Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Criminal Justice

Advisor

Marisa Bryant

Abstract

Trust in the police by the public is the cornerstone of public safety. A lack of trust in the police discourages citizens from reporting criminal behavior, leading to increased crime rates. A lack of trust can be the result of inappropriate actions taken by officers in police-civilian encounters, as perceived by the citizen. Although increased professional standards and training have been implemented in police departments across the U.S., researchers have not demonstrated how aggressive police officer behavior affects the civilian perception of the officer’s actions. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between police officer aggression and an individual’s perception of the officer’s actions using institutional analysis and development framework. A quantitative nonexperimental design was used to examine a secondary dataset of a random sample of 7,417 respondents who had indicated that they had been stopped by the police while driving. A logistic regression analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant relationship between the officer shouting and threatening arrest and the respondent believing those actions to be unnecessary. The officer cursing and kicking or hitting was not found to be statistically significant. Scholarly implications include producing a research design that employs the use of independently collected data, allowing the researcher to measure other perceptions of respondents to police actions. Policy implications include police administrators actively monitoring the use of aggression by their officers in order to improve police-community relations. Implications for positive social change include increased training for accommodative communication for new and current officers.

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