IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/abk/jajeba/ajebasp.2009.1.10.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Importance of Police Performance as a Determinant of Satisfaction with Police

Author

Listed:
  • James E. Larsen
  • John P. Blair

Abstract

Problem statement: Citizen satisfaction with police performance is an important concern of public managers because police performance is central to citizens and accounts for a large share of urban budgets. Also, there is substantial disagreement in the literature regarding determents of citizen satisfaction. Approach: Logistic regression was used to investigate the results of three public opinion surveys, conducted biannually, to identify determinants of citizen satisfaction with police. Results: The explanatory power of the models was indicated by concordance of over .80. The findings indicated that satisfaction was largely determined by citizen perception of police behaviors. Four variables reflecting perceptions of police performance were particularly important: Response time to a crime in progress, visibility on the street, the quality of the relationship between the police and community and police efforts to reduce crime, indicating a chi square significance of <0.001. Almost all demographic and other individual factors, as well as subjective measures of crime severity in the respondent’s neighborhood were insignificant or less important. Conclusion/Recommendations: The findings suggested that public officials could improve citizen satisfaction by focusing on specific aspects of police behavior. Training programs should be oriented accordingly. Further research regarding how citizens interpret certain words, gestures, postures, or other behaviors by police promises to enhance satisfaction.

Suggested Citation

  • James E. Larsen & John P. Blair, 2009. "The Importance of Police Performance as a Determinant of Satisfaction with Police," American Journal of Economics and Business Administration, Science Publications, vol. 1(1), pages 1-10, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:abk:jajeba:ajebasp.2009.1.10
    DOI: 10.3844/ajebasp.2009.1.10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://thescipub.com/pdf/ajebasp.2009.1.10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://thescipub.com/abstract/ajebasp.2009.1.10
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3844/ajebasp.2009.1.10?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Priest, Thomas B. & Carter, Deborah Brown, 1999. "Evaluations of police performance in an african american sample," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 457-465, September.
    2. Cheurprakobkit, Sutham, 2000. "Police-citizen contact and police performance Attitudinal differences between Hispanics and non-Hispanics," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 325-336.
    3. Correia, Mark E. & Reisig, Michael D. & Lovrich, Nicholas P., 1996. "Public perceptions of state police: An analysis of individual-level and contextual variables," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 17-28.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Danielle M. Shields, 2021. "Stonewalling in the Brick City: Perceptions of and Experiences with Seeking Police Assistance among LGBTQ Citizens," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-27, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bolger, Michelle A. & Lytle, Daniel J. & Bolger, P. Colin, 2021. "What matters in citizen satisfaction with police: A meta-analysis," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Lai, Yung-Lien & Zhao, Jihong Solomon, 2010. "The impact of race/ethnicity, neighborhood context, and police/citizen interaction on residents' attitudes toward the police," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 685-692, July.
    3. Jang, Hyunseok & Joo, Hee-Jong & Zhao, Jihong (Solomon), 2010. "Determinants of public confidence in police: An international perspective," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 57-68, January.
    4. Garcia, Venessa & Cao, Liqun, 2005. "Race and satisfaction with the police in a small city," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 191-199.
    5. Correia, Mark E., 2010. "Determinants of attitudes toward police of Latino immigrants and non-immigrants," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 99-107, January.
    6. Huebner, Beth M. & Schafer, Joseph A. & Bynum, Timothy S., 2004. "African American and White perceptions of police services: Within- and between-group variation," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 123-135.
    7. Payne, Brian K. & Time, Victoria & Gainey, Randy R., 2006. "Police chiefs' and students' attitudes about the Miranda warnings," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 653-660.
    8. Jefferis, Eric S. & Kaminski, Robert J. & Holmes, Stephen & Hanley, Dena E., 1997. "The effect of a videotaped arrest on public perceptions of police use of force," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 381-395.
    9. Ren, Ling & Cao, Liqun & Lovrich, Nicholas & Gaffney, Michael, 2005. "Linking confidence in the police with the performance of the police: Community policing can make a difference," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 55-66.
    10. McCluskey, John D. & McCluskey, Cynthia Perez & Enriquez, Roger, 2008. "A comparison of Latino and White citizen satisfaction with police," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 471-477, November.
    11. LaBerge, Alyssa & Mason, Makayla & Sanders, Kaelyn, 2022. "Police dispatch times: The effects of neighborhood structural disadvantage," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    12. Ferdik, Frank & Frogge, George & Cooney, Mikaela, 2022. "Exploring further determinants of citizen satisfaction with the police: The role of strain," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    13. Erica Ceka & Natalia Ermasova & Lisa Jackson, 2024. "Unraveling Perceptions on Wrongful Convictions: Do Gender and Ethnicity Explain Disparities in Views?," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 119-140, March.
    14. Wu, Yuning, 2010. "College Students' Evaluation of Police Performance: A Comparison of Chinese and Americans," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 773-780, July.
    15. Adesina Shoyode, 2018. "Public Trust in Nigerian Police: A Test of Police Accessibility Effects," Journal of Social Science Studies, Macrothink Institute, vol. 5(2), pages 1-16, July.
    16. Eschholz, Sarah & Blackwell, Brenda Sims & Gertz, Marc & Chiricos, Ted, 2002. "Race and attitudes toward the police: Assessing the effects of watching "reality" police programs," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 327-341.
    17. Erica B. Russell & James C. Garand, 2023. "Race, linked fate, and attitudes toward the police," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 104(2), pages 110-124, March.
    18. Cao, Liqun & Solomon Zhao, Jihong, 2005. "Confidence in the police in Latin America," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 403-412.
    19. Cao, Liqun & Hou, Charles, 2001. "A comparison of confidence in the police in China and in the United States," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 87-99.
    20. Reitzel, John D. & Rice, Stephen K. & Piquero, Alex R., 2004. "Lines and shadows: Perceptions of racial profiling and the Hispanic experience," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 607-616.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:abk:jajeba:ajebasp.2009.1.10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jeffery Daniels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://thescipub.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.