Police-Community Relations

该项目将在代表警官与公民之间复杂的日常接触的一系列环境中审查公众对警察虐待和公正惩罚的看法。两个目标描述了这项研究：（1）建立经验的维度，定义警察滥用权力，并在此之后，公正的惩罚虐待行为在公众眼中;和（2）解释在何种情况下结构（即，社会地位），经验（即，以前在警察和刑事司法系统的经验），或态度（即，社会政治价值观）因素有助于理解公民对警察虐待和公正处罚的判断。这些主题将通过对纽约市1100名受访者进行随机抽样的电话调查获得的数据进行审查。抽样框架旨在确保在统计上可靠的比较，在城市的种族群体，包括白人，非洲裔美国人，西班牙裔和亚洲人。此外，通过使用小插图，调查工具将从经验上解释受访者是否以及在多大程度上对警察滥用权力的界限、严重性和界限以及随后的公正惩罚有共同的规范性理解。在研究公众对警察做法的看法以及警务研究的基础上，对警察滥用权力和公正处罚的规范结构进行研究，将大大有助于理解警察在公众眼中的合法性。

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.