Spanning the continents: assessing the Turkish public confidence in the police

Abstract

PurposeTo find out how much confidence the Turkish public have in the police, how that confidence is compared with other relevant countries in the world, and how to interpret the confidence in the police in Turkey.Design/methodology/approachData from national representative samples were analyzed to compare the levels of public confidence in the police between Turkey and the member states in the European Union, between Turkey and its neighboring countries, and between Turkey and several Muslim societies.FindingsThis paper found that public confidence in the Turkish police was quite high when compared to member states of the EU, neighboring countries, and with selected Muslim nations.Originality/valueThe findings fill an existing void in the criminological literature assessing the Turkish public's confidence in its police. The results should be interpreted in light of the following realities: that Turkey remains a nation with a collectivistic orientation, the possible undifferentiated concepts between the effectiveness of the police and confidence in the police, and the unidimensional measure that was employed to examine public confidence.