“Never let a good crisis go to waste”: the effects of unanticipated police reform during the COVID-19 pandemic on perceived community willingness to obey the law and cooperate with the police

Abstract

This study explores the effects of the COVID-19-driven reform in reactive activities (i.e. in-person handling of calls, arrests for minor crimes) and proactive activities (i.e. in-person community policing and problem-solving activities) on the perceived community willingness to obey the law and cooperate with the police. We use a 2021 in-person survey of 600 police officers from China and 613 police officers from Taiwan and employ confirmatory factor analysis to estimate the endogenous measures of procedural justice and public compliance and cooperation. We find that, for reactive activities, although reductions in the in-person handling of calls and arrests for minor crimes do not shape perceived levels of procedural justice, they have direct correlations with increased perceived community compliance/cooperation. The indirect effects show that a decrease in the in-person handling of calls has a total, positive effect on cooperation, and this effect is all through improved procedural justice. Meanwhile, a reduction in the number of arrests for minor crimes does not exert a total or indirect effect on cooperation. For proactive activities, a reduction in community policing and problem-solving activities does not influence perceived public compliance/cooperation directly. However, it exerts a positive, both total and indirect, effect on compliance/cooperation.