Building trust and legitimacy in police-community relations

Building Trust and Legitimacy in Law Enforcement

This research is aimed at showing how current tensions surrounding law enforcement and communities must be reduced if citizens are to view police with a sense of trust and legitimacy.

The salient points bring into play worthy information from peer-reviewed research illustrating that when law enforcement establishes trust, it legitimizes itself. Police departments don\'t automatically establish trust through their authority and by employing lawful strategies. There needs to be positive interaction between police and members of the community before trust and legitimacy can become the norm in any community, in particular communities of color.

Abbe, A., and Brandon, S.E. (2014). Building and maintaining rapport in investigative interviews. Police Practice and Research, 15(3), 207-220.

Police need to conduct interviews with witnesses and others in order to solve crime. When law enforcement develops rapport with those being interviewed, it not only increases the amount of information, \"it increases trust\" and it enhances cooperation (Abbe, et al., 2014).

Armaline, W.T., Vera Sanchez, C.G., and Correia, M. (2014). \'The biggest gang in Oakland\':

Re-thinking police legitimacy. Contemporary Justice Review, 17(3), 375-399.

Police legitimacy is not \"unquestionable and automatic\" in Oakland; police do not \"impartially enforce the law,\" as interviews show (Armaline, et al., 2014). \"We was [sitting] in the car; we was just sittin\' there . . . [To decide who to arrest] officers said, \'Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a nigga by his throat,\' and they locked up my friend\" (Armaline, 378).

Merry, S., Power, N., McManus, M., and Alison, L. (2011). Drivers of Public Trust and Confidence in Police in the UK. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 14(2), 118-135.

This article points out that policing requires the public to \" . . . willingly defer the management of rule-breaking behavior to the police\" (Merry, et al., 2011). However, if police fail to promote trust through actions, its legitimacy \"ceases to function,\" Merry asserts (119).

Ouziel, L.M. (2014). Legitimacy and Federal Criminal Enforcement Power. The Yale Law

Review. 123(7), 2236-2332.

There is a powerful need for \" . . . localized criminal justice,\" because when it comes to the federal criminal justice system, \"legitimacy\" is achieved only when citizens \"perceive both the laws and the authorities to be fair\" (Ouziel, 2014). To wit: many citizens to not perceive fairness.

Steinheider, B., Wuestewald, T., Boyatzis, R. E., and Kroutter, P. (2012). In search of a methodology of collaboration: understanding researcher-practitioner philosophical differences in policing. Police Practice and Research, 13(4), 357-374.

Because social scientists and police officers see themselves as \"worlds apart,\" that is a big problem (Steinheider, et al., 2012). Why? Because \"effective policing\" requires the \"integration of theory, knowledge, and practice\"; moreover, notwithstanding deep research on how police practices could better ensure trust, \"most of what police departments do has been known for a very long time not to work\" (Steinheider, 358).