Policy making structures of the Turkish national police organisation

International Journal of Police Science & Management

2022

This article presents the first research to consider perceptions of the police held by non-resident victims, in this case US citizens on holiday either at home or abroad. Based on a small sample of 84 US residents victimised while holidaying in either the USA or four other countries, and drawn from Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a crowdsourcing platform, it is, essentially exploratory. However, the findings suggest that tourist victims in our sample commonly reported their crimes and held extremely positive views of the way they were treated by the police, indeed more so than their experiences ‘back home’ had led them to expect. Most victims, nevertheless, said they would have appreciated more support, from the police and other sources. Although more research is needed to build on this study, the findings do underline the need for a greater focus on the experiences of foreign visitors and offer a template for future research on outsiders’ views of their experiences as victims.

Section: The Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Victims’ perceptions of police services: The perspectives of tourists as outsiders

International Journal of Police Science & Management

2022

“…One additional aspect of public -and tourists'feelings of safety is their perceptions of the police. Turkey has a reputation for a repressive police system (Aydin, 1996;Cerrah, 2005;Ozcan and Gultekin, 2000), which has been accentuated in recent years with the increased threat of political violence. Recently the gendarmerie, which is essentially comprised of military personnel, has become more firmly established in urban centres, including Istanbul (Cerrah, 2005).…”

Section: Istanbulmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk, safety and security among visitors to Istanbul

Tourism and Hospitality Research

Ziyalar

2020

Discourses concerning risk have become increasingly popular among tourism academics. While these cover a wide range of safety and security concerns, there is rather less of a focus on risk from conventional crime than on terrorist threats. In contrast, criminologists have written extensively about the actual and perceived risk of crime. Both tourism academics and criminologists have addressed the question of who is most concerned about crime, but in each case this analysis has focused on questioning people at one point in time. This paper differs in that it compares the perceptions of risk of those arriving on a visit to Istanbul with perceptions of safety among a similar sample of those returning from their trip. In the former case, we consider tourists’ perceptions of risk prior to their arrival. In the latter case, their perceptions of safety after their trip, and the consequences of this for future visits, a key concern within the tourism industry.

“…6 One additional aspect of public -and tourists' -feelings of safety is their perceptions of the police. Turkey has a reputation for a repressive police system (Aydin, 1996;Cerrah, 2005;Ozcan and Gultekin, 2000), which has been accentuated in recent years with the increased threat of political violence. The police system is based on a continental model of policing, derived from Turkey's French colonial past, where the police form a repressive arm of state control (Mawby, 2019): there is a national gendarmerie and urban civilian police forces, both armed and centrally controlled and subject to political influence, and no evidence of either a community-oriented approach or any specific tourist-oriented police unit, as is found in some tourist areas (Mawby et al, 2015).…”

Section: Istanbulmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of safety confronted by experience: How visitors to Istanbul modified their perceptions of risk and fear in the light of personal experience

International Review of Victimology

Ziyalar

2019

This paper compares the perceptions of risk and safety of those arriving on a visit to Istanbul with a similar sample of those returning from their trip. While the two samples are of different individuals, the research does provide a proxy measure of change, or lack of it, in the light of personal experience. In this sense, it offers an advantage over traditional crime surveys that present a snapshot of perceptions at one point in time. The findings are discussed in the context of more general research on fear of crime and perceptions of risk, and how these are – or are not – influenced by personal experience.