“Asymmetry in the Impact of Encounters with Police.” Police & Society, Vol. 6 (No. 2,
June), 99-126.
This article examines the impact of personal experience on popular assessments of the quality of police
service. Following past research, it addresses the influences of personal and neighborhood 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 public service.
June), 99-126.
This article examines the impact of personal experience on popular assessments of the quality of police
service. Following past research, it addresses the influences of personal and neighborhood 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 public service.
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Police-Public Encounters Abstracts