Police Perceptions and Responses to Changing Community Relationships Post Ferguson

VIEW ONLINE: Police Perceptions and Responses to Changing Community Relationships Post Ferguson

Abstract: In policing, perhaps more than any other profession, a focus on identifiable facts is a consistently sought after objective. However, the facts exist within a context where reality both helps to form and is formed by perceptions. While two extensive investigations, including one conducted by the United States Department of Justice, concluded that the actions on August 9, 2014 of a single police officer in Ferguson, Missouri were lawful, many activists and the media advanced a false narrative that the officer had “gunned down” a minority teen who was surrendering with his “hands up.” In the months that followed, the “hands up, don’t shoot” chant was repeated many thousands of times, altering both perceptions and the reality of police-community relations far beyond the city limits of Ferguson, a community of only 21,200 residents.

A comprehensive survey of Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police members conducted in December 2015 disclosed that not only were perceptions of police-community relations nationally impacted, but so too were the perceptions of local police-community relations. However, the survey data also clearly indicated that those agencies with the highest levels of active community engagement were more likely to be optimist about improving police-community relations going forward. This article was published by in the journal Forum by the Executive Institute of the Illinois Law Enforcement Standards and Training Board in December 2016.

Learn More from "Our Articles" at Secure 1776

Our published articles have appeared in research journals and professional public safety and policing publications. Our topic areas focus on community policing, juvenile delinquency, gang crime, violence, police operations, supervision, and leadership. They are provided here as a professional resource. Read and join the discussion by clicking on the links to each article below.

Download Document