Citizen evaluations of local police : personal experience or symbolic attitudes?
By: ORR, Marion
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Contributor(s): WEST, Darrell M.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Thousand Oaks : SAGE, January 2007Administration & Society 38, 6, p. 649-668Abstract: The sources of public assessments of government policy long have been the object of controversy between those proposing personal experience versus a symbolic attitudes model based on more general political and social beliefs. However, much of the research focuses on national policy issues that are not concrete and are removed from the daily experiences of many Americans. The authors use attitudes about local police to examine whether public assessments are linked more to peoples direct experience with crime and the police or whether such impressions are associated with more abstract attitudes about politics and law enforcement. They find that personal experience mattered more than symbolic attitudes when it came to views about police courtesy and fairness. However, both personal experience and symbolic attitudes were important in regard to opinions about crime seriousness and assessments of overall police performance. These results have important implications for how citizens evaluate local government services
The sources of public assessments of government policy long have been the object of controversy between those proposing personal experience versus a symbolic attitudes model based on more general political and social beliefs. However, much of the research focuses on national policy issues that are not concrete and are removed from the daily experiences of many Americans. The authors use attitudes about local police to examine whether public assessments are linked more to peoples direct experience with crime and the police or whether such impressions are associated with more abstract attitudes about politics and law enforcement. They find that personal experience mattered more than symbolic attitudes when it came to views about police courtesy and fairness. However, both personal experience and symbolic attitudes were important in regard to opinions about crime seriousness and assessments of overall police performance. These results have important implications for how citizens evaluate local government services
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