Perceptions of police use of force: the role of context-specific factors, police legitimacy, and belief in a just world

Abstract

This thesis explores various factors that could explain variations in how acceptable police use of force is perceived to be among a Canadian sample. Four text-based vignettes depicting a police use of force encounter were used in the current study. The vignettes manipulated two factors that were hypothesized to influence perceptions of police use of force: (1) civilian resistance during the encounter (resistant versus non-resistant) and (2) disciplinary action imposed on the police officer that used force (suspended versus not suspended). Perceptions of police legitimacy and Belief in a Just World were also measured to assess whether prior attitudes and beliefs influence how acceptable police use of force is viewed. Only civilian resistance during the encounter and increased perceptions of police legitimacy were found to be significantly associated with higher acceptability judgements of the police officer’s actions. An exploratory analysis revealed that civilian resistance during the encounter was also significantly associated with higher ratings of blame toward the civilian for the use of force applied by the police officer in the vignettes.