Contacts between Police and Citizens.Types, social distribution & specific and general assessments

Abstract

Since 2008, the Crime and Society Program of the Universidad Nacional del Litoral has conducted a Survey on Crime, Sense of Insecurity and Penal System to a representative sample of citizens over 15 years old residents in the city of Santa Fe, Argentina. Among other social problems, this Survey examines police-citizens contacts and public attitudes towards the police. This article describes a series of empirical observations arising from the different waves of the Survey throughout the period 2008 to 2019. First, it outlines different types of contact experiences, distinguishing whether they have been initiated by police (involuntary) or citizens (voluntary). Second, it displays the general and specific assessments that citizens produce from these experiences. Finally, it analyses the link between the two issues, that is, whether the different types of police-citizens contact impact on the specific and general citizens' assessments toward the police. These two objects —and their relationship— explores simultaneously their evolution over time and their particularities around the variables gender, age, educational level and having or not undergone an experience of victimization.