Celebration of Scholars
Perceived Police Legitimacy
Name:
Tyrani White
Major: Criminal Justice
Hometown: KISSIMMEE, FL
Faculty Sponsor: Katherine Hilson
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: SURE
Funding: SURE
Abstract
This project focused on perceived police legitimacy as well as the experiences of Black law enforcement officers in Milwaukee, WI. Through in-depth interviews, officers shared how they perceive issues of police legitimacy within the communities they patroled, how the city’s residency rule contributed to loss of police legitimacy and the ways their experiences of formal and informal punishment diminished their sense of police legitimacy within the department. Previous research has discussed policing in communities as well as relationships between the police in their communities. However, there was a gap in the literature about how police are often treated in their line of work by their own departments and the effect it has on them - not only in their perspective department but out in the field as well, and how this affects them mentally, as well as their relationship with their department and community. Findings from this project contribute to critical criminology by revealing from Black officer’s perspectives how police legitimacy is created, managed, and treated within a Black heavily policed community. Findings have implications that aid in improving legitimacy levels among officers that will help these departments to make some much needed changes for the sake of their minority officers. This is so that these officers will be willing to to see their own departments in a better light, as well as change how they perceive them as a whole by showing us what officers go through on the job and how it can affect not only the sense of legitimacy that they perceive from their own departments, but also the sense of legitimacy that community members feel for the officers in their communities as well.
Submit date: Feb. 8, 2021, 9:18 p.m.