Correlates of perceptions of police legitimacy: Do perceptions of neighborhood crime matter?
| Author | L. Sergio Garduno,Deborah G. Keeling |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14613557211014915 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Correlates of perceptions of police
legitimacy: Do perceptions of
neighborhood crime matter?
L. Sergio Garduno
Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Criminology, Troy University, USA
Deborah G. Keeling
Department of Criminal Justice, University of Louisville, USA
Abstract
Police legitimacy promotes trust and cooperation between members of the public and the police. Because the police
require cooperation from the public to prevent and solve crimes, having high levels of legitimacy is an important asset for
them. Researchers have explored policing strategies as well as individual and neighborhood characteristics that explain
levels of police legitimacy. However, no study has explored whether perceived neighborhood crimes affect perceptions of
police legitimacy. This study addresses this gap in the literature by analyzing the effect that perceiving four types of
neighborhood crime as a problem had on levels of police legitimacy among 1773 respondents from a city in the
Appalachians. Results obtained from a series of Ordinary Least Squares models indicate that perceptions of
neighborhood crime have no significant effect on police legitimacy once police performance is accounted for. Research
and policy implications are discussed.
Keywords
Police legitimacy, neighborhood crime, police performance, sense of safety, perceptions
Submitted 06 Jun 2020, Revise received 13 Jan 2021, accepted 22 Mar 2021
The police are a social government organization tasked
with the difficult job of preventing crime and protecting
the public from criminal offenders. Police organizations in
democratic societies serve the public and their work is
usually perceived as necessary and appreciated (Gau,
2010), but for some the police also represent the coercive
and repressive power of the State (Herbert, 2006). The
power and authority vested in the police allow them to
protect the public from crime and disorder by enforcing the
law, but the misuse and abuse of that power have made
some members of the public suspicious, even fearful, of
the police as an institution and of police officers in specific.
Police officers have wide discretionary powers to handle
the different situations they encounter every day (Goldstein,
1977).The manners in whichthey handle thosesituations with
the public andwithin their departments affectthe way people
perceive them. The public and the police should respect and
cooperate with each other (Voigt et al., 2017), but historic
(Cohen, 1996;Nodjimbadem, 2017) andrecent events where
the public have perceived the police acted unlawfully
(Hannah-Jones, 2018; McLaughlin, 2020; Wei tzer, 1999)
have affected the trustand image of police professionalism.
Cases of police abuse and brutality as a response to the
1960s’ civil rights movement unrest (Barkan, 1984;
Nodjimbadem, 2017; Siff, 2016), recent cases of alleged
or actual police abuse, especially against African Ameri-
cans (Brunson, 2007; Chaney and Robertson, 2013; Stewart
et al., 2009), and cases of police corruption (Albert, 2019;
Anderson, 2018; Chappell and Piquero, 2004; Garduno,
Corresponding author:
L. Sergio Garduno, Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Crimin-
ology. McCall Hall. Troy University, Troy, AL 36082, USA.
Email: lsgard01@louisville.edu
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
ªThe Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/14613557211014915
journals.sagepub.com/home/psm
2021, Vol. 23(3) 231–241
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