Perceptions of the CJS

Question 1

Public experiences of the role of the police isn’t from own personal experiences;

Answer 1

it is from the media or other’s experiences.

Question 2

What does public confidence do and what does it look at?

Answer 2

sets certain expectations for society, such as to be treated fairly.
It looks at past performance.

Question 3

What is public trust demonstrated through and what does it look at?

Answer 3

Compliance or non-compliance.
It looks at future performance.

Question 4

Why is public trust and confidence not static?

Answer 4

They increase or decrease depending on experiences and interactions of particular events.

Question 5

What is procedural fairness?

Answer 5

fairness relating to procedures and how they are conducted.

Question 6

what is distributive fairness?

Answer 6

public beliefs regarding the fairness of how services are distributed.

Question 7

what is legitimacy and Tyler (2006) attitude towards it?

Answer 7

whether actions of police are viewed as valid and just.
Tyler (2006) = fairness of police actions is the most important factor in shaping attitudes of legitimacy.

Question 8

Hough and Roberts (2004): Why should the public be listened to?

Answer 8

“public perceptions of justice influence levels of trust in the justice system.”

Question 9

Watchdog: Why should the public be listened to?

Answer 9

“people are not routinely contacting the police in a way that they would have done previously.”

Question 10

Evening Standard Report: Sarah Everard case

Answer 10

“decline or erosion in police trust and confidence following the Sarah Everard case.”
Sarah Everard case = there would have been less publicity if the offender was not a police officer; perceived as more threatening to society.
This case also scared woman: Guardian = 28 year old woman felt afraid after 50 police officers liked her profile on tinder after she was bundles to the ground at Sarah Everard vigil.

Question 11

Moore and Braga (2003): What will happen if citizens do not trust the police?

Answer 11

“if citizens do not trust police motives or capabilities, they will uphold their support.”

Question 12

Van De Walle (2009): The perception gap

Answer 12

“public confidence in the CJS is relatively low compared to public confidence in other institutions.”

Question 13

What can misleading perceptions come from?

Answer 13

media representations, governmental representations, or experiences of crime at a local level.

Question 14

Hough and Roberts (2004): The perception gap

Answer 14

view of how crime has been dealt with; 16% believed it had improved, 39% thought response had worsened.

Question 15

The police are the gatekeepers to the criminal justice, why is this role important

Answer 15

important role in setting the level of public confidence and perceptions of trust within CJS.

Question 16

Reiner (2010): What are crime levels the product of?

Answer 16

“crime levels are the product of a variety of factors, such as labelling, that shape motivations towards crime.”

Question 17

David H. Bailey (1994): How effective are the police, and who backs up his point?

Answer 17

“police don’t prevent crime; police know it and academics know it, but the public don’t know it.”
Reiner (2010): backs up this point = “policing is only one aspect” of the response to crime.

Question 18

HMIC for Police Watchdog: How effective are the police?

Answer 18

7.8% of crime in England and Wales resulted in a suspect being charged.

Question 19

CSEW 19/20: Confidence in the wider CJS

Answer 19

CSEW 2019/2020 = perceptions and confidence in the police are, generally, higher than the courts, prisons, and probation services.

Question 20

Level of contact with CJS - Skogan (1982) - What Affects Public Perceptions of CJS?

Answer 20

low confidence groups had more experiences of crime and CJS, and tend to be informed by their own experiences, that of friends and relatives, and local media.
Confidence in police decreases as we talk to each other about negative experiences.

Question 21

Johnson et al (2005): levels of confidence varied by

Answer 21

views of and perceptions of the police, and views of the extent of the local crime problem.

Question 22

Media representations: What Affects Public Perceptions of CJS?

Answer 22

public expectations are influenced by the media as crime-fighters, and the media focuses on malpractice, police brutality, and corruption stories.

Question 23

how does ethnicity effect public confidence in the police?

Answer 23

Hale (2020) = 7 police forced accounted for 8.1% of Asian officers, and 4 forces accounted for 80% of black officers.
Socio-demographical factors = for example, black, young males are 4.2 times more likely to be stopped than white, young men (find reference for this).
Macpherson Report (2001) = police are labelled as institutionally racist.

Question 24

How can regularly seeing a police officer on foot patrol affect public confidence in the police?

Answer 24

Levels of uniformed presence = being visible in the community and events can increase public confidence in CJS.

Question 25

What Kinds of Contact Do Members of the Public Have With the Police?

Answer 25

Indirect = social media, news headlines, big events.
Direct = offenders, victims, witnesses.

Question 26

What 3 things do victims want when they come into contact with the police?

Answer 26

want to feel listened to,
want their crime properly investigated,
referrals to other organisations such as Victim Support.

Question 27

What do defendants want when they come into contact with the police?

Answer 27

feel a sense of justice and fairness throughout the process.
Due process model, not crime control model = due process: rests on the premise of the rights of the accused, such as the right to a fair trial. Crime control: focuses on arresting those who are accused of crimes and removing them from society.

Question 28

What do the public want when they come into contact with the police?

Answer 28

kept safe = want police to investigate crimes properly to see who is culpable, whilst acting fairly.

Question 29

what do media representations of the CJS and police generate amongst the public?

Answer 29

fear and concern

Question 30

Roberts and Hastings (2011): What do fraction’s of the public think how offenders should be dealt with when they come into the CJS.

Answer 30

2/3’s of public favoured addressing causes of crime, less than 1/3 supported tougher punishment.

Question 31

MORI (2010): What criminal justice approach attracted the least support from the public, and what does the approach mean?

Answer 31

‘get tough’ (putting more offenders in prison) approach attracted the least support.

Question 32

OnePoll (2015): What do the public believe is more effective for offenders in the cjs?

Answer 32

people believed rewards for good behaviour, rather than punishment for bad behaviour, was more effective.

Question 33

CSEW: Crime rates in England and Wales?

Answer 33

crime rates have been steadily falling since 1995, but CSEW consistently shows that most people believe crime rates have risen on a national level.

Question 34

Jason (2015): What criminal justice institution do the public have the most confidence in?

Answer 34

public have most confidence in the police, as they believe they are effective at catching criminal; 69% were confidence.

Question 35

what can the CSEW be used to measure?

Answer 35

public confidence in the CJS

Question 36

what is the general rule compared to the public perception of crime rates?

Answer 36

general rule is that crime has been reducing, however public perceptions of crime rate is not always best informed of actual statistics.

Question 37

what is the direct experience factor and what does it mean?

Answer 37

it is past or close experiences with the police
public are more confidence with effectiveness rather than fairness; statistics tend to be from people who have not been involved in crimes.

Question 38

what happens is there is no public confidence in the police?

Answer 38

public are less likely to cooperate = less likely to report crimes and act as witnesses.

Question 39

what can be effected if the police are seen as ineffective and don’t deliver what the public expect of them?

Answer 39

it can affect their funding = can be linked to austerity and suggest that budgets and staff have already been cut and how this effects police duties. This can also affect recruitment to the police.

Question 40

how can compliance with the law be affected by a lack of public confidence?

Answer 40

if public believe that police are ineffective, then they may think they can get away with crime, and low-level compliance may take its form.
For example: tv licence compliance = it is believed that the law is ineffective in this area.

Question 41

what does Tyler (2011) believe the 3 key points are to police legitimacy?

Answer 41

perusing fair and respectful processes.
Explaining reasons for decisions and actions.
Allowing people to have a voice.

Question 42

how does media sensationalism impact the fear of crime?

Answer 42

media creates a sense that crime rates are higher than they actually are.

Question 43

what does political rhetoric mean in relation to the fear of crime?

Answer 43

politicians and polices deal with crime badly.
for example, they don’t take previous offences seriously enough, such as Wayne Couzen’s previous offences, which he got left off with due to being in the police, which led to a kidnap and murder.

Question 44

how does geography effect the fear of crime?

Answer 44

Geography = where you live and perceptions of the local area can affect fear of crime.
Poorer neighbours may have had more experiences with crime, leading to more perceptions of the CJS which determines whether they report crimes or not, compared to wealthier neighbourhoods. BAME communities tend to live in poorer neighbourhoods.

Question 45

how has the George Floyd case affected the public’s perceptions of the CJS, and what has the CSEW, 2020 found?

Answer 45

videos of maltreatment were shared to social media, showing that the police are institutionally racist.
Without technology this degrading and life threating treatment would have gone unnoticed.
This led to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement all around the world, not just where the event occurred (in the US).
It also led to others sharing their degrading experiences with the police.
CSEW, 2020 = confidence in the police amongst black people decreased significantly after the highly reported death of George Floyd.

Question 46

how does social media affect the public’s perceptions of the CJS and crime?

Answer 46

provides a platform for people to share their opinions and experiences on incidents that have occurred, including video and photo evidence.
Real-life police responses to incidents

Question 47

the news scrutinised the polices’ every move, which can be damaging for public perceptions of the CJS, so why are news stories exaggerated?

Answer 47

for example, due to wanting more viewers/selling more copies, and creating a moral panic.
Due to the authority and prevalence, the public believe that everything they see on the news/newspapers and social media is true. As it is from a knowledge source it is trusted information, so its influence is great.

Question 48

Hall et al (1978) states that news media values violence as “newsworthy”, what does this suggest?

Answer 48

why it presents the most threatening crimes to society.

Question 49

Why does MacDougall (1968) argue that the representations of crime in the news are false?

Answer 49

because they are manipulated by the interests of journalists.

Question 50

Green (2003) states that the news media on crime exaggerates the likelihood of victimisation for white females, what is an example of this?

Answer 50

the presence of ‘missing white woman syndrome’, such as the disappearance of Madelaine McCann. White women are, arguably, the most vulnerable members in society.

Question 51

What does Duffy et al (2008), in 2007, say that crime was?

Answer 51

the top political concern for the public.

Question 52

what did Schlesinger et al (1991) find in their study and what does it demonstrate?

Answer 52

that whist only 4% of reported crime was violence crime, it represented 25% of news in ‘quality press’ and 40% in ‘popular press.’ Demonstrating that news media is able to manipulate public perceptions of crime.

Question 53

What percentage of crimes do the police respond to according to the CSEW, and what is a weakness of this?

Answer 53

CSEW = police only respond to 9% of crimes reported.
Weaknesses = they can be incomplete due to not including certain crimes, such as sexual assaults and missing data from unreported crimes.

Question 54

What did the National Crime Survey state leads to a higher satisfaction rating of the police and CJS?

Answer 54

those who have been treated fairly and kept informed of decisions and proceedings

Question 55

Maguire (2003) states that there is a stereotypical image of the police as detectives, why could this be?

Answer 55

Could be due to the heroic way the police are represented in the media (crime-fighters – Theresa May).

Question 56

Why does Bittner (1980) and Bailey (1984) say that the police could be viewed as detectives?

Answer 56

police could be viewed as detectives from other forms of media, such as film or TV, which commonly highlights the police as crime solvers and crime fighters instead of many other roles they undertake.

Question 57

What does Tyler (2003) state about the police’s discretion in relation to their legitimacy?

Answer 57

believe the police’s discretion makes them appear as a legitimate authority with the power to decide when and how to apply legislation.

Question 58

What does neutrality amongst the police lead to?

Answer 58

Reisig et al (2007) = it leads to greater levels of compliance from offenders and the public when reporting crimes.

Question 59

what is Tyler (2011) procedural justice theory?

Answer 59

how an individual is treated throughout the criminal process is usually more important to them than the outcome.
Direct experience with criminal justice institutions, such as the police, plays a significant role in shaping public attitudes towards the response to crime, as positive interactions will create legitimacy in the response to crime.
emphasises the need for justice institutions to pursue fair and respectful processes as the surest strategies for building trust in justice, and therefore institutional legitimacy and compliance with the law. This is the central hypotheses in procedural justice theory.