Police-Community Relations

该项目将在一系列典型的警察与公民之间复杂的日常接触的背景下，研究公众对警察滥用权力和公正惩罚的看法。本研究的两个目标是：(1)从经验上建立界定警察滥用权力的维度，并在此之后，在公众眼中对滥用行为的惩罚；(2)解释在何种情况下，结构（即社会地位）、经验（即与警察和刑事司法系统的先前经验）或态度（即社会政治价值观）因素有助于理解公民对警察滥用和公正惩罚的判断。这些主题将通过在纽约市随机抽取1100名回答者的电话调查获得的数据进行审查。抽样框架的设计是为了确保统计上可靠的跨城市种族群体的比较，包括白人、非洲裔美国人、西班牙裔美国人和亚洲人。此外，通过使用小插曲，调查工具将凭经验解释受访者是否以及在多大程度上对警察滥用的边界，严重性和阈值有共同的，规范的理解，并在此之后，只是惩罚。在公众对警察行为的看法以及警务研究的基础上，这项关于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.