Boateng Francis D
1 University of Minnesota Crookston, MN, USA.
J Interpers Violence. 2018 Sep;33(18):2891-2916. doi: 10.1177/0886260516632356. Epub 2016 Feb 24.
Police researchers have long argued that favorable evaluations of the police eventually lead to citizens' willingness to cooperate with the police. However, this assumption has barely been studied empirically. The current study examines the association between attitudes toward the police and crime reporting behavior of victims. Furthermore, the study explores the influence of victims' characteristics on their decisions to report crime to the police. Using field data originally collected in Ghana, the study found that victims' levels of confidence in the police and satisfaction with police work positively predict their decisions to report sexual assault and robbery to the police. Moreover, findings revealed that age, marital status, and employment status are important predictors of victims' reporting behavior. Several practical and theoretical implications of the results are discussed.
警方研究人员长期以来一直认为，对警察的正面评价最终会导致公民愿意与警方合作。然而，这一假设几乎没有得到实证研究。当前的研究考察了对警察的态度与受害者犯罪举报行为之间的关联。此外，该研究还探讨了受害者特征对其向警方举报犯罪决定的影响。利用最初在加纳收集的实地数据，研究发现，受害者对警察的信心水平以及对警察工作的满意度能积极预测他们向警方举报性侵犯和抢劫行为的决定。此外，研究结果显示，年龄、婚姻状况和就业状况是受害者举报行为的重要预测因素。文中讨论了这些结果的若干实际和理论意义。
