Factors influencing public views on police as warriors or guardians
Shawn L. Hill, Edward R. Maguire, Laure BrimbalPurpose
In recent years, US police agencies have experienced a profound and challenging legitimacy crisis. Scholars have suggested that part of the solution to this problem may be portraying police officers in a different light. The logic underlying this solution is that how police agencies portray officers can influence people’s attitudes and perspectives about police. For instance, portraying officers engaging in high-risk activities may send a different message than portraying officers engaging in community policing activities. This study tests whether different portrayals of police influence perceptions of policing styles.
Design/methodology/approach
We showed vignettes to a sample of 378 communication students. Within the vignettes, we varied how a policewoman described her career and her life. We then measured the extent to which these experimental treatments influenced participants’ perspectives on the role of police as warriors or guardians, both directly, and indirectly through institutional trust and shared identity.
Findings
The experimental treatments did not produce consistent, significant effects on these preferences. However, institutional trust emerged as a strong, positive predictor of warrior style preferences across all model contrasts, a counterintuitive finding suggesting that efforts to build public trust in police may unintentionally reinforce support for more coercive policing rather than shifting attitudes toward guardian style approaches.
Research limitations/implications
These findings underscore the need for future research that more directly examines how lived experiences of policing in minority communities shape preferences for different styles of policing. Furthermore, the pronounced asymmetry between the warrior and guardian models is also noteworthy: institutional trust strongly predicted warrior-style preferences, while neither trust nor shared identity had significant effects in the guardian model, implying that warrior and guardian perceptions are not simply mirror constructs and may have distinct antecedents that remain to be identified.
Practical implications
These findings underscore the importance of pairing legitimacy-building efforts with sustained, visible behavioral change that concretely demonstrates guardian priorities in practice.
Originality/value
This study provides an empirical test of assumptions about police image framing and extends intergroup communication research into policing contexts by identifying potential unintended consequences of trust.