Critical factors in public satisfaction with police services

Critical factors that contribute to defining public satisfaction are viewed in the context of citizens’ confidence in police services emanating from heightened expectations in service outcomes. The perception of legitimacy as it pertains to the acceptance of police services leads citizens to feel obligated to obey police decisions and authority voluntarily. It is the notion of voluntariness in compliance that defines the qualities of legitimacy. Further, the concept of public trust builds on normative values that also impact the voluntariness of compliance with democratic principles in society. Procedural fairness concerns public perceptions of how citizens are treated reflecting a consistency of quality in police services. Procedural fairness balances the needs of governmental services with the needs of citizens satisfaction particularly when citizens experience a personal crisis. These are the critical factors discussed in this paper. The importance of satisfaction with police services is therefore related to the public’s perceptions of police effectiveness and efficiency. In other words, the more the public perceive their police service as efficient in the way in which it deals with crime, how fairly they treat people, how effectively they react to concerns of the citizens, and that they see the matter through to an appropriate resolution, the more it is satisfied with police services. Conflict theory guided this research as the theoretical framework. It suggests that conflict in society is related to social resources, between those who have and those who have not. When emotional, moral, symbolic and material interests are mobilized, these interests become conflicted. Police services were partially established as a social control agency for conflict management. The police corporate culture is characterized by aggression and assertiveness, thereby influencing the elements of public satisfaction in the delivery of police services as it relates to the conflict management role.