Police–youth relationships: A qualitative analysis of Flemish adolescents’ attitudes toward the...

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2012 9: 191European Journal of CriminologyAstrid Dirikx, Dave Gelders and Stephan Parmentier

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Police–youth relationships: A qualitative analysis of Flemish adolescents’ attitudes toward the police

Astrid DirikxK.U.Leuven, Belgium

Dave GeldersK.U.Leuven, BelgiumGhent University, Belgium

Stephan ParmentierK.U.Leuven, Belgium

AbstractThis article reports on focus group interview-based research conducted to improve knowledge of European adolescents’ Attitudes Toward the Police (ATP). The study explores Flemish Belgian youths’ perceptions of three main aspects of policing (performance, procedural justice and distributive justice) and how much importance they attach to those perceptions. The 106 13–19 year olds who participated in 12 focus group interviews proved to have nuanced and mature conceptions of police work. They stated that proclaiming a negative ATP is ‘part of the deal’ of being young rather than a reflection of negative perceptions of police functioning. This study shows the importance of complementing the largely survey-based research on adolescents’ ATP with qualitative research.

Keywordsadolescents, police, attitude, perceptions, qualitative research method

Since beliefs about legal authorities are mainly developed during the teenage years, adolescent perceptions of the police are important (Piquero et al., 2005). Bittner (1990) found that negative attitudes developed by youth can lead to confrontational encounters

Corresponding author:Astrid Dirikx, doctoral candidate of The Research Foundation Flanders, affiliated with the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, K.U.Leuven, Parkstraat 45, PO Box 3603, 3000 Leuven, Belgium Email: [email protected]

427518 EUCXXX10.1177/1477370811427518Dirikx et al.European Journal of Criminology

Article



192 European Journal of Criminology 9(2)

with police officers. Others have argued they can have harmful effects on youths’ ties to school and increase their chances of becoming involved in gangs (Flexon et al., 2009). By early adulthood, views about the police are usually well developed (Friedman et al., 2004).

Most studies examining adolescents’ Attitudes Toward the Police (ATP) have made use of general survey questions eliciting youths’ top-of-the-head thoughts (for example, Hurst and Frank, 2000; Hinds, 2007; Taylor et al., 2001). As Parmentier and Vervaeke (2011) have noted, such quantitative studies produce a lot of hard data but also leave many questions unanswered; for example, why do people respond the way they do? Although researchers (Frank et al., 2005; Stalans, 2002) have advocated the use of discursive methods to explore adolescents’ attitudes, research in this tradition remains sparse. The qualitative studies that have been undertaken have mainly focused on how US and UK minority youths living in disadvantaged areas describe their personal police contacts (for example, Brunson, 2007; Carr et al., 2007). However, if one wants to gain a more comprehensive and comparative view of how adolescents form their ATP, it is necessary (1) to focus on the narratives youths build around diverse aspects of policing; (2) to question adolescents with diverse back-grounds; and (3) to conduct studies in a variety of countries including those outside the Anglo-Saxon world.

Through the use of focus group interviews this study will examine Flemish youths’ perceptions and evaluations of the performance, the procedural justice and the distribu-tive justice of the police. In addition, we will analyse whether the results differ for ado-lescents from high- and low-crime areas, for boys and girls, for adolescents of different ages and educational levels.

Literature review

Researchers have used the term ‘attitude toward the police’ interchangeably with con-cepts such as ‘support for the police’, ‘general opinion about the police’ and ‘global confidence in the police’ (for example, Eschholz et al., 2002; Tankebe, 2010; Wu and Sun, 2009). The measures used to analyse these concepts have differed in the dimen-sion of police behaviour they question (for example, overall performance, equitable police behaviour) and in the referent target (for example, national police, local police) (Frank et al., 2005). Brandl et al. (1997: 479) found that, regardless of these differ-ences, ‘substantively and statistically similar levels of support’ were produced by the different questions. Their results suggest that people draw on their general outlooks in responding to survey questions about the police. Frank et al. (2005) argued that, although these general evaluations are informative, it is also necessary to study the processes underlying them. Similar concerns were expressed in recent research on trust and confidence in the police. Jackson and Bradford (2010) argued that general evaluative questions run a high risk of generating stereotypical ideas instead of sum-marizing the ideas people have about the police. They found that overall confidence and trust should not be considered a single concept and that researchers should distin-guish between trust in police effectiveness on the one hand, and trust in police fairness and engagement on the other.



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ATP as a multidimensional concept

According to Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), beliefs are the fundamental building blocks of attitudes. On the basis of direct experiences or vicariously received information (or by way of various inference processes) people associate attitude objects with attributes. A person’s attitude at any given time is based on his or her most salient beliefs about the attitude object. There are three main perspectives on which attributes of policing matter the most for a person’s ATP: the performance-based perspective, the distributive justice perspective and the procedural justice perspective.

According to the performance-based perspective, people’s ATP are mainly deter-mined by their views on how effectively the police control crime (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). If people feel that the police are effectively controlling crime, that they are keeping the neighbourhood safe and that crime rates are low, their ATP can be expected to be positive.

The distributive justice perspective argues that people’s ATP are primarily rooted in their views about the fairness of the distribution of police services across people and communities. If citizens feel that people receive the outcomes from the police that they deserve, and if they are convinced that different groups of people (different race, gender, age, etc.) receive the same quality of service, they will probably support the police (Tyler, 2000).

Finally, the procedural justice perspective states that what matters most are people’s views on how fair the processes are through which the police make their decisions and exercise their authority (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). Four elements have consistently been found to be related to people’s judgements about procedural fairness (Tyler, 2000): the opportunities for participation that police officers provide in making their decisions; their friendliness and politeness; their neutrality; and, finally, their trustworthiness. If people rate the police in a positive way on each of these dimensions, their ATP can be expected to be positive.

Studies have generally found that each of these perspectives has significant predictive value for people’s general support for the police (Genn and Paterson, 2001; Hinds, 2007; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). Studies that compared their relative contribution to general ATP generally found that beliefs about procedural justice were the strongest predictor (Hinds, 2007; Jackson and Bradford, 2010; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). Nonetheless, more (survey) research is needed to confirm this finding. Since most studies confirming the procedural justice model have been conducted in Anglo-Saxon countries, it is not certain that the model would also apply in countries with a different legal system (Hough et al., 2010). Whatever their specific contribution, it is clear that perceptions of the performance and fairness of the police are important facets of a person’s ATP. This study will focus on adolescents’ views and evaluations of these three general attributes to more thoroughly understand their ATP.

Another point of interest when analysing what the answers to general evaluative survey questions reflect is that people tend to answer general questions more negatively than specific questions (Parmentier et al., 2004a, 2004b). When asked what they think about general issues, people will readily fall back on top-of-the-head answers and negative ideas tend to be more salient than positive ones. When more specific questions are asked, people usually think more about the question, take different things into




consideration and use more concrete information to form their opinion (Roberts and Stalans, 2000).

Previous studies on adolescents’ ATP

Most studies on adolescents’ ATP have used quantitative survey methods. These studies generally found that adolescents reported a less positive ATP than did adults (Hurst et al., 2005; Hurst, 2007). Hurst and Frank (2000) found that less than 40 percent of their respondents agreed with any of the general attitude items about liking or trusting the police. With regard to questions related to police performance, youths were fairly satis-fied with the service roles of the police, but were generally dissatisfied in response to items addressing crime control (Hurst and Frank, 2000; Hurst et al., 2000). Hurst (2007), Hurst and Frank (2000) and Taylor et al. (2001) also found that, when answering questions about the police, youths often opted for the ‘neutral’ response option.

Qualitative research is largely absent from the literature. Nonetheless, the studies in which US and UK minority youths were questioned about their personal contacts with the police provide some information (for example, Carr et al., 2007; Sharp and Atherton, 2007). The studies showed that, when youths described their police contacts, they devoted a lot of attention to how police officers treated them or to the procedural justice aspect of policing (for example, Brunson and Weitzer, 2009; Sharp and Atherton, 2007). They reported several negative contacts with the police that led to less positive evalua-tions of police respectfulness, which in turn seemed to be strongly related to their general outlook on the police (Brunson, 2007; Carr et al., 2007). The youths also strongly believed they were being targeted by the police because of their race (distributive justice) (Brunson and Miller, 2006; Sharp and Atherton, 2007). With regard to police perfor-mance, Carr et al. (2007) found that youths labelled the police as incompetent but simultaneously stated that the best way to reduce crime was to increase the number of police officers. According to the researchers this indicates that, although youths strongly criticize police performance, they still believe that the police are necessary and are capable of stopping crime.

These studies leave several questions unanswered. First, it is crucial to also study how adolescents think about attributes of the police that they may not have personally experienced. Citizens exchange ideas about the police, media portray images of the police, and so on (Gelders and Van de Walle, 2005). These vicarious police contacts also contribute to a person’s ATP (Hurst et al., 2000). Second, by focusing on youths living in disadvantaged high-crime areas, the perceptions of youths living in low-crime areas remain largely unexamined. A comparison between adolescents from low- and high-crime neighbourhoods could provide more insight into how contacts with the police affect youths’ perceptions of the police. Third, most research attention has focused on police perceptions of minority youths. Although attention to minority youths is crucial, complementary studies with majority adolescents could help us obtain a better overall understanding of adolescents’ ATP. Finally, since the police have historically been given specific functions in the US and the UK, it cannot be assumed that the results of those studies are universally applicable. As Farrall and Priede (2009) have demonstrated,



Dirikx et al. 195

there are differences in what people in diverse areas want from, expect of and think about the criminal justice system.

Predictors of adolescents’ ATP

Studies consistently find three groups of variables to be related to adolescents’ ATP (for example, Brown and Benedict, 2002; Hinds, 2007; Hurst, 2007): demographic variables, neighbourhood conditions and police contact variables.

Demographic variables. Some studies found that an increase in age during adolescence was related to more positive beliefs about police performance (Hurst and Frank, 2000) and to more positive general evaluations of the police (Hurst et al., 2000). Others found that age was an insignificant determinant of youths’ support for the police (Hinds, 2007) and of their evaluations of police performance (Hurst, 2007). Studies have shown a peak in delinquent behaviour between the ages of 15 and 17 (Moffitt, 1993; Tittle and Ward, 1993). Since this often leads to adversarial police contacts (McAra and McVie, 2005), we predict that an increase in age will be related to less positive views about the fairness of the police.

There is no consensus about the effects of gender – more positive attitudes among girls (Taylor et al., 2001) vs. more negative attitudes (Hurst and Frank, 2000) vs. no significant difference (Hinds, 2007). The varying results may be explained by the fact that the studies asked questions about different dimensions of ATP. Taylor et al. (2001) explored procedural justice perceptions, Hurst and Frank (2000) examined beliefs about police performance, and Hinds (2007) used a composite measure of ATP.

We did not find studies analysing the role of education in adolescents’ ATP. Nonetheless, less-educated youths are more often involved in delinquent activities and thus more prone to (adversarial) police contacts, which might affect their views regard-ing the fairness of the police (Burssens, 2007). Finally, it is found that youths from ethnic minorities have less positive views of the police (Brunson and Weitzer, 2009).

Neighbourhood conditions. Hurst et al. (2005) and Hurst (2007) found that youths who believed crime in their neighbourhood had increased during the past year were less positive in their ratings of police performance and in their general evaluation of the police. McAra and McVie (2005) found that adolescents who had experienced adver-sarial police contacts tended to live in areas with greater neighbourhood deprivation. We expect that neighbourhood conditions will be associated with perceptions of the fairness of the police.

Police contact variables. Hurst and Frank (2000) and Hurst (2007) found that vicarious experience of unfair police behaviour was a strong negative predictor of adolescents’ beliefs about police performance and of their general support for the police. In addition, adverse police-initiated contacts had a negative impact on beliefs about police per-formance and on general evaluations of the police. Hinds (2007) found that negative personal police contacts strongly predicted negative ratings of the police on a composite




attitude measure. Positive citizen-initiated contacts improved specific and general perceptions of the police.

Research questions

The aims of this study translate into the following research questions:

RQ 1: What are the perceptions that adolescents have of the performance, the proce-dural justice and the distributive justice of the police, and do they differ between adolescents from high- and low-crime areas, between boys and girls, between youths of different ages and educational levels?RQ 2: How much importance do adolescents attach to the performance, procedural justice and distributive justice of the police, and does this differ between adolescents from high- and low-crime areas, between boys and girls, between adolescents of different ages and educational levels?

With regard to RQ 2 we expect that adolescents will attach much importance to the procedural justice of the police while attaching less importance to the distributive justice of the police and to the performance of the police in fighting crime. We did not include ethnicity as a control variable in our study because previous studies have almost exclusively focused on ethnic minorities (Brunson, 2007; Brunson and Miller, 2006a, 2006b; Sharp and Atherton, 2007).

Method

This study analyses data drawn from 12 focus group interviews with adolescents (N = 106) from Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). Focus group interviews are guided group discussions designed to obtain a rich understanding of participants’ expe-riences and beliefs (Morgan, 1998a). The merits of this qualitative research method are: (1) participants can bring insights that the interviewer did not think of into the conversation; (2) participants are encouraged to think about the reasons for their beliefs by discussing the ways they are similar to or different from each other (Morgan, 1998a).

Participants were selected based on the particular research goals (Morgan, 1998b). The strategy of segmentation was followed, that is, ‘a strategy for dividing up the composition of a set of focus groups, such that each group is relatively homogeneous, while the full set of groups allows you to hear several potentially distinct perspec-tives’ (Morgan, 1998b: 63). The focus groups were divided on the basis of age and neighbourhood conditions – two variables that have been shown to be related to the amount and type of contact with the police. Four ‘categories’ of adolescents were thus questioned:

• 13–14 year olds from a low-crime area;• 17–19 year olds from a low-crime area;• 13–14 year olds from a high-crime area;• 17–19 year olds from a high-crime area.



Dirikx et al. 197

Although the participants in a focus group should be well matched, complete homogeneity is not optimal for an interesting discussion (Morgan, 1998b). Within each of the focus groups we strove for an equal distribution of educational levels and boys and girls.

The selection of the high- and low-crime areas was made in three steps. First, we investigated which crimes Flemish adolescents most frequently confront as offender and as victim. Results from a Flemish study showed that adolescents most often committed or were the victim of theft, vandalism and violence (Burssens, 2007). Second, we con-sulted official crime statistics of the Belgian Federal Police for 20071 to find out in which neighbourhoods these offences occurred most and least. Third, the results of the Belgian ‘Security Monitor’, a large-scale survey conducted with Belgian citizens older than 15, were consulted. Based on the results concerning respondents’ neighbourhood disorder perceptions and overall feelings of insecurity per district (and the results from step two), we selected the district with the most recorded crimes and the highest levels of perceived neighbourhood disorder, and where residents had the greatest sense of insecurity (Antwerp) and the district with a low number of recorded crimes and low perceived neighbourhood disorder and where residents felt the safest (Turnhout).

In the district of Antwerp we selected the five towns with the highest crime rate; in the district of Turnhout we selected the five towns with the lowest crime rate. Starting with the cities with the highest and the lowest crime rates, several secondary schools and youth organizations were contacted to recruit adolescents. Seven schools of varying educational level2 (general, technical, vocational) and two youth organizations (both scouting clubs) agreed to participate. This translated into four focus groups comprising youths from the city of Antwerp itself and two focus group comprising youths from adjoining towns: Berchem and Mortsel. In Turnhout we questioned youths from the four towns with the lowest crime rate: Geel (n = 2), Westerlo (n = 1), Arendonk (n = 2) and Turnhout (n = 1).3

We found that most of our participants resided in the same neighbourhood in which their school or youth organization was situated. The adolescents filled in registration forms from which the researchers later made a selection to ensure an equal distribu-tion of boys and girls and educational levels in each focus group. Each of the groups consisted predominantly of white native adolescents with a similar socioeconomic background (middle-class). During the recruitment phase the researchers were atten-tive to the relationships between the adolescents to avoid putting youths who knew each other well in the same focus group. We also separated youths from the same class in school.4

Four pilot focus groups were conducted, after which eight additional group discus-sions were organized. Since only small adjustments to the topic list were necessary and the composition of the focus groups did not raise any problems, the four pilots were also used in the final analysis. In total, 12 focus groups were thus conducted, which corresponds to a total of 106 adolescents (Table 1). Each focus group had on average 9 participants (min = 7; max = 11) and lasted one and a half hours; they were conducted in March and April of 2009. During the discussions the researchers systematically followed a topic list that left room for participants’ additional issues.5 Three general topics were discussed.




1. Performance of the police: questions were asked about how effective adolescents thought the police were (and should be) in controlling theft, burglaries, vandalism, drug abuse/dealing and violent crimes. For the selection of the offences we looked at scales frequently used in quantitative studies to assess ATP (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003) and at the offences Flemish adolescents most frequently con-fronted (Burssens, 2007). Subtopics that were discussed were personal and/or vicarious experience of the offences, police contacts related to these experi-ences, fear of victimization, perceived risk of punishment, perceived police effectiveness and efficiency, and the importance attached to an effective and efficient police.

2. Procedural justice aspects of the police: we probed adolescents’ perceptions and evaluations of the opportunities for participation that police officers provide in making their decisions and of their respectfulness, neutrality and trustworthiness (Tyler, 2000). Subtopics that were discussed were beliefs about police conduct during personal contacts, expected police behaviour in hypothetical situations (for example, ‘A family member of a cop commits an offence, how will the cop react?’) and the importance attached to each procedural justice aspect.

3. Distributive justice aspects of the police: the interviews focused on adolescents’ perceptions of the equal treatment of different groups in society (different race, gender, age, socioeconomic status) (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). Subtopics that were discussed were: personal and vicarious experiences of police discrimination, expected police behaviour in hypothetical situations, the police–youth relation-ship and the importance attached to equal treatment of different groups in society. We also questioned youths about their reactions to the fact that adolescents tend to report a more negative ATP than adults.

Each of the discussions began with general questions (for example, ‘Do you think the police are good at their job?’), after which more specific questions were asked (for example, ‘How good are the police in tackling burglaries?’). The moderator sum-marized the views of the adolescents after each (sub)topic, which gave them the oppor-tunity to correct or nuance the moderators’ interpretations. The assistant moderator took notes regarding non-verbal actions and the overall discussion climate. After each dis-cussion the moderator and the assistant moderator held a debriefing session, sharing first impressions and interpretations. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using a standard thematic coding approach (Massey, 2011). In combination with the

Table 1. Focus group distribution

Age of the participants District Number of focus groups Number of participants

13-14 High crime 3 17 (10 pilot)17-19 High crime 3 17 (9 pilot)13-14 Low crime 3 19 (10 pilot)17-19 Low crime 3 17 (7 pilot)Total 106



Dirikx et al. 199

thematic approach we also used comparative analyses in which the data from different people (within and between focus groups) were compared and contrasted. Three researchers performed these analyses separately. When the analyses were discussed, there was great consensus with regard to the results.

Results

Perceptions and evaluations of the performance of the police

In response to general questions about the effectiveness of the police, most youths from the high-crime neighbourhoods made derisive comments, calling the police ‘incompetent’, ‘slow’ and ‘stupid’. In the low-crime neighbourhoods the youths were more positive, stating that the police have their flaws but often do a good job.

However, when the questions became more specific, adolescents from the low- and high-crime areas expressed similar, more nuanced views. Boys and girls from both types of area and from diverse ages and educational levels perceived the police to be not very effective in crime control: they believed that stolen property is seldom found and that burglars, vandals, drug dealers and aggressors often run free. However, the participants believed that this is not due to the incompetence of the police but because preventing and solving crimes is hard and sometimes even impossible. In discussing vandalism one of the discussants stated:

‘Most of the time vandals are people who are just hanging about or have had too much to drink and they just do things. What can the police do about that? They would have to put a camera in front of every house, phone booth, bus stop, . . . that’s just not possible. The police can do nothing about it.’ (Male, 17, high-crime area)

When thinking about how well the police perform, the youths stated that they gener-ally did not attach much importance to effectiveness. They were more concerned with the manner in which police officers handle cases. In evaluating the performance of the police, youths thus seemed to tap into thoughts about the procedural fairness of the police and more specifically into their beliefs with regard to how motivated police officers are to help people and about how concerned police are about people’s needs.

‘My parents have a restaurant and one night the safe was broken into. The police came immediately and they really did their best, you know searching for fingerprints and stuff, but they never found the burglars. They really did a good job, but it’s just impossible to find those guys.’ (Male, 13, high-crime area)

During the discussions it also became clear that the youths did not expect the police to always put in the same amount of effort. For example, in discussing theft the adoles-cents found it normal that the police would expend minimal effort to find inexpensive stolen property. They believed that is too difficult and that the police have more serious offences to deal with. This can be seen as a type of distributive justice, yet in relation to cases instead of people. The adolescents just wanted the police to look for clues when a




crime is reported and to do their best when there are concrete leads. They were generally convinced that when those leads are present the police will solve the case.

Perceptions and evaluations of the procedural and distributive justice offered by the police

When asked what the youths in general thought about the procedural and distributive justice offered by the police6 (for example, ‘What do you think about how the police treat people?’), adolescents from both types of neighbourhood gave a blunt response: ‘They’re arrogant’ (male, 18, high-crime area), ‘They don’t follow the rules themselves’ (female, 13, high-crime area), ‘They’re racist’ (female, 14, low-crime area). No differences along the lines of age, gender or educational level were detected.

When more specific questions were asked, however, adolescents’ views were more nuanced, stating that although some police officers act procedurally and distributively in an unjust manner, most do not. The youths found it hard to make generalizations: ‘It’s hard to answer a question like “do you think cops are honest”. Some are and some aren’t’ (male, 17, low-crime area). In the low-crime areas the discussants believed that police are usually friendly, trustworthy and neutral. Adolescents from the high-crime neigh-bourhoods were more convinced that police officers often act in a disrespectful manner. The older adolescents in particular were more sceptical about the trustworthiness and neutrality of the police. They were more strongly convinced of the existence of corrup-tion amongst police officers and of racist police officers. In substantiating these views, the older adolescents referred to both direct and vicarious negative encounters with the police. This suggests that, by growing older, the likelihood of experiencing unjust police behaviour increases and this translates into more negative opinions.

With regard to how important youths found police officers’ fair exercise of authority, the discussions revealed that the youths took fairness attributes (for example, politeness, equal treatment of diverse groups) strongly into account when evaluating the police. However, the youths drew a clear distinction between minor and more serious forms of misbehaviour. They generally agreed that, in exercising their authority, police officers should abide more by the spirit and not so much by the letter of the law. For example, in discussing the neutrality of the police, adolescents, whatever their neighbourhood, gender, age or educational level, believed that police officers favour their friends, family and colleagues above other citizens when it concerns a trivial offence (for example, wrongfully parking, disturbances at night). Participants stated that they found this normal and that they did not take this into account much when thinking about police officers’ general fairness. Similar reasoning was found in discussing the abuse of power. The majority of adolescents in both types of neighbourhood thought that police officers frequently cross the line of fair police behaviour, but stated that they understood this and did not weigh this belief very strongly.

‘I mean, no it’s not fun for us if you see a cop putting on his siren just to drive through a red light while you have to wait in front of the light, but it’s not that when you see something like that you think “those cops are bad guys”. Hell, if I were a cop I would do the same.’ (Female, 18, low-crime area)



Dirikx et al. 201

However, serious forms of misconduct, such as racism, were completely disapproved of by the youths. If family, friends or colleagues of police officers commit a serious offence (such as stealing or assaulting someone), the officers should report it. And cor-rupt officers, the use of unwarranted violence against citizens or discriminatory acts should not be permitted. The youths were convinced that only a small number of ‘bad cops’ would resort to these serious forms of misconduct. They stated that, even when they had heard about or had seen such unfair behaviour just once, it strongly affected how they generally felt about the police:

‘It was a hot day and this guy was sleeping on a bench outside and then a squad car came by and this cop opened his window and started to pour out a bottle of water on the head of the sleeping guy. I just can’t understand why they would do that and now every time when I think about the police I see that image of the cop pouring water over that guy’s head.’ (Male, 14, high-crime area)

Police–youth relationships

As part of discussing the distributive justice offered by the police, we confronted the respondents with the fact that adolescents tend to report a less positive ATP than adults. The participants believed there were two main reasons for this. First, they stated that, as a teenager, it is ‘cool’ to talk negatively about the police: ‘If you’re young you have to be against the police, it’s like part of the deal’ (male, 18, low-crime area). Several partici-pants stated that it is not that they actually have mostly bad perceptions of the police, it is just ‘part of the deal’ to talk negatively about any authority. So, when someone asks them how they generally feel about the police, they are inclined to give a negative answer. Second, participants believed that adolescents commit more offences than adults and therefore have more negative contacts with the police. They stated that, when they are asked in a questionnaire how they view the police, the first thing that enters their mind are those experiences or the experiences of friends and they then provide a negative rating.

Discussion

Perhaps the most important conclusion of this study is the consistent finding that, although adolescents answer general questions such as ‘How much do you trust the police’ in a more negative way than adults, this does not necessarily mean that they have negative perceptions of the police. The results clearly show that attitudes are more complex than the findings elicited by general survey questions.

Adolescents tended to answer general questions (similar to the ones posed in surveys) in a more negative and one-dimensional way than specific questions. In line with the literature (for example, Goodsell, 2004; Parmentier et al., 2004a, 2004b), we found that with general questions adolescents usually expressed their top-of-the-head thoughts. These seemed to be mostly inspired by negative direct or vicarious experiences and by teenage aversion to authority. In contrast, when more specific questions were asked, adolescents became more nuanced and positive in their opinions (RQ 1). The youths did




not like to make generalizations. In discussing the fairness of the police, adolescents spontaneously made a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cops. This might explain why adolescents tend to opt for the neutral response category in surveys (Hurst and Frank, 2000; Hurst, 2007). Taylor et al. (2001) concluded that adolescents are indifferent regarding the police. We argue that choosing the ‘in between’ response might be a reflection not of indifference but of the fact that youths find it hard to generalize (either negatively or positively).

With regard to the importance attached to different attributes of policing, the results seemed to be consistent with justice models. In discussing the performance of the police, adolescents stated that they found effectiveness less important than police officers showing concern for citizens’ needs. In addition, the youths perceived the fair exercise of power and respectful treatment of citizens to be very important aspects when thinking about policing in general (RQ 2).

The findings of this study are simultaneously positive and negative. The results are positive in the way that they show that adolescents expect good but not perfect behav-iour from police officers. The youths have high expectations of the police, but remain realistic. An experience with a police officer mildly crossing the line does not always lead them to believe that most cops are unfair. This is a positive result because research-ers have argued that, when citizens have very high expectations of government institu-tions and then have a negative experience, the risk of them being disappointed, dissatisfied and no longer willing to cooperate is high (Ringeling, 2006). Knowing that the police are dependent on the public for their effective functioning, it seems that citi-zens having high but realistic expectations is key. Few variations were found in youths’ perceptions and evaluations of those perceptions according to educational level, age or gender. With regard to age, the different perceptions of older (17–19 year olds) and younger (13–14 year olds) adolescents seemed to be primarily related to their differing number of police contacts, which seemed to be linked to adolescents’ age but primarily to the neighbourhood in which they resided. The less positive views of adolescents from high-crime areas seemed to be primarily related to the fact they had had more negative contacts with the police and had heard more negative stories from friends and family. That supports research findings not only that there is a different type of policing in high-crime compared with low-crime areas (Weitzer and Tuch, 2004), but also that types of police contact matter for perceptions of the police (Skogan, 2006). Although we found more negative perceptions amongst the youths from high-crime areas, the importance attached to particular aspects of policing did not differ much between the adolescents from different neighbourhood types or for adolescents of different ages, educational level or gender. All youths had similar opinions on which attributes they evaluated strongly and not so strongly in appraising police functioning. One might argue that the consistency in the answers might be an artefact of the focus group method (Crabtree et al., 1993). However, in composing the groups we strove to and succeeded in obtaining a level of homogeneity among the participants that created a safe environment in which the participants felt confident to voice their opinions. In addition, three different focus groups were conducted in each of the generally defined categories of adolescents (see Table 1). The fact that we rarely found differences between the focus groups within one category or between the focus groups from different categories strongly suggests



Dirikx et al. 203

that there is uniformity in how adolescents form their ATP. In light of community polic-ing initiatives aimed at improving police–youth relationships, this can be considered a positive result. It suggests that strong segmentation in these initiatives is not crucial for a positive outcome.

On the negative side, the results also show that a single experience of a ‘bad’ cop can greatly alter how youths think about the police. Youths who had personal experience of a very unfair police officer said it affected them. Vicarious and mediated contacts with unfair police behaviour were also found to have an influence, but did not seem to leave as lasting an impression as that left by direct experiences. This might imply that amongst youths there are two different groups: those with little to no direct experience of seriously bad police behaviour and underlying positive views and those with experience of bad police behaviour and more negative views. This means that, whereas for many youths their negative general evaluations of the police are mainly an expression of their youth and of rebellion, for others they are a reflection of truly negative beliefs about the police that may continue to influence them in their ATP throughout adulthood.

Notes

1. The most recent data available; see http://www.polfed-fedpol.be.2. In Flemish secondary schools a distinction is made between three levels of education: general,

technical and vocational education. The type of schooling in part determines access to further education and job prospects. Therefore general education is often regarded as the highest and vocational education as the lowest.

3. During the discussions it became clear that, as assumed, youths from different neighbourhoods had different amounts and different types of contact with the police. The youths in high-crime areas had witnessed several offences in which the police had to intervene, had often committed offences themselves and regularly had random (negative) contacts with the police. For youths in low-crime areas, police contacts were mostly limited to (often positive) random encounters in public places.

4. In Flanders, adolescents in the same grade are usually divided into classes of 20–30. Each class generally follows the same courses and thus spends a lot of time together.

5. The topic list can be obtained from the corresponding author ([email protected]).6. Since the findings with regard to the procedural and distributive justice offered by the police

were very similar, we discuss them together.

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