Police Perspectives of Problem Solving in the Context of Audience Legitimacy

Abstract

Abstract This study examines the police officer’s contemporary views of dealing with minor order-maintenance problems. Their views of problem-solving go beyond situational, neighbourhood and individual variables. Officers might also consider ‘audience legitimacy’ when forming their opinion of problem-solving. A quasi-experimental vignette research design was used to gauge a police officer’s views of rudimentary order-maintenance activity. Police officers of various ranks, and from a range of different sized police agencies, responded to an online survey, resulting in an N of 473. The dependent variable asked respondents their level of agreement with the actions of an officer described in a vignette. Respondents disagreed with an officer’s decision to ignore an order-maintenance problem. The neighbourhood crime characteristics were not related to their judgements about the decisions of the vignette officer. The type of nuisance crime event described in the vignette was related to the respondent’s level of agreement, but only at the 0.10 level. The respondent’s audience legitimacy score was correlated with several officer characteristics, but the relationship disappeared in the regression analysis. The findings are discussed in relation to prior research, and suggestions are made for multidimensional policing research.