Trust & Models of Policing

Abstract

The notion of trust has become central to the discussion of policing and its transfor-mation over the last decade. Scholars, policy-makers, and the agents who purport to carry out public safety projects on behalf of the public now commonly point to trust as one of the central goals of the relationship between policing agencies and members of the public they serve, in contrast to the more common and familiar notion of crime reduction. This essay highlights three common mechanisms agencies and the individuals they comprise use to attempt to improve the public’s trust in police: changing policy, training of police, and citizen oversight boards. Focusing on the conceptual framework that the social psychology of procedural justice offers, the essay then turns to a less common target for change: the very laws police enforce. Changing the police will require not only transforming how its members carry out the job but also the laws they are sworn to uphold.