An Inductive Approach to Examining Racial Majority Versus Minority Expectations and Appraisals of Police Legitimacy in a Small-Town Context

• Published date: 01 October 2021
• Date: 01 October 2021
• Author: Tammy Rinehart Kochel,Tyrell Spencer
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368718814156
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

An Inductive Approach to

Examining Racial Majority

Versus Minority Expectations

and Appraisals of Police

Legitimacy in a Small-Town Context

Tyrell Spencer

1

and Tammy Rinehart Kochel

1

Abstract

In the wake of significant media coverage of officer involved shootings and civil unrest

to protest police behaviors toward Black suspects, policing is confronting a time

where public perceptions of police are central to effective policing, especially views by

racial minorities. Efforts to understand these views have largely been conducted

within urban contexts. Moreover, many studies have relied on quantitative survey data

to examine racial differences in views about police; thus, scant research has used

qualitative approaches to understand racial differences. Based on qualitative in-person

surveys administered to 238 residents in a small Midwestern town, we aim to

understand residents’ expectations and assessments of police legitimacy. Contrary to

research conducted in urban areas, we do not find a racial gap in views about police.

Other than a stronger preference among White residents on the role of police as

crime fighters, differences are subtle. These small-town residents appear to be like-

minded in their assessments and view police positively. However, nontrivial, albeit

nonsignificant, differences by race include minority residents emphasizing treatment

by police in making legitimacy judgments, likely explained by the group position thesis

and accumulated experiences, while it seems White residents based their responses

on global views about the ideal police officer.

Keywords

police legitimacy, race and policing, group position thesis, accumulated experiences,

small-town policing

1

Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale,

IL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Tammy Rinehart Kochel, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Southern Illinois University

Carbondale, MC 4504, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.

Email: tkochel@siu.edu

Race and Justice

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DOI: 10.1177/2153368718814156

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2021, Vol. 11(4) 520–\ 542

In the wake of significant media coverage of officer involved shootings and civil

unrest to protest police behaviors toward Black suspects, policing is confronting a

time where public perceptions of police are central to effective policing, especially

views by racial minority populations. Understanding what the public wants of police

and how police behaviors affect public perceptions is critical to building support for

police, public cooperation with police, and the legitimacy of police authority.

Research on this issue has been growing in recent decades, with a focus on public

perceptions of police legitimacy and procedural justice. However, available research

that can inform police practitioners on public expectations for police is limited pri-

marily to urban contexts, rarely examines racial differences in nonurban contexts, and

generally uses closed-ended surveys, providing a limited framework within which to

investigate residents’ expectations. We begin to address this void by examining

majority versus minority residents’ expectations and assessments of police in a small-

town context, using data from open-ended in-person interviews. On the one hand, the

group position thesis and accumulated experiences theory offer reasons why we might

expect to see different expectations and views by race even in a small-town context,

but the nature of policing in rural contexts—focusing on a broad range of community

needs and services and dependent on police–community coproduction of order—may

help minimize differences by race.

Nature of Policing in Small-Town and Rural Contexts

“Good community relations are important for police in smaller town settings, just as

for urban police” (Nofziger & Williams, 2005, p. 248). Police–citizen encounters

concentrate in inner-city areas, reflecting the spatial and ecological context of many

community ailments, and so deserve research attention. Yet, in the United States, 72%

of the country’s geographic area is categorized as rural (U.S. Department of Agri-

culture, 2016). Furthermore, 79%of U.S. police agencies serve nonmetropolitan

counties or cities with fewer than 25,000 people, accounting for 29.3%of full-time

police officers in the United States (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2016a). As

policing in these contexts is distinct from urban areas (Falcone, Wells, & Weisheit,

2002; Maguire, Faulkner, Mathers, Rowland, & Wozniak, 1991; Weisheit, Wells, &

Falcone, 1995), understanding the expectations for and perceptions of police among

rural or small-town residents cannot be disregarded.

Chermak and Wilson (2018) report that confidence in and satisfaction with police

varies across different models and styles of policing. They found, across four different

communities with different styles of policing, that longer police response times were

associated with less confidence in police. In rural areas and small towns, limited tax

resources for policing and low population densities mean generally fewer police per

square mile. Because police are spread thin geographically, small-town and rural

police rely heavily on the coproduction of order and on crime reporting by residents to

be effective (Weisheit et al., 1995). Therefore, some research has indicated that

policing styles in rural and small-town contexts are more community-oriented

(Falcone et al., 2002; Weisheit, Wells, & Falcone, 1994), emphasize informal

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Spencer and Kochel