How Citizens Meet the State: Police Contact,Trust,and Civic Engagement

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between the police, the most visible street-level bureaucrat of local city governments, and citizen political attitudes and behaviors toward local city institutions. We introduce a holistic conceptualization of police-citizen contact and examine how each type impacts citizen trust toward and participation in political institutions. Leveraging an original survey targeting the city of South Bend and spatial data from the city government, results demonstrate that greater day-to-day contact with police has a positive impact on trust in state agencies while citizens who seek service from the police but are left unsatisfied result in lower trust in state apparatus. Most importantly, indirect exposure to police coercion has a negative impact on trust while direct and proximal contact with police predicts higher level of civic activism. This study demonstrates the fragility and challenge of building trust in police-citizen relationships, and how extreme encounters with the police can, in the right circumstances, spur citizen activism.

Keywords

policing local governance survey research trust GIS

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ang

2021. “The Effects of Police Violence on Inner-City Students*.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 136(1): 115–68. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaa027.

Ang

Bencsik

Bruhn

Derenoncourt

. (2021) Police Violence Reduces Civilian Cooperation and Engagement with Law Enforcement. DOI:10.2139/ssrn.3920493. https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3920493.

Anoll

A.P.

Epp

D.A.

Israel-Trummel

. 2022. “Contact and Context: How Municipal Traffic Stops Shape Citizen Character.” The Journal of Politics 84(4): 2272–7. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/719274. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/719274. Publisher: The University of Chicago Press.

Associated Press. 2021. Suit dismissed in South Bend officer’s shooting of Black man. AP NEWS https://apnews.com/article/police-shootings-lawsuits-indiana-campaigns-8570a3791aca9ee1f898c852f390d3be.

Barker

. 2014. “Communicating Security? Policing Urban Spaces and Control Signals.” Urban Studies 51(14): 3046–61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098013512871. Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Baumgartner

F.R.

Epp

D.A.

Shoub

. 2018. Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-42931-3. DOI:10.1017/9781108553599. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/suspect-citizens/A399F1EEA04CFCFC18D750AC0095AD96.

Bell

M.C.

2016. “Situational Trust: How Disadvantaged Mothers Reconceive Legal Cynicism.” Law & Society Review 50(2): 314–47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12200.

Bell

M.C.

2017. “Police Reform and the Dismantling of Legal Estrangement.” The Yale Law Journal 126(7): 2054–150. https://www.jstor.org/stable/45222555. Publisher: The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc.

Ben-Menachem

Morris

K.T.

. 2022. “Ticketing and Turnout: The Participatory Consequences of Low-Level Police Contact.” American Political Science Review 0(0): 1–13. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055422001265. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/ticketing-and-turnout-the-participatory-consequences-of-lowlevel-police-contact/184A410DFF3DC72F4B9667C8CA3E0730. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.

10.

Bittner

. 1970. Functions of the Police in Modern Society. Chevy Chase, MD: National Institute of Mental Health. https://proxy.library.nd.edu/login?url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.beal/fcpmsy0001&collection=agopinions.

11.

Blair

R.A.

Karim

S.M.

Morse

B.S.

. 2019. “Establishing the Rule of Law in Weak and War-torn States: Evidence From a Field Experiment with the Liberian National Police.” American Political Science Review 113(3): 641–57. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000121. http://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/establishing-the-rule-of-law-in-weak-and-wartorn-states-evidence-from-a-field-experiment-with-the-liberian-national-police/ECC84887F848EBABA2185D020A85DC9E. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.

12.

Boas

T.C.

Christenson

D.P.

Glick

D.M.

. 2020. “Recruiting Large Online Samples in the United States and India: Facebook, Mechanical Turk, and Qualtrics.” Political Science Research and Methods 8(2): 232–50. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2018.28. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/political-science-research-and-methods/article/recruiting-large-online-samples-in-the-united-states-and-india-facebook-mechanical-turk-and-qualtrics/C80073966548D0E94161B84504ACE001. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.

13.

Bolger

M.A.

Lytle

D.J.

Bolger

P.C.

. 2021. “What Matters in Citizen Satisfaction with Police: A Meta-analysis.” Journal of Criminal Justice 72: 101760. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2020.101760. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235220302543.

14.

Bradford

. 2014. “Policing and Social Identity: Procedural Justice, Inclusion and Cooperation Between Police and Public.” Policing and Society 24(1): 22–43. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2012.724068. Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2012.724068.

15.

Brantingham

P.J.

Uchida

C.D.

. 2021. “Public Cooperation and the Police: Do Calls-for-service Increase After Homicides?” Journal of Criminal Justice 73: 101785. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2021.101785. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235221000052.

16.

Brayne

. 2014. “Surveillance and System Avoidance: Criminal Justice Contact and Institutional Attachment.” American Sociological Review 79(3): 367–91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122414530398. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

17.

Burch

T.R.

2014. “Effects of Imprisonment and Community Supervision on Neighborhood Political Participation in North Carolina.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 651(1): 184–201. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213503093. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

18.

Burgason

K.A.

2017. “Trust is Hard to Come by: Disentangling the Influence of Structural Characteristics and Race on Perceptions of Trust in the Police in a Major Southern County.” Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice 15(4): 349–71. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15377938.2017.1385558. Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/15377938.2017.1385558.

19.

Cao

. 2015. “Differentiating Confidence in the Police, Trust in the Police, and Satisfaction with the Police.” Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 38(2): 239–49. https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/polic38&i=238.

20.

Christiani

Shoub

. 2022. “Can Light Contact with the Police Motivate Political Participation? Evidence From Traffic Stops.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 7(3): 385–405. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2022.18. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-race-ethnicity-and-politics/article/can-light-contact-with-the-police-motivate-political-participation-evidence-from-traffic-stops/0543581B164234EAFC3DA1C8CAAA34BC. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.

21.

Cihan

Zhang

Hoover

. 2012. “Police Response Time to In-Progress Burglary: A Multilevel Analysis.” Police Quarterly 15(3): 308–27. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611112447753. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

22.

Cohen

Gunderson

Jackson

Zachary

Clark

T.S.

Glynn

A.N.

Owens

M.L.

. 2019. “Do Officer-Involved Shootings Reduce Citizen Contact with Government?” The Journal of Politics 81(3): 1111–23. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/703539. http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/703539. Publisher: The University of Chicago Press.

23.

Collins

C.R.

Stuart

Janulis

. 2022. “Policing Gentrification Or Policing Displacement? Testing the Relationship Between Order Maintenance Policing and Neighbourhood Change in Los Angeles.” Urban Studies 59(2): 414–33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098021993354. Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd.

24.

Cordner

. 2014. “Community Policing.” In: The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing. edited by Reisig

M.D.

Kane

R.J.

. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-984388-6, p. 0. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199843886.013.012.

25.

Dai

Jiang

. 2016. “A Comparative Study of Satisfaction with the Police in the United States and Australia.” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 49(1): 30–52. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0004865814545684. Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd.

26.

Davies

Burnett

. 2019. Buttigieg goes home to South Bend after man killed by police. https://apnews.com/article/a127b524a1374ad5aa4ecbbc251cc488.

27.

DeBell

Krosnick

J.A.

. 2009. “Computing Weights for American National Election Study Survey Data.” American National Election Studies. ANES Technical Report Series, No. nes012427.

28.

Desmond

Papachristos

A.V.

Kirk

D.S.

. 2016. “Police Violence and Citizen Crime Reporting in the Black Community.” American Sociological Review 81(5): 857–76. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122416663494. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

29.

Epp

C.R.

Maynard-Moody

Haider-Markel

D.P.

(2014) Pulled over: how police stops define race and citizenship. Chicago series in law and society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-11385-2. http://books.google.com/books?vid=isbn9780226113852. OCLC: 849641592.

30.

Gerber

A.S.

Huber

G.A.

Meredith

Biggers

D.R.

Hendry

D.J.

. 2017. “Does Incarceration Reduce Voting? Evidence About the Political Consequences of Spending Time in Prison.” The Journal of Politics 79(4): 1130–46. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/692670. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/692670. Publisher: The University of Chicago Press.

31.

Goldstein

Sances

M.W.

You

H.Y.

. 2020. “Exploitative Revenues, Law Enforcement, and the Quality of Government Service.” Urban Affairs Review 56(1): 5–31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087418791775. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

32.

González

Y.M.

2017. ““What Citizens Can See of the State”: Police and the Construction of Democratic Citizenship in Latin America.” Theoretical Criminology 21(4): 494–511. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480617724826. Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd.

33.

Gottlieb

Kosec

. 2019. “The Countervailing Effects of Competition on Public Goods Provision: When Bargaining Inefficiencies Lead to Bad Outcomes.” American Political Science Review 113(1): 88–107. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055418000667. http://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/countervailing-effects-of-competition-on-public-goods-provision-when-bargaining-inefficiencies-lead-to-bad-outcomes/727C15A5BD372A2173596177A12C9D68. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.

34.

Huckfeldt

Sprague

. 1987. “Networks in Context: The Social Flow of Political Information.” The American Political Science Review 81(4): 1197–216. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1962585. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1962585. Publisher: [American Political Science Association, Cambridge University Press].

35.

Justice

Meares

T.L.

. 2014. “How the Criminal Justice System Educates Citizens.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 651(1): 159–77. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213502929. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

36.

Karim

. 2020. “Relational State Building in Areas of Limited Statehood: Experimental Evidence on the Attitudes of the Police.” American Political Science Review 114(2): 536–51. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000716. http://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/relational-state-building-in-areas-of-limited-statehood-experimental-evidence-on-the-attitudes-of-the-police/12D6C2437F5859C7EF55277A683421F5. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.

37.

Kramer

Remster

. 2018. “Stop, Frisk, and Assault? Racial Disparities in Police Use of Force During Investigatory Stops.” Law & Society Review 52(4): 960. https://www.proquest.com/docview/2161043175/abstract/6F0807D515254C4DPQ/1. Num Pages: 960 Place: Amherst, United States Publisher: Law and Society Association.

38.

Kumar

Stenberg

. 2022. “Why Political Scientists Should Study Smaller Cities.” Urban Affairs Review 59(6). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10780874221124610. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

39.

Kurwa

. 2015. “Deconcentration Without Integration: Examining the Social Outcomes of Housing Choice Voucher Movement in Los Angeles County.” City & Community 14(4): 364–91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12134. Publisher: SAGE Publications.

40.

Lake

D.A.

(2016) “Introduction.” In: The Statebuilder’s Dilemma, On the Limits of Foreign Intervention, 1 edition. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-5017-0446-8, pp. 1–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt20d88d7.4.

41.

Lee

Porter

L.C.

Comfort

. 2014. “Consequences of Family Member Incarceration: Impacts on Civic Participation and Perceptions of the Legitimacy and Fairness of Government.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 651(1): 44–73. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213502920. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

42.

Lerman

A.E.

Weaver

. 2014. “Staying out of Sight? Concentrated Policing and Local Political Action.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 651(1): 202–19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716213503085. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

43.

MacDonald

Stokes

R.J.

Ridgeway

Riley

K.J.

. 2007. “Race, Neighbourhood Context and Perceptions of Injustice by the Police in Cincinnati.” Urban Studies 44(13): 2567–85. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00420980701558400. Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd.

44.

MainStreet. 2011. America’s Dying Cities. Newsweek https://www.newsweek.com/americas-dying-cities-66873. Section: U.S.

45.

Mazurek

2021. “Federal judge dismisses lawsuit by family of Eric Logan, man killed by South Bend officer.” South Bend Tribune https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/2021/09/30/eric-logan-south-bend-police-shooting-federal-judge-civil-lawsuit/5936532001/.

46.

McNeeley

Grothoff

. 2016. “A Multilevel Examination of the Relationship Between Racial Tension and Attitudes Toward the Police.” American Journal of Criminal Justice 41(3): 383–401. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-015-9318-2.

47.

Meares

. 2017. “Policing and Procedural Justice: Shaping Citizens’ Identities to Increase Democratic Participation.” Northwestern University Law Review 111(6): 1525–36. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/nulr/vol111/iss6/8.

48.

Michener

. 2013. “Neighborhood Disorder and Local Participation: Examining the Political Relevance of “Broken Windows”.” Political Behavior 35(4): 777–806. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-012-9217-x.

49.

Migdal

J.S.

Kohli

Shue

. 1994. State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World. Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-17426-8. http://proxy.library.nd.edu/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174268.

50.

Morris

. 2021. “Neighborhoods and Felony Disenfranchisement: The Case of New York City.” Urban Affairs Review 57(5): 1203–25. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087420921522. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

51.

Morris

. 2021. “Welcome Home—Now Vote! Voting Rights Restoration and Postsupervision Participation.” Social Science Quarterly 102(1): 140–53. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12901. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ssqu.12901.

52.

Myhill

Bradford

. 2013. “Overcoming Cop Culture? Organizational Justice and Police Officers’ Attitudes Toward the Public.” Policing (Bradford, England) 36(2): 338–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/13639511311329732. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1354628785/abstract/4D0ED2A8901C400APQ/1. Num Pages: 338–356 Place: Bradford, United Kingdom Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

53.

Ofer

. 2016. “Getting It Right: Building Effective Civilian Review Boards to Oversee Police.” Seton Hall Law Review 46(4): 1033–53. https://scholarship.shu.edu/shlr/vol46/iss4/2.

54.

Paris

Sisk

T.D.

. 2008. The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations. London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-0-203-88483-6.

55.

Pettinicchio

. 2012. “Institutional Activism: Reconsidering the Insider/Outsider Dichotomy.” Sociology Compass 6(6): 499–510. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2012.00465.x.

56.

Prowse

Weaver

V.M.

Meares

T.L.

. 2020. “The State From Below: Distorted Responsiveness in Policed Communities.” Urban Affairs Review 56(5): 1423–71. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/1078087419844831. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

57.

Putnam

1993. “What Makes Democracy Work?” National Civic Review 82(2). https://go-gale-com.proxy.library.nd.edu/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T002&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&hitCount=1&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm&currentPosition=1&docId=GALE\%7CA14499789&docType=Article&sort=RELEVANCE&contentSegment=ZEAI-MOD1&prodId=EAIM&pageNum=1&contentSet=GALE\%7CA14499789&searchId=R2&userGroupName=nd_ref&inPS=true.

58.

Rocha Beardall

. 2022. “Police Legitimacy Regimes and the Suppression of Citizen Oversight in Response to Police Violence.” Criminology; an interdisciplinary journal 60(4): 740–65. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12321. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9125.12321.

59.

Rosenbaum

D.P.

Schuck

A.M.

Costello

S.K.

Hawkins

D.F.

Ring

M.K.

. 2005. “Attitudes Toward the Police: The Effects of Direct and Vicarious Experience.” Police Quarterly 8(3): 343–65. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611104271085. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

60.

Schneider

. 2022. “Public Criminology and Media Debates Over Policing.” Studies in Social Justice 16(1): 227–44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26522/ssj.v16i1.2694. https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/SSJ/article/view/2694. Number: 1.

61.

Silva

Esparza

Martinez-Ebers

Branton

. 2020. “Perceived Police Performance, Racial Experiences, and Trust in Local Government.” Politics, Groups, and Identities 0(0): 1–24.

62.

Skocpol

1985. “Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research.” In: Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-511-62828-3. http://proxy.library.nd.edu/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628283.

63.

Skogan

W.G.

2005. “Citizen Satisfaction with Police Encounters.” Police Quarterly 8(3): 298–321. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611104271086. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

64.

Skogan

W.G.

2006. “Asymmetry in the Impact of Encounters with Police.” Policing and Society 16(2): 99–126. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439460600662098. Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/10439460600662098.

65.

Smith

2023. “South Bend mayor names Charles King to lead office reviewing police misconduct complaints.” South Bend Tribune https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/local/2023/04/26/south-bend-mayor-names-director-of-police-misconduct-office/70153813007/.

66.

Soss

Weaver

. 2017. “Police Are Our Government: Politics, Political Science, and the Policing of Race–Class Subjugated Communities.” Annual Review of Political Science 20(1): 565–91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-060415-093825. http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-polisci-060415-093825. Publisher: Annual Reviews.

67.

South Bend Tribune. 2019. Timeline of events that escalated police tension in South Bend. South Bend Tribune https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/crime/2019/06/23/imeline-of-events-that-escalated-police-tension-in-south-bend/46370075/.

68.

Stuart

. 2016. “Becoming “Copwise”: Policing, Culture, and the Collateral Consequences of Street-Level Criminalization.” Law & Society Review 50(2): 279–313. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12201.

69.

Tyler

T.R.

Fagan

Geller

. 2014. “Street Stops and Police Legitimacy: Teachable Moments in Young Urban Men’s Legal Socialization.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 11(4): 751–85. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12055.

70.

Weaver

Prowse

Piston

. 2020. “Withdrawing and Drawing In: Political Discourse in Policed Communities.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics 5(3): 604–47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2019.50. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-race-ethnicity-and-politics/article/withdrawing-and-drawing-in-political-discourse-in-policed-communities/549AAD2D2B60269595166BD55409AB60. Publisher: Cambridge University Press.

71.

Zoorob

. 2020. “Do Police Brutality Stories Reduce 911 Calls? Reassessing An Important Criminological Finding.” American Sociological Review 85(1): 176–83. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419895254. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

72.

Zur

. 2023. “Policing Temporality: Police Officers Reflect on the Role of the Police in Gentrifying a High-Crime Neighborhood.” Urban Affairs Review 59(3): 866–91. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/10780874221096748. Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.13 MB