Citation

Salmi S, Voeten M, Keskinen E. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol. 2005; 15(3): 188-202.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The aim of the study was to find out what were citizens' assessments of actual and wished-for frequencies of 12 police activities in two typical Finnish neighbourhoods. Data were collected from 3271 adults and 986 young people with a mail questionnaire. Actual and wished-for frequencies were separately analysed using Homals. Both analyses produced a dimension indicating the assessed (actual or wished-for) frequency of police work, disregarding the content of the 12 police activities. In addition, each analysis produced a dimension describing the tendency to give a 'don't-know' answer. The latter two non-substantive dimensions were interpreted as indicating that the general level of knowledge of police activities was not high among the citizens. When comparing the frequency assessments of ongoing police activities and the wishes concerning these activities, it was found that citizens wished the police to increase all cited activities, particularly foot patrolling, helping and supporting victims and giving crime prevention advice. Citizens appeared to be responsive to the activities related to community policing and preventive police work. All four dimensions were related with background characteristics of respondents (age, gender, city and living conditions), but these relations were not strong.