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Policing and the Problem of Trust

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Organized Crime, Corruption and Crime Prevention

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Abstract

In a sociological perspective trust is considered an essential component of all social relationships. The importance of trust in interpersonal relationships has been recognised also by criminologists: scholars of community policing and crime prevention believe that raising levels of trust between residents and police is crucial for the success of current crime control and security strategies. But how do police increase people’s trust?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    R. Cornelli, “Why People Trust The Police . An Empirical Study”, Ph.D. Thesis University of Trento (Italy). 2003.

  2. 2.

    The concept of policing is closely related to that of social control. It is commonly defined as ‘the function of maintaining social control in society, but this definition misses the specificity of the idea of policing: providing security through surveillance and the threat of sanctions. As Reiner (1997, p. 1005) states: “Policing is the set of activities directed at preserving the security of a particular social order (although the effectiveness of policing is a moot point). Policing does not encompass all activities intended to produce order. It excludes post hoc punishment, as well as activities intended to create conditions of social order (for example, socialization, measures to secure family stability, encouragement of religion, or other forms internalised ethical controls)”.

  3. 3.

    In Simmel’s perspective, trust is ‘weak inductive knowledge’. In fact, because of the unpredictability of social events, besides the calculation of the reliability of likely future events, Simmel identifies a further element within trust: a “socio-psychological quasi-religious faith”, which allows one to overcome the impossibility of knowing everybody and verifying everything. Simmel describes it as ‘believe in someone’ without calculation in rational terms, a mental state which has nothing to do with knowledge (Simmel 1971, 1978). On Simmel’s work see also Misztal 1996, p. 50.

  4. 4.

    A similar distinction is suggested by Correia, Reisig and Lovrich (Correia et al. 1996) and by Murphy and Worral (1999, p. 330), who separated individual variables from contextual-level variables. Murphy and Worral, however, also included community-level variables (such as neighbourhood disorder) and victimization in contextual factors.

  5. 5.

    See Hurst and Frank 2000, p. 192; Wirths 1958; Cheurprakobkit 2000; Correia et al. 1996; Reisig and Chandek 2001; Chandek 1999; Coupe and Griffiths 1999; Fustenberg and Wellford 1973; Sherman 1995; Shapland and Vagg 1987, p. 54; Skogan and Hartnett 1997, pp. 205–209; Cumming et al. 1965, p 276; Punch and Naylor 1973, p. 359; Kelling 1978, p. 174; Matrofsky 1983, p. 33; Hough 1987, p. 70; Goldstein 1979, p. 257; Scott 2000, p. 36; National Institute of Justice 1999; National Institute of Justice 2000.

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  1. School of Law, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 2016, Milano, Italia

    Roberto Cornelli

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  1. TRANSCRIME, U. Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy

    Stefano Caneppele

  2. TRANSCRIME, U. Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy

    Francesco Calderoni

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Cornelli, R. (2014). Policing and the Problem of Trust. In: Caneppele, S., Calderoni, F. (eds) Organized Crime, Corruption and Crime Prevention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01839-3_7

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