Gendered Perceptions of the Police in Saudi Arabia: Trust, Procedural Justice, and Satisfaction

This study contributes to the criminological literature by being the first to assess Saudi males’ and females’ discrepant perceptions of the police via the prisms of trust, procedural justice, and satisfaction. The salience of this study further lies in researchers’ and practitioners’ ability to understand how men and women view the police in non-Western contexts. We employed both t -tests and ordinary least-squares regression to analyze data from 235 Saudi citizens to assess their perceptions of the police. We found that, compared to men, women had higher levels of trust in the Saudi police. For procedural justice, there was no significant difference between the perceptions of men and women. Saudi women were also more satisfied with the police than were Saudi men. Participants willing to provide information on suspects and to solve crimes had higher levels of trust in the police than those who did not. Finally, older participants had less favorable views of police procedural justice and were also less satisfied with the police. Saudi men and women significantly differ in their attitudes toward the police, which points to the need to enact public policy to address the specific needs of both men and women.