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The procedural justice theory of police legitimacy has been examined extensively by previous scholars; yet more expansion of the legitimacy literature is warranted. Specifically, the current study examines the effects of institutional trust and obligation to obey as mediators between procedural justice and perceived legitimacy.

The current study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to test our hypotheses. Convenience sampling of South Korean university students (N = 2,188) was used to investigate our inquiry.

The results support our hypotheses in that while procedural justice was the primary predictor of legitimacy, institutional trust and obligation to obey were also significant mediators of procedural justice and perceived legitimacy.

A multitude of research examining various predictors of police legitimacy exists (e.g. Baker and Gau, 2018; Boateng and Buckner, 2019; Boateng et al., 2022; Lee and Lee, 2021; Lee et al., 2022, 2024; Lee and Kim, 2023; Nagin and Telep, 2017). More importantly, various researchers have concluded that procedural justice does in fact have a positive impact on the public’s perception of governmental institutions (Hough et al., 2010; Mazerolle et al., 2013a; Murphy and Cherney, 2012; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). A few research have directly examined institutional trust in the policing context (e.g. Boateng, 2018; Camp et al., 2021). Specifically, Boateng (2018) examined institutional trust and its relationship to police performance, and Camp et al. (2021) examined police officers’ prosody and its impact on the citizens’ institutional trust in police. However, the objective of the current research is to examine the relationship between procedural justice and legitimacy through the double mediating role of the public’s perception of institutional trust and obligation to obey.

This research seeks to examine police use of force from a smaller police agency perspective in comparison with what is known from previous research using data from larger‐scale agencies.

Using police use of force reports involving arrests (n=3,264) over a three‐year period (2002‐2004) from a small police agency located in the upper‐Midwest, this study utilizes descriptive and multivariate analyses to examine how and why officers use force.

While officers resorted to physical force (beyond handcuffing) in 18 percent of the arrest encounters, the majority of force is located at the lower end of the force continuum (e.g. soft hand control). However, unlike officer behavior, much of the resistant behavior displayed by suspects is toward the upper end of the spectrum (e.g. defensive/active). The results also indicate that the most powerful predictor of force is the presence and level of suspect resistance presented to officers. These findings are placed within the context of prior work.

Since the current study relies on official data from a single police agency, the findings come with caution in terms of generalizability.

This study contributes to the literature on police use of force by examining everyday force usage in a small police department.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex constellation of underlying factors between community policing and fear of crime by embracing various exogenous variables identified through accumulated empirical research. Another important purpose of the current study is to examine the association between community policing and fear of crime in the Korean context.

The data originated from a survey administrated by the Korean Institution of Criminology in the area of Seoul, South Korea, in an attempt to examine citizens’ fear of crime, perceptions of public safety and environment. Using a stratified sampling method, a total of 654 respondents were selected. Structural equation modeling was used to examine direct and indirect relationships among exogenous and endogenous variables and to test the authors’ hypothesized structural model of the citizen's fear of crime.

The current study found that the four proposed models between community policing and fear of crime were not supported in the Korean context. Neither direct nor indirect relationships between community policing and fear of crime were statistically significant. On the other hand, community policing was found to be significantly and indirectly associated with perceived risk of crime; those who more perceived community policing activities felt a greater risk of crime. A logical explanation for these findings requires understanding of the characteristics of community policing practice and the unique crime environment in South Korea.

This study shows unique characteristics in the community policing‐fear of crime nexus in Korean society in relation to the implementation of community policing, the level of fear of crime and perception of community‐based crime control.

This study attempts to determine how political legitimacy and regime change affect the level of public confidence in the Mexican police. The current study also aims to examine to what extent socioeconomic and attitudinal factors are associated with levels of police confidence among Mexican citizens.

The data used in this study were obtained from two Mexican surveys conducted as part of the World Value Surveys (WVS) in 1996 and 2005. Owing to the nature of the dependent variable, a series of ordinal logistic regression analyses was employed to examine the effects of political legitimacy, regime change, attitudinal, and socioeconomic factors on public confidence in the Mexican police while controlling other relevant factors.

Consistent with prior research, results confirmed that public confidence in the police was positively associated with political legitimacy (i.e. support for regime institutions and system support), happiness, life satisfaction, marital status, and religious activity. Yet, age, education, and size of the town were negatively related to public confidence.

Since the current study used secondary data, the availability of information was limited. Only one nation was studied which limits the generalizability of the findings. Future research may attempt to study other Latin‐American nations, including Mexico, in order to address the issue of public confidence in policing on a greater scale. Further, as the police alone cannot take full credit in the public's perception of law enforcement, it is imperative that future studies also examine other government agencies (i.e. courts, prosecutors) that may lend more information on this subject.

While the police and some governing agencies may not be able to change most of the factors studied in this research, they can strive to cultivate better trust among the citizenry and seek to improve quality of life in neighborhoods which may lead to greater happiness and life satisfaction factors that may then increase the level of confidence in the police.

The research compared the predictors of work‐related stress for policemen and policewomen. Stressors included workplace problems, token status in the organization, low family and coworker support, and community and organizational conditions.

In 11 police departments, racial and ethnic minorities were oversampled. Of 2,051 officers sampled, 46.2 percent responded. Questions and scales were adapted from prior research on both males and females. Regression analysis revealed the strength of individual predictors of stress, the variance explained by workplace problems, and the additional variance explained by social support, token status, and community and organizational context.

Workplace problems explained more male's than female's stress. Regardless of gender, the strongest predictor of stress was bias of coworkers, and a weaker predictor was language harassment. Just for males, lack of influence over work and appearance‐related stigmatization were additional predictors. Workplace problems explained gender differences in stress that were related to token status as a female.

The sample was not representative of all police in the USA. Measures of community and organizational characteristics were highly intercorrelated, so they could not be examined separately. Especially, for women, there is a need to identify additional sorts of influence on stress.

Although individual interventions and coping strategies are important for reducing police officer stress, changes in the organizational context also deserve attention. There is a need to develop and test interventions to reduce bias among coworkers, to contain language harassment, and to provide police with an increased sense of control over their work.

The paper focuses on stress within the policing environment.