A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy
© 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Despite decades of declining crime rates, longstanding tensions between police and the public continue to frustrate the formation of cooperative relationships necessary for the function of the police and the provision of public safety. In res...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135505 |
| _version_ | 1826188104529084416 |
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| author | Peyton, Kyle Sierra-Arévalo, Michael Rand, David G |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Peyton, Kyle Sierra-Arévalo, Michael Rand, David G |
| author_sort | Peyton, Kyle |
| collection | MIT |
| description | © 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Despite decades of declining crime rates, longstanding tensions between police and the public continue to frustrate the formation of cooperative relationships necessary for the function of the police and the provision of public safety. In response, policy makers continue to promote community-oriented policing (COP) and its emphasis on positive, nonenforcement contact with the public as an effective strategy for enhancing public trust and police legitimacy. Prior research designs, however, have not leveraged the random assignment of police–public contact to identify the causal effect of such interactions on individual-level attitudes toward the police. Therefore, the question remains: Do positive, nonenforcement interactions with uniformed patrol officers actually cause meaningful improvements in attitudes toward the police? Here, we report on a randomized field experiment conducted in New Haven, CT, that sheds light on this question and identifies the individual-level consequences of positive, nonenforcement contact between police and the public. Findings indicate that a single instance of positive contact with a uniformed police officer can substantially improve public attitudes toward police, including legitimacy and willingness to cooperate. These effects persisted for up to 21 d and were not limited to individuals inclined to trust and cooperate with the police prior to the intervention. This study demonstrates that positive nonenforcement contact can improve public attitudes toward police and suggests that police departments would benefit from an increased focus on strategies that promote positive police–public interactions. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T07:54:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/135505 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T07:54:39Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1355052023-02-17T19:53:25Z A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy Peyton, Kyle Sierra-Arévalo, Michael Rand, David G Sloan School of Management Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences © 2019 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Despite decades of declining crime rates, longstanding tensions between police and the public continue to frustrate the formation of cooperative relationships necessary for the function of the police and the provision of public safety. In response, policy makers continue to promote community-oriented policing (COP) and its emphasis on positive, nonenforcement contact with the public as an effective strategy for enhancing public trust and police legitimacy. Prior research designs, however, have not leveraged the random assignment of police–public contact to identify the causal effect of such interactions on individual-level attitudes toward the police. Therefore, the question remains: Do positive, nonenforcement interactions with uniformed patrol officers actually cause meaningful improvements in attitudes toward the police? Here, we report on a randomized field experiment conducted in New Haven, CT, that sheds light on this question and identifies the individual-level consequences of positive, nonenforcement contact between police and the public. Findings indicate that a single instance of positive contact with a uniformed police officer can substantially improve public attitudes toward police, including legitimacy and willingness to cooperate. These effects persisted for up to 21 d and were not limited to individuals inclined to trust and cooperate with the police prior to the intervention. This study demonstrates that positive nonenforcement contact can improve public attitudes toward police and suggests that police departments would benefit from an increased focus on strategies that promote positive police–public interactions. 2021-10-27T20:23:45Z 2021-10-27T20:23:45Z 2019 2021-03-12T13:55:49Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135505 en 10.1073/PNAS.1910157116 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS |
| spellingShingle | Peyton, Kyle Sierra-Arévalo, Michael Rand, David G A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy |
| title | A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy |
| title_full | A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy |
| title_fullStr | A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy |
| title_full_unstemmed | A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy |
| title_short | A field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy |
| title_sort | field experiment on community policing and police legitimacy |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/135505 |
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