The aim of this study is to analyse how the public attitude to violence and the public attitude to the police influence the shaping of the public attitude towards police violence. This study makes...Show moreThe aim of this study is to analyse how the public attitude to violence and the public attitude to the police influence the shaping of the public attitude towards police violence. This study makes use of a quantitative research model based on a distributed survey on police violence (N = 122). The survey was distributed in the Netherlands and therefore this study will mainly look into the public attitude to police in the Dutch context. Attitude to violence will be set in a more general context. Furthermore, a comparison was made to analyse which of the two predictors that were analysed would have a stronger relationship with the public attitude to police violence. The covariates ethnicity and nationality are present as a possible explanation for the results found in this study, as both of them are found to potentially impact attitudes to police and attitudes to police violence (Bryant-Davis et al., 2017; Dukes & Kahn, 2017). Analysis was done using simple linear regression models and a comparison of results. It was found that the public attitude to violence has a negligible positive relationship with the public attitude to police violence. A moderately strong relationship was found between public attitude to the police and public attitude to police violence.Show less
As police use of force becomes a more politicised issue in the world, it is important not only to investigate the causes but also to look at the public opinion towards it. In this study, a survey...Show moreAs police use of force becomes a more politicised issue in the world, it is important not only to investigate the causes but also to look at the public opinion towards it. In this study, a survey was conducted in order to determine whether the perceived ethnicity of a victim of police violence has an effect on the acceptance of police violence by the general public. After analysing the data that was obtained from the said survey, by means of a spearman’s correlation, a one-way ANOVA, and binary logistics regression analysis, the conclusion can be reached that the ethnicity of the victim matters strongly in the acceptance of police violence by the general public far more so than the perceived prevalence of violence against ethnic minorities or the ethnicity of the member of the public themselves. What this means for practitioners is that organisational biases, in particular, need to be tackled in order to alleviate situations like this from happening.Show less
