From a multilevel perspective, the present study explores theoretical explanations for the causes of variations in neighborhoods’ trust in the police. The study is designed to answer these questions: Why do some neighborhoods trust the police more than other neighborhoods? What makes a person living in a specific neighborhood to have more or less trust in the police, controlling for the person’s personal views? To address these questions, the study analyzed survey responses from 1,024 residents selected from 25 communities across 5 regions in Ghana. Results revealed significant neighborhood variations in trust in the police in Ghana. Furthermore, a hierarchical linear modeling analysis revealed that the variations among the neighborhoods could be explained by their levels of disorder, income, and education. Findings from this study have both theoretical and practical implications and provide important insights for the police to improve upon their trustworthiness.
AckermanG.AndersonB.JensenS.LudwigR.MonteroD.PlanteN.YanezV. (2001). Crime rates and confidence in the police: America’s changing attitudes toward crime and police, 1972-1999. Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, 28, 43–54.
2.
AlpertG. P.MacDonaldJ. M. (2001). Police use of force: An analysis of organizational characteristics. Justice Quarterly, 18, 393–409.
3.
AmuzuA. T.LeitmannJ. (1991). Urban management and environment: Environmental profile of Accra: Case study. Accra, Ghana: UNDP.
4.
Appiahene-GyamfiJ. (2002). An analysis of the broad crime trends in Ghana. Journal of Criminal Justice, 30, 229–243.
5.
Appiahene-GyamfiJ. (2003). Urban crime trends and patterns in Ghana: The case of Accra. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31, 13–23.
6.
AsiamaS. O. (1984). The land factor in housing for low income urban settlers: The example of Madina, Ghana. Third World Planning Review, 6, 171–184.
7.
BattagliaM. P.LinkM. W.FrankelM. R.OsbornL.MokdadA. H. (2008). An evaluation of respondent selection methods for household mail surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly, 72, 459–469.
8.
BlockR. L. (1970). Support for civil liberties and support for the police. American Behavioral Scientist, 13, 781–796.
9.
BlumsteinA.WallmanJ. (2000). The crime drop in America. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
10.
BoatengF. D. (2012). Public trust in the police: Identifying factors that shape trust in the Ghanaian Police(IPES Working Paper Series, No. 42). Retrieved fromwww.ipes.info/WPS/WPS_No_42.pdf
11.
BoatengF. D.LeeH. D.AbessG. (2016, Forthcoming,). Analyzing citizens’ reported levels of confidence in the police: A cross-national study of public attitudes toward the police in the United States and South Korea. Asian Journal of Criminology, DOI: 10.1007/s11417-016-9231-8.
12.
BrowneW. J.DraperD. (2000). Implementation and performance issues in the Bayesian fitting of multilevel models. Computational Statistics, 15, 391–420.
13.
CaoL.FrankJ.CullenF.T. (1996). Race, community context and confidence in police. American Journal of Police, 15, 3–22.
14.
CaoL.StackS.SunY. (1998). Public confidence in the police: A comparative study between Japan and America. Journal of Criminal Justice, 26, 279–289.
15.
ChamblissW.SeidmanR. (1971). Law, order, and power. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
16.
ClementeF.KleimanM. B. (1976). Fear of crime in the United States: A multivariate analysis. Social Forces, 56, 519–31.
17.
CorreiaM.ReisigM.LovrichN. (1996). Public perceptions of state police: An analysis of individual-level and contextual variables. Journal of Criminal Justice, 24, 17–28.
18.
CovingtonJ.TaylorR. B. (1991). Fear of crime in urban residential neighborhoods: Implications of between-and-within-neighborhood sources for current models. Sociological Quarterly, 32, 231–249.
19.
DasD. (1983). Conflict views on policing: An evaluation. American Journal of Police, 3, 51–81.
20.
DowlerK. (2002). Media influence on citizens attitudes toward police effectiveness. Policing & Society, 12, 227–238.
21.
DowlerK.SparksR. (2008). Victimization, contact with police and neighborhood conditions: Reconsidering African American and Hispanic attitudes toward the police. Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, 9, 1–20.
22.
DowlerK.ZawilskiV. (2007). Public perceptions of police misconduct and discrimination: Examining the impact of media consumption. Journal of Criminal Justice, 35, 197–203.
23.
DubowF.McCabeE.KaplanG. (1979). Reactions to crime: A critical review of the literature. Washington, DC: National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, U.S. Government Printing Office.
24.
EschholzS.BlackwellB. SGertzM.ChiricosT. (2002). Race and attitudes toward the police: Assessing the effects of watching ‘‘reality’’ police programs. Journal of Criminal Justice, 30, 328–341.
25.
FerraroK. F.LaGrangeR. (1987). The measurement of fear of crime. Sociological Inquiry, 57, 70–101.
26.
GabbidonS. L.JordanK. L. (2013). Public opinion on the killing of Trayvon Martin: A test of the racial gradient thesis. Journal of Crime and Justice, 36, 283–298.
27.
GauJ. M.CorsaroN.StewartE. A.BrunsonR. K. (2012). Examining macro-level impacts on procedural justice and police legitimacy. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40, 333–343.
28.
GazianoC. (2005). Comparative analysis of within-household respondent selection techniques. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69, 124–157.
29.
HaleC. (1996). Fear of crime: A review of the literature. International Review of Victimology, 4, 79–150.
30.
HailandW. A. (2003). Anthropology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
31.
HenniganK.MaxsonC.SloaneD.RanneyM. (2002). Community views on crime and policing: Survey mode effects on bias in community surveys. Justice Quarterly, 19, 565–587.
32.
HindsL. (2007). Building police-youth relationships: The importance of procedural justice. Youth Justice, 7, 195–209.
33.
HindsL.MurphyK. (2007). Public satisfaction with police: Using procedural justice to improve police legitimacy. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 40, 27–42.
34.
HuangW.VaughnM. (1996). Support and confidence: Public attitudes toward the police. In FlanaganT.LongmireD. (Eds.), American view crime and justice: A national public opinion survey (pp. 31–45). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
35.
HurstY. G.FrankJ. (2000). How kids view cops: The nature of juvenile attitudes toward the police. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28, 189–202.
36.
JesilowP.MeyerJ. A.NamazziN. (1995). Public attitudes towards the police. American Journal of Police, 14, 67–88.
37.
KaariainenJ. (2008). Why do the Finns trust the police?Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, 9, 141–159.
38.
KaneR. J. (2002). The social ecology of police misconduct. Criminology, 40, 867–896.
39.
KauttP. (2011). Public confidence in the British police: Negotiating the signals from Anglo-American research. International Criminal Justice Review, 21, 353–382.
40.
MacdonaldJ.StokesJ. R. (2006). Race, social capital, and trust in the police. Urban Affairs Review, 41, 358–375.
41.
MaxsonC.HenniganK.SloaneD. C. (2003). Factors that influence public opinion of the police. Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.
42.
MazerolleL.BennettS.AntrobusE.EgginsE. (2012). Procedural justice, routine encounters and citizen perceptions of police: Main findings from the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET). Journal of Experimental Criminology, 8, 343–367. doi:10.1007/s11292-012-9160-1
43.
MazerolleL.BennettS.DavisJ.SargeantE.ManningM. (2013). Procedural justice and police legitimacy: A systematic review of the research evidence. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 9, 245–274. doi:10.1007/s11292-013-9175-2
44.
MazerolleL.AntrobusE.BennettS.TylerT. (2013). Shaping citizen perceptions of police legitimacy: A randomized field trail of procedural justice. Criminology, 51, 33–63.
45.
MurphyK. (2009). Public satisfaction with police: The importance of procedural justice and police performance in police-citizen encounters. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 42, 159–178.
46.
MurphyD. W.WorrallJ. L. (1999). Residency requirements and public perceptions of the police in large municipalities. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 22, 327–342.
47.
OldendickR. W.BishopF. G.SorensonB. S.TuchfarberJ. A. (1988). A comparison of the Kish and last birthday methods of respondent selection in telephone surveys. Journal of Official Statistics, 4, 307–318.
48.
ParkerK. D.OnyekwulujeA. B.MurtyK. S. (1995). African Americans’ attitudes toward the local police: A multivariate analysis. Journal of Black Studies, 25, 396–409.
49.
PriestT. B.CarterD. B. (1999). Evaluations of police performance in an African American sample. Journal of Criminal Justice, 27, 457–465.
50.
ReisigM.GiacomazziL. A. (1998). Citizen perceptions of community. Policing: Are attitudes toward police important?Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management, 21, 547–561.
51.
ReisigM. D.ParksR. B. (2000). Experience, quality of life and neighborhood context: A hierarchical analysis of satisfaction with police. Justice Quarterly, 17, 607–630.
52.
ReisigM. D.LloydC. (2009). Procedural justice, police legitimacy, and helping the police fight crime: Results from a survey of Jamaican adolescents. Police Quarterly, 12, 42–62.
53.
RenL.CaoL.LovrichN.GaffneyM. (2005). Linking confidence in police with the performance of the police: Community policing can make a difference. Journal of Criminal Justice, 33, 55–66.
54.
ReynoldsK. M.SemukhinaO. B.DemidovN. N. (2008). A longitudinal analysis of public satisfaction with the police in the Volgograd region of Russia 1998-2005. International Criminal Justice Review, 18, 158–189.
55.
SampsonR. J.RaudenbushS. W.EarlsF. (1997). Neighborhood and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918–924.
56.
SampsonR. J.Jeglum-BartuschD. (1998). Legal cynicism and (sub cultural) tolerance of deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law & Society Review, 32, 777–803.
57.
SchaferJ. A.HuebnerM. B.BynumS. T. (2003). Citizen perceptions of police services: Race, neighborhood context, and community policing. Police Quarterly, 6, 440–468.
58.
SimsB.HooperM.PetersonS. (2002). Determinants of citizens’ attitudes toward police—Results of the Harrisburg Citizen survey—1999. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 25, 457–471.
59.
SkoganW. G. (1990). Disorder and incline: Crime and the spiral of decay in American neighborhoods. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
60.
SprottJ. B.DoobA. N. (2009). The effect of urban neighborhood disorder on evaluations of the police and courts. Crime and Delinquency, 55, 339–362.
61.
SunshineJ.TylerR. T. (2003). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law & Society Review, 37, 513–548.
62.
TankebeJ. (2009). Public cooperation with the police in Ghana: Does procedural fairness matter?Criminology, 47, 1265–1293.
63.
TylerR. T. (2011). Trust and legitimacy: Policing in the USA and Europe. European Journal of Criminology, 8, 254–266.
64.
TylerT. R.WakslakC. J. (2004). Profiling and police legitimacy: Procedural justice, attributions of motive, and acceptance of police authority. Criminology, 42, 253–281.
65.
WeitzerR.TuchS. A. (1999). Race, class, and perceptions of discrimination by the police. Crime and Delinquency, 45, 494–507.
66.
WeitzerR.TuchS. A. (2002). Perceptions of racial profiling: Race, class, and personal experience. Criminology, 40, 435–456.
67.
WeitzerR.TuchS. A. (2005). Determinants of public satisfaction with the police. Police Quarterly, 8, 279–297.
68.
WeitzerR. W.TuchS. A. (2006). Race and policing in America: Conflict and reform. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
69.
WilsonJ. Q.KellingG. E. (1982). Broken windows: The police and neighborhood safety. Atlantic Monthly, 249, 29–38.
70.
WuY.SunI. Y.TriplettR. A. (2009). Race, class, or neighborhood context: Which matters more in measuring satisfaction with police?Justice Quarterly, 26, 125–156.
71.
ZevitzR.RettammelR. (1990). Elderly attitudes about police service. American Journal of Police, 9, 25–39.
72.
ZhaoS.ScheiderM.ThurmanQ. (2002). The effect of police presence on public fear reduction and satisfaction: A review of the literature. The Justice Professional, 15, 273–299.
