| सारांश: | <p>In this thesis, I examine the challenges that police encounter in building public trust. An action research design utilises community engagement in two U.S. communities to discern the values and behaviours that generate trust in the police and to explore how those values may be integrated into policing policies and processes. While there is general agreement that compliance emanates from the practice of the principles of procedural justice which are interrelated with trust, normative alignment, and legitimacy, it has proven to be to more difficult to test, translate, and embed these ideas in police organisations. With these factors in mind, I tested a process to increase trust and normative alignment between the community and police and to answer the primary question: <em>How can police trust and legitimacy be increased?</em> I conducted four phases of qualitative research and document analysis to determine which values community members desire in police officers, how police organisations can align their values with the community’s values, how to select police officers who possess the community’s values, and how police organisations can reinforce the community’s values in their officers.</p>
<p>I used focus groups, interviews, and document retrieval to gather the data and used content analysis, word coding, crosstabulation, curriculum mapping, and gap analysis to analyse the data. The results show that trust from community members can be increased if police officers are first characterised by Cultural Competence, Servant Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, and High Character and then trained in the legal and technical skills necessary for the fulfilment of their policing duties. In other words, hire for character and train for competence. I also discuss definitions of a ‘good police officer’, compliance, procedural justice, trust, normative alignment, legitimacy, organisational considerations, and police officer selection.</p>
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