Asymmetry in the Impact of Encounters with Police

TLDR

Past research shows that personal and neighborhood factors influence police confidence, and studies suggest that how people recall treatment can asymmetrically affect confidence, with negative experiences disproportionately eroding trust while positive ones have little effect. The study examines how personal experiences, both positive and negative, shape public assessments of police quality. The authors test this using survey data on police‑initiated and citizen‑initiated contacts in Chicago, and replicate the analysis with surveys from seven other urban areas in three countries. Results show that a bad experience has four to fourteen times the impact of a positive one, and positive experiences are statistically insignificant, indicating that negative encounters severely undermine police support.

Abstract

This article examines the impact of personal experience on popular assessments of the quality of police service. Following past research, it addresses the influence of personal and neighbourhood factors on confidence in the police. It then focuses on the additional impact of positive and negative personal experiences with the police. Several studies of police encounters with the public have noted that the relationship between how people recall being treated and their general confidence in the police may be asymmetrical. At its worst, the police may get essentially no credit for delivering professional service, while bad experiences can deeply influence peoples’ views of their performance and even legitimacy. This proposition is tested using survey data on police-initiated and citizen-initiated contacts with police in Chicago. The findings indicate that the impact of having a bad experience is four to fourteen times as great as that of having a positive experience, and the coefficients associated with having a good experience—including being treated fairly and politely, and receiving service that was prompt and helpful—were not statistically different from zero. Another section of the article replicates this finding using surveys of residents of seven other urban areas located in three different countries. The article concludes that this is bad news indeed for police administrators intent on solidifying their support among voters, taxpayers and the consumers of police services.