How Confidence in Police and Involuntary Police Contact Affect Public Safety

Background and Purpose:Black and Latinx communities simultaneously experience the absence of police protection and over policing. Communities seek interventions that focus on increasing cooperation with law enforcement and improving perceptions of community policy. This study aims to explore the factors associated with perceptions of community policing and cooperation with law enforcement including confidence in police, perceptions of police fairness, and involuntary police contact. We also examine whether confidence in police attenuates the role of involuntary police contact on perceptions of and cooperation with law enforcement, and we assess whether associations differ for youth and adults. Expanding the conversation of police reform to confidence in their ability to conduct misconduct investigations may offer an additional pathway to improving police-community relations. Also, knowing whether experiences and perceptions of police differ by age could inform more tailored community-based approaches to policing.

Methods:Data come from a survey of community residents conducted as part of a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice, focusing on police perceptions. There were a total of 4,385 respondents, 1,696 adolescents and 2,689 adults. Self-identified racial/ethnic demographics consisted of 34.1% White, 8.2% non-Latinx Black, 34.1% Latinx, 2.1% Asian, and 4.0% other. The model’s latent constructs were involuntary police contact, an independent factor, and two dependent factors, public safety and community policing perceptions. Confidence in police, the focal predictor, was a single item: “I am confident that the Sheriff’s Department in the AV [Antelope Valley] fully investigates allegations of misconduct by its employees”. Fairness was the average of two items that asked residents to assess fair treatment by police for themselves and others based on social identities.

Results:Partial measurement invariance was achieved, suggesting that youth and adults perceive involuntary police contact and cooperation with police somewhat differently. The model fit statistics indicate a well-fitting model. A multigroup model approach was used to assess for differences by age and revealed several age differences in paths Confidence in police positively predicted cooperation with law enforcement (=.518, p < .001) as well as perceptions of community policing, although the latter effect was stronger for adults, =.566, p < .001 than for youth, =.503, p < .001. Perceptions of fairness in policing positively predicted cooperation with law enforcement, but again the effect was larger for adults, =.767, p < .001 than for youth, =.484, p < .001. Involuntary police contact was negatively associated with perceptions of community policing =-.050, p < .05and cooperation with law enforcement =-.119, p < .001, and these paths did not differ by age. Lastly, confidence in police is distinct from and positively correlated with perceptions of fairness (r = .088,p < .001 for youth and r = .155, p < .001 for adults. There was no evidence to support moderated effects.

Conclusion and Implications:The implication of the findings presented here is that, for both youth and adults, improving police-community relations should involve a conversation about misconduct investigations. Thus, for social workers who work in police precincts, improving police-community relations may involve communicating that the police takes seriously police accountability.