As the immigrant population continues to grow, law enforcement agencies face increasing demands to provide services and reach out to groups that are subject to victimization and reluctant to become involved with authorities. The current paper provides a quantitative look at how immigrants perceive the police, how they evaluate their experiences with police, and their willingness to engage in voluntary contacts with the police, relative to native-born Americans. Data come from a telephone survey with a community sample of residents of Seattle commissioned by the city officials to identify possible friction points in police-public interactions.
After controlling for ethnicity and other demographic factors, we found that immigrants rated the police more positively than native-born Americans on measures of police effectiveness, police misconduct, and satisfaction with both voluntary and involuntary contacts. However, we found that immigrants were far less likely than native-born Americans to contact the police for assistance. On measures from reporting crimes and other problem situations to participating in police anti-crime programs, immigrants were less likely to seek contact with the police.
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