Date of Award

Spring 2005

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Sociology & Criminal Justice

Program/Concentration

Applied Sociology

Committee Director

Randy Gainey

Committee Member

Leon Bouvier

Committee Member

Nonso Okereafoezeke

Call Number for Print

Special Collections LD4331.S62 B375 2005

Abstract

The purpose of this research project is to examine three competing models of citizen satisfaction with the police: 1) citizen characteristics, 2) citizen experience with the police, and 3) citizen quality of life issues. Data were taken from Criminal Victimization and Perceptions of Community Safety in 12 Cities, 1998. The relationship between citizen satisfaction and the three models were tested by examining different types of contact between police and citizens, race, age, gender, and quality of life, which was measured by satisfaction with neighborhood and satisfaction with city. In addition, an item labeled disorder, which takes into consideration acts of social incivilities in the neighborhood helped to measure quality of life.

At the bivariate level, type of contact was significant for three specific contacts, which were: having a casual conversation with the police, reporting a crime to the police and involvement in a community activity with the police. There was no significant relationship between gender and satisfaction with the police, which is inconsistent with previous studies that have examined satisfaction with police and gender.

Logistic Regression was conducted for contact, citizens' characteristics and quality of life. The quality of life item demonstrated the most explanatory power. There was approximately 21 percent of variation in satisfaction with the police when using quality of life as a predictor.

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DOI

10.25777/8smf-yk65

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