College Students' Evaluation of Police Performance: A Comparison of Chinese and Americans

Social capital, political participation, and trust in the police in urban China

“…The strong link between public feelings of safety and trust in the police suggests that in China the police are seen as the main social institution that is responsible for dealing with crime and disorder problems in society. This finding resonates with the results of recent research conducted in both China (Wu, 2010;Wu and Sun, 2009) and the US (Reisig and Parks, 2000;Skogan, 2009), but is less in line with results based on UK data showing that the police were held responsible mainly for community values and informal social control rather than in the areas of crime and safety (Jackson and Jackson and Sunshine, 2007). Future research should continue to compare and contrast the impact on Chinese assessments of police of perceiving the police as guarantors of safety and security versus perceiving the police as defenders of social values and behavioral norms (Jackson and .…”

“…First, while community-based networks and organizations have become important reference groups in the lives of the urban Chinese (Chen, 2000), the plausible connection between participation in various forms of social and political activity and evaluations of the most visible neighborhood-level government agencies, the police, have yet to be explored. Second, although recent studies found that Chinese college students' satisfaction with police varied across cities (Wu, 2010;Wu and Sun, 2010), possible city-level variation in trust in police has never been adequately assessed using the general population sample. This study takes variables of social capital, political participation, and locality into consideration.…”

Trust in police: A comparison of China and Taiwan

“…2. A small number of studies have compared Chinese and American evaluations of the police (Cao & Hou, 2001;Jiang, Lambert, & Jenkins, 2010;Wu, 2010;. 3.…”

“…Some found that fear of crime exerted a significant negative effect on confidence in police (Cao et al, 1996), while others found a weak connection (Chu & Song, 2008;Zevitz & Rettammel, 1990). Based on college student samples from China and the USA, Wu (2010) revealed that fear of crime had a significant negative effect on evaluations of police demeanor, integrity, and effectiveness in both countries.…”

Chinese Trust in the Police: The Impact of Political Efficacy and Participation

“…We tested the impact of both perceived political influence and actual political engagement on public trust in the police. Even though research on Chinese perceptions of the police has been burgeoning over the past several years (e.g., Cao and Hou, ; Lai, Cao, and Zhao, ; Michelson and Reed, ; Sun, Hu, and Wu, ; Sun et al., ; Sun, Wu, and Hu, ; Wu, ; Wu and Sun, , ), none of it has assessed the linkage between political attitudes and participation and public assessments of the police (see Sun, Hu, and Wu, for an exception). This omission is problematic because important concepts, such as political efficacy, can play a prominent role in research not only on issues of political behavior and socialization (Easton and Dennis, ; Hahn, ), but also on public opinions on political institutions, including the police.…”