Objectives

Test the asymmetry thesis of police-citizen contact that police trustworthiness and legitimacy are affected more by negative than by positive experiences of interactions with legal agents by analyzing changes in attitudes towards the police after an encounter with the police. Test whether prior attitudes moderate the impact of contact on changes in attitudes towards the police.

Methods

A two-wave panel survey of a nationally representative sample of Australian adults measured people’s beliefs about police trustworthiness (procedural fairness and effectiveness), their duty to obey the police, their contact with the police between the two waves, and their evaluation of those encounters in terms of process and outcome. Analysis is carried out using autoregressive structural equation modeling and latent moderated structural models.

Results

The association between both process and outcome evaluation of police-citizen encounters and changes in attitudes towards the police is asymmetrical for trust in police effectiveness, symmetrical for trust in procedural fairness, and asymmetrical (in the opposite direction expected) for duty to obey the police. Little evidence of heterogeneity in the association between encounters and trust in procedural fairness and duty to obey, but prior levels of perceived effectiveness moderate the association between outcome evaluation and changes in trust in police effectiveness.

Conclusions

The association between police-citizen encounters and attitudes towards the police may not be as asymmetrical as previously thought, particularly for changes in trust in procedural fairness and legitimacy. Policy implications include considering public-police interactions as ‘teachable moments’ and potential sources for enhancing police trustworthiness and legitimacy.

中文翻译：

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可信度和合法性是“难取易失”吗？警民接触不对称命题的纵向检验

目标

通过分析与警察相遇后对警察的态度变化，检验警察与公民接触的不对称论点，即警察的可信度和合法性受与法律代理人互动的消极体验而非积极体验的影响更大。测试先前的态度是否会缓和接触对警察态度变化的影响。

方法

对澳大利亚成年人的全国代表性样本进行的两波小组调查衡量了人们对警察可信赖性（程序公平性和有效性）的信念、他们服从警察的义务、他们在两次波次之间与警察的接触以及他们对这些遭遇的评估从过程和结果来看。使用自回归结构方程模型和潜在的缓和结构模型进行分析。

结果

The association between both process and outcome evaluation of police-citizen encounters and changes in attitudes towards the police is asymmetrical for trust in police effectiveness, symmetrical for trust in procedural fairness, and asymmetrical (in the opposite direction expected) for duty to obey the police. Little evidence of heterogeneity in the association between encounters and trust in procedural fairness and duty to obey, but prior levels of perceived effectiveness moderate the association between outcome evaluation and changes in trust in police effectiveness.

Conclusions

警察与公民的遭遇和对警察的态度之间的关联可能不像以前想象的那么不对称，特别是对于程序公平和合法性信任的变化。政策含义包括将公共警察互动视为“可教的时刻”和增强警察可信度和合法性的潜在来源。