature on community-oriented policing approaches and citizen satisfaction by exploring survey results from a mid-sized U.S. city. Aside from demographic factors, levels of satisfaction with police were predicted by citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice, safety, crime, and disorder. Results suggest that police departments attend closely to fostering procedurally just interactions with citizens. Additional implications for scholarship and police practice are included.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-oriented policing
• police satisfaction
• procedural justice
• crime control

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Emma Barton, Alexandra LoBianco, and Genevieve Moran for their partnership in this effort.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Prior research also suggests that police contact is a salient factor in assessing citizen satisfaction with law enforcement (Brown & Benedict, 2002; Dai et al., 2019); however, this construct is beyond the scope of the current paper. Police contact is further addressed in a partner paper (see Authors, under review).

2. The mailing company ensured additional surveys were delivered to new addresses.

3. In their research synthesis, Brown and Benedict (2002) also include contact with police as an influential predictor of perceptions of law enforcement; however, this variable was not directly addressed in the current manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frank Merenda

Frank Merenda is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Marist College and a retired police Captain from the New York City Police Department (NYPD). His research interests include effective training practices within the field of criminal justice and juvenile justice reform.

Jason Trent

Jason Trent is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Marist College. His research interests include looking into the characteristics of raters and targets that contribute to first impressions, and how different aspects of modern society (e.g., smartphones) influence human behavior.

Carol R. Rinke

Carol R. Rinke is Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Social and Behavioral Sciences at Marist College. She also coordinates the Marist Center for Social Justice Research, which engages faculty, students, and community partners in collaborative research.

Molly Buchanan

Molly Buchanan is an Assistant Professor at Marist College. Her primary research interests fall within developmental, life-course criminology and include the impact of criminal justice system interventions, influence of risk and protective factors, and promoting evidence-based practices.