Reductions in police department funding have raised the importance of volunteers in enhancing organizational performance, improving community trust and confidence, and at times accomplishing basic tasks to maintain public safety and security. During a period when police administrators are asked to do more with less, and to engage in smarter, community-oriented policing, citizen volunteers are an invaluable resource. Police Reserves and Volunteers is an invaluable primer for those looking to understand the benefits and challenges involved in the use of the volunteers within global law enforcement agencies. Using cases from a range of specialists and precincts, this edited volume provides a rare window into police administration from the state legislation that regulates police reserves in California to the local models observed in many counties and cities across the United States. Police Reserves and Volunteers offers volunteers, local elected officials, and law enforcement straightforward guidelines to enhance police goals and build public trust in local communities.

Public opinion polls suggest that American's trust in the police and courts is declining. The same polls also reveal a disturbing racial divide, with minorities expressing greater levels of distrust than whites. Practices such as racial profiling, zero-tolerance and three-strikes laws, the use of excessive force, and harsh punishments for minor drug crimes all contribute to perceptions of injustice. In Trust in the Law, psychologists Tom R. Tyler and Yuen J. Huo present a compelling argument that effective law enforcement requires the active engagement and participation of the communities it serves, and argue for a cooperative approach to law enforcement that appeals to people's sense of fair play, even if the outcomes are not always those with which they agree. Based on a wide-ranging survey of citizens who had recent contact with the police or courts in Oakland and Los Angeles, Trust in the Law examines the sources of people's favorable and unfavorable reactions to their encounters with legal authorities. Tyler and Huo address the issue from a variety of angles: the psychology of decision acceptance, the importance of individual personal experiences, and the role of ethnic group identification. They find that people react primarily to whether or not they are treated with dignity and respect, and the degree to which they feel they have been treated fairly helps to shape their acceptance of the legal process. Their findings show significantly less willingness on the part of minority group members who feel they have been treated unfairly to trust the motives to subsequent legal decisions of law enforcement authorities. Since most people in the study generalize from their personal experiences with individual police officers and judges, Tyler and Huo suggest that gaining maximum cooperation and consent of the public depends upon fair and transparent decision-making and treatment on the part of law enforcement officers. Tyler and Huo conclude that the best way to encourage compliance with the law is for legal authorities to implement programs that foster a sense of personal involvement and responsibility. For example, community policing programs, in which the local population is actively engaged in monitoring its own neighborhood, have been shown to be an effective tool in improving police-community relationships. Cooperation between legal authorities and community members is a much discussed but often elusive goal. Trust in the Law shows that legal authorities can behave in ways that encourage the voluntary acceptance of their directives, while also building trust and confidence in the overall legitimacy of the police and courts. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

Just Authority? provides the most authoritative and comprehensive analysis thus far of the meaning, distribution and significance of trust in the police and the legitimacy of legal authorities. Drawing on psychological and sociological explanatory paradigms, Just Authority? presents a cutting-edge empirical study into public trust, police legitimacy, and people's readiness to cooperate with officers. It represents, first, the most detailed test to date of Tom Tyler's procedural justice model attempted outside the United States. Second, it uncovers the social ecology of trust and legitimacy and, third, it describes the relationships between trust, legitimacy and cooperation.This book contains many important lessons for practitioners, policy-makers and academics.

The treatment of victims and complainants by the police is examined in this pioneering new work. Case studies, based on interviews carried out at the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Criminal Justice Studies, in the United Kingdom, reveal that victims and complainants are routinely discredited by police agencies. Whilst in the United States, victims may include anyone subjected to police interrogation, particularly those of African-American origin, complainants across the globe may include victims of rape, bereaved families, and individual officers. The reason why certain victims and complainants are targeted by policing agencies is complex and leads to an investigation into police bias, covert practices, and one of the most common areas of policing: road death investigations. Consequently, other members of the criminal justice system, such as prosecutors, coroners, and hospital pathologists (medical examiners) are shown to often corroborate the police’s version of events compromising victims’ rights and the very nature of justice. Given recent miscarriages of justice and public relation campaigns on behalf of the police, Eccy de Jonge argues that never before has a greater openness on the inner workings of the police been needed to fully support the interests of those the criminal justice system is meant to serve.

The police can be seen as a governmental institution or as an organizational body, where especially the work - effectiveness, or fairness in encounters - is valued. Through the combination of these approaches and the inclusion of social trust and criminal victimization, Silvia Staubli offers an understanding beyond existing literature on institutional trust and procedural fairness. Moreover, due to analyses for Eastern and Western Europe, she addresses experts from sociology, political science, criminology, and social anthropology equally. Beyond, the study offers an insight to the public on how public opinions towards institutions are shaped.

Proactive policing, as a strategic approach used by police agencies to prevent crime, is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It developed from a crisis in confidence in policing that began to emerge in the 1960s because of social unrest, rising crime rates, and growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of standard approaches to policing. In response, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, innovative police practices and policies that took a more proactive approach began to develop. This report uses the term "proactive policing" to refer to all policing strategies that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred. Proactive policing is distinguished from the everyday decisions of police officers to be proactive in specific situations and instead refers to a strategic decision by police agencies to use proactive police responses in a programmatic way to reduce crime. Today, proactive policing strategies are used widely in the United States. They are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of ideas that have spread across the landscape of policing. Proactive Policing reviews the evidence and discusses the data and methodological gaps on: (1) the effects of different forms of proactive policing on crime; (2) whether they are applied in a discriminatory manner; (3) whether they are being used in a legal fashion; and (4) community reaction. This report offers a comprehensive evaluation of proactive policing that includes not only its crime prevention impacts but also its broader implications for justice and U.S. communities.

Recent events involving conflict between the police and citizens have generated interest in what role Congress could play in facilitating efforts to build trust between law enforcement and the people they serve while promoting effective crime reduction. This report provides a brief overview of police-community relations and how the federal government might be able to promote more accountability and better relationships between citizens and law enforcement. Gallup poll data show that, overall, Americans are confident in the police; but, confidence in the police varies according to race, place of residence, and other factors. In 2014, less than 50% of Americans favorably rated the honesty and ethics of police, the lowest percentage since 1998. If they conclude that low public ratings of the police are at least partially attributable to police policies, Congress may decide to address state and local law enforcement policies and practices they believe erode public trust in law enforcement. Federalism limits the amount of influence Congress can have over state and local law enforcement policy. Regardless, the federal government might choose to promote better law enforcement-community relations and accountability through (1) federal efforts to collect and disseminate data on the use of force by law enforcement, (2) statutes that allow the federal government to investigate instances of alleged police misconduct, and (3) the influence the Department of Justice (DOJ) has on state and local policing through its role as an enforcer, policy leader, convener, and funder of law enforcement.