This research updates and expands upon Decker’s article “Citizen attitudes toward the police: a review of past findings and suggestions for future policy” by summarizing the findings from more than 100 articles on perceptions of and attitudes toward the police. Initially, the value of research on attitudes toward the police is discussed. Then the research pertaining to the impact of individual level variables (e.g. race) and contextual level variables (e.g. neighborhood) on perceptions of the police is reviewed. Studies of juveniles’ attitudes toward the police, perceptions of police policies and practices, methodological issues and conceptual issues are also discussed. This review of the literature indicates that only four variables (age, contact with police, neighborhood, and race) have consistently been proven to affect attitudes toward the police. However, there are interactive effects between these and other variables which are not yet understood; a finding which indicates that theoretical generalizations about attitudes toward police should be made with caution.

This article presents data obtained from a survey of high school students in Brownsville, Texas. Almost half of the students reported having seen other students carry knives at school, roughly 1 in 10 reported having seen other students carry guns at school, and more than 1 in 5 reported being fearful of weapon-associated victimization at school. Logistic regression analyses indicate that age, gender, seeing other students carry weapons, and involvement with student clubs/organizations significantly affect fear of weapon-associated victimization. Using language spoken at home as a measure of acculturation, it was also determined that immigrant juveniles are more fearful of weaponassociated victimization than nonimmigrant juveniles. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed.

This study focuses on a survey designed to determine what crime-related issues citizens are most concerned with, and how they perceive the police. The survey utilized a geographically focused sampling technique. To discern any differences in concerns among the different areas of the city, the sample was stratified in accordance with the police department's beats. A breakdown of the survey data by police beat indicates that residents in the Northern beats are more concerned about their personal safety, their children's safety, drugs in their neighborhoods, and the safety of their property than residents of other areas. The analysis also indicates that women have significant concerns about their personal safety at night, both indoors and outdoors. The majority of respondents indicated that they thought the police were responsive to the needs of the community but would like to see friendly interaction between officers and citizens.

Although the number of police officers serving in schools has escalated in recent years, few studies of student perceptions of school police have been conducted. This study presents an analysis of data on student perceptions of school police officers and school security officers which were obtained from surveys administered to a sample of predominantly Hispanic students who reside in a predominantly Hispanic community. Descriptive analyses of the data show that the majority of students view the officers favourably, but comparisons of the present findings with previously published research on adult perceptions of the police indicate that the percentage of students who view the officers favourably is lower than the percentage of adults who view the police favourably. Regression analyses of the data indicate that gender has a varying impact on different measures of attitudes toward the officers, that year in school has no impact on perceptions of the officers and that personal knowledge of crime and delinquency in the schools has a negative impact on perceptions of the officers. The regression analyses also suggest that race/ethnicity has no impact on student perceptions of the officers; a finding which is consistent with prior research on perceptions of the police conducted in areas with sizeable racial/ethnic minority populations.

Felony probation has become a prominent alternative for overcrowded prisons in the United States. Using a national sample, the results of this felony probation study indicate a recidivism rate of 31.2 percent among male property offenders sentenced to felony probation. Extending past research, we also look at White, Black, and Hispanic male probationers separately. Recidivism among White, Black, and Hispanic felony probationers is 25, 35.8, and 39.8 percent, respectively. More importantly, following prior studies of recidivism using state-level samples, equations were designed to examine the influence of race, ethnicity, drug abuse history, age, marital status, education level, employment history, prior felony convictions, probation term, and supervision level on felony rearrests. Overall, this study indicates that supervisors of felony property offenders need to pay particularly close attention to those probationers with a drug-abuse history, who have shorter probation sentences, and, perhaps, to those who are older.