A Comparative Study of Rural and Urban Residents’ Trust in Police in Taiwan

Abstract

This study aims to examine residents’ attitude toward the police, with an empirical assessment of survey data collected from both urban and rural areas of Taiwan, a Chinese society that has successfully transformed from authoritarianism to democracy. Prior studies using samples from different Chinese societies tend to find that the assessment of the police is unidimensional. Using procedural justice as the guiding theoretical framework, the present study examines whether urban and rural residents express different levels of trust in police on procedural- and outcome-based measures. Findings revealed that urban residents had a lower level of trust in police on the outcome-based performance than their rural counterparts, while no difference was found in procedural-based dimension. In addition, Taiwanese attitudes toward the police were substantially influenced by media coverage of police misconducts and political ideology. This article concluded with discussions of plausible explanations and policy implications.

A Review of Taiwanese Trust in the Police with Alternative Interpretations

“…Furthermore, urbanization has structured urban Taiwanese' life styles and daily operating values close to modern Western societies, while the rural areas of Taiwan largely rely on agriculture and function in a more traditional fashion. These urban/rural differences lead to differential assessments of the police (Wang & Sun, 2018).…”

“…However, the police are not waived from being the subjects to media coverage of misconducts or scandals (Cao et al, 2014;Wu et al, 2012). Today's Taiwanese perceptions of the police are significantly influenced by the media -citizens who know negative media coverage about the police and believe in negative news of the police tend to have a lower level of trust in police Wang & Sun, 2018).…”

“…may present a straightforward sense of face validity, but what it really measures can vary from respondent to respondent in surveys. The other camp preserves the multi-dimensional measurement of public trust in the police, although some studies argue that Taiwanese cannot differentiate procedural-based from outcome-based trusts Sun et al, 2016) while others point out urban/rural differences on these two types of trust (Wang & Sun, 2018).…”

“…Second, while recent studies have assessed public trust in the police in Taiwan Wu, 2014;Wu et al, 2012) or other Chinese societies (Wu & Sun, 2009;Wu et al, 2012), they often measured the level of police trustworthiness using a singular dummy or ordinal variable. In addition, only one recent empirical study on the Taiwan police addresses rural and urban difference (Wang & Sun, 2018), but, like many prior studies, the interpretation is lacking sufficient social-historical context, which is elaborated in this review.…”

“…In democratic societies, citizens' attitudes toward the police can influence their perceptions of public safety, political support of the authority, and then compliance with the law (Tyler, 1990). A lack of public support and trust in the police signals inadequate policing or insufficient crime control efforts, which can lead to more serious political consequences, including threats to the legitimacy of domestic governance (Wang & Sun, 2018).…”