Attitudes Toward the Police in Communities Using Different Consolidation Models

Abstract

Faced with continuing fiscal constraints, a growing number of communities have sought to provide police services in nontraditional ways. While a considerable amount of previous research explores community opinion about the police, no previous work, to our knowledge, focuses on what residents think of these nontraditional models. We surveyed residents in four communities with alternative models of policing: a merged department, two agencies that contracts for services, and a regional agency. We asked residents about their confidence in the police. We found that the type of police model was an important predictor of police confidence, controlling for other traditional measures of attitudes toward the police. We conclude with suggestions for research both on opinion regarding the police generally and among these types of communities specifically.