Police-Community Relations

这个项目将在警察和公民之间复杂的日常接触的一系列背景下，审查公众对警察虐待和公正惩罚的看法。有两个目标描述了这项研究：(1)从经验上确定界定警察滥用职权的维度，以及随后在公众眼中对虐待行为的公正惩罚；(2)解释在哪些情况下，结构性因素(即社会地位)、经验因素(即先前对警察和刑事司法系统的经验)或态度因素(即社会政治价值观)有助于理解公民对警察滥用职权和公正惩罚的判断。这些话题将用从纽约市随机抽样的1100名受访者进行的电话调查获得的数据进行审查。抽样框架旨在确保伦敦金融城各种族之间进行统计上的可靠比较，包括白人、非裔美国人、西班牙裔和亚裔。此外，通过使用小插曲，调查工具将实证地解释受访者是否以及在多大程度上对警察虐待行为的界限、严重性和门槛以及随后的公正惩罚有共同的、规范的理解。在研究公众对警察行为的认知以及对警务的研究的基础上，对警察滥用和公正惩罚的规范结构的研究将对理解公众眼中的警察的合法性做出重大贡献。

This project will examine the public's view of police abuse and just punishment in the context of the range of settings that typify complex day-to-day encounters between officers and citizens. Two goals describe this research: (1) to establish empirically the dimensions that define police abuse of authority and, following this, just punishment for abusive behavior in the eyes of the public; and (2) to explain under which circumstances structural (i.e., social status), experiential (i.e., prior experience with the police and the criminal justice system), or attitudinal (i.e., socio-political values) factors contribute to an understanding of citizens' judgments of police abuse and just punishment. These topics will be examined with data obtained from a telephone survey undertaken with a random sample of 1100 respondents in the City of New York. The sampling frame is designed to insure statistically reliable comparisons across ethnic groups in the City, including whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. Also, by using vignettes, the survey instrument will explain empirically whether and to what extent respondents share a common, normative understanding of the boundaries, the seriousness and the thresholds of police abuse and, following this, just punishment. Building on studies of the public's perception of police practices as well as studies of policing, this study of the normative structure of police abuse and just punishment will make a significant contribution to an understanding of the legitimacy of the police in the eyes of the public.