Legitimacy and Public-Sector Quality: How Citizens Judge the Quality of the Police
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X0207500403 |
| Published date | 01 November 2002 |
| Date | 01 November 2002 |
| Author | M.S. De Vries |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DR M.S. DE VRIES
Institute for Social Safety Studies, University
of
Twente
LEGITIMACY AND PUBLIC-
SECTOR QUALITY: HOW CITIZENS
JUDGE THE QUALITY OF THE
POLICE
The legitimacy of the Dutch police is under strain. On the one
hand, citizens claim that safety has become one of the most
important problems in the Netherlands whilst, on the other
hand, they criticise government in general and the police in
particular for being unable to realise a safe society.
During the previous decade, several initiatives were devel-
oped in order to relegitirnise the actions of the police by
improving police performance, Community policing was intro-
duced in order to increase both the effectiveness and avail-
ability of the police.
This article theoretically and empirically explores the
criteria citizens use to judge the police. This article illustrates
the discrepancy between the wishes and demands of citizens
and the way in which public-sector organizations, such as the
police, try to satisfy citizens.
1 Introduction
The Netherlands are characterised by a general erosion of
authority. The acceptance of governmental institutions and
their functioning has become less obvious. The image of gov-
ernment has changed. In society there is a major emphasis on
self-interest; the solidarity in our society has disappeared.
The public interest is subordinate to self-interest.
This remark, which was made by a Dutch citizen who particip-
ated in a research on police authority in March 2002, illustrates a
general decline in the authority of governmental organisations.
During previous decades, major changes in the relationship
between government and citizens in the Netherlands have taken
place. Those developments can be characterised as follows:
citizens care less about government activities and they behave
like customers. They want to be served in accordance with their
demands and they disapprove of rules that restrict their personal
freedom. The demands for governmental action increase and
The Police Journal, Volume 75 (2002) 301
public-sector organisations promise to meet citizen demands.
However, owing to the complexity of societal issues such as
safety, public transport, health care and migration, the govern-
ment does not succeed fully in meeting the demands of citizens.
This results in both dissatisfied citizens who try to organise their
own position and a reduced role for government in dealing with
societal issues (De Vries &Van der Vijver, 2002: 3).
The relationship between the police and citizens has changed
as well. Public safety has become an important problem, maybe
the most important problem
of
the present time. Citizens are
dissatisfied because promises
of
increasing safety, improving the
quality
of
the police and increasing clearance rates are not being
kept. This results in a more negative attitude towards the police
as an organisation that is assumed to be responsible for safety in
our country.
During the previous years, many governmental organisations
in the Netherlands, including the police, have developed init-
iatives in order to improve the quality
oftheir
services. They try to
relegitimise their actions by improving their performance. In
order to improve the satisfaction
of
citizens and to decrease the
gap between governmental activities and citizen demands, satis-
faction surveys were carried out and projects were implemented
that are characterised by a small-scale individual approach and
that focus on citizen participation. Examples
of
such projects are:
the community platforms that are organised by several local gov-
ernments; the 'justice-in-the-neighbourhood offices' that are
established in problematic neighbourhoods in order to facilitate
cooperation between the public prosecution, the police and wel-
fare organisations; and the introduction
of
community policing.
The assumption behind these developments is that citizens are
more satisfied with governmental organisations that provide
tailor-made services meeting their wishes and expectations than
with organisations that function atalarger physical and mental
distance.
The goal
of
this article is to explore whether the current
governmental initiatives meet the expectations of citizens. Fur-
thermore, this article theoretically and empirically explores the
criteria citizens use to
judge
the quality
of
governmental organis-
ations in general and the police in particular, and it thus gives a
theoretical overview of the criteria that citizens use to judge
public-sector quality. This article contains the results of a case
study that focuses on the relationship between the police and
citizens in practice. During the first months
of
2002, asurvey was
carried out in the Netherlands in order to find out how citizens and
302 The Police Journal, Volume 75(2002)
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