Work in Progress
Concern About Crime and Confidence in the Police: Reassurance or
Accountability?
      This paper examines the relationship between confidence in the police and concern
about crime. A large body of research on opinions about police treats confidence in the
police as a dependent variable that is influenced by assessments of neighborhood
conditions. These studies argue that people hold police accountable for local crime,
disorder and fear. Another large body of literature on public perceptions of crime treats
concern about crime as a dependent variable that is explained in part by the extent of
confidence in the police. This research stresses the reassurance effects of policing. Both
views cannot be correct, for they assume a different causal ordering among these two
correlated factors. This paper addresses this theoretical ambiguity, using panel data and
structural modeling to identify the proper causal ordering of concern about crime and
confidence in police. The findings support  the reassurance model:  reductions in concern
about crime flow from increasing confidence in the police, while the accountability link from
concern about crime to confidence in the police was not statistically significant.