Determinants of migrant perception of the police: The attributes of race, trust and legitimacy Stephen Egharevba1 Justice Policy Journal Volume 11, Number 1 (Spring) © Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2014 www.cjcj.org/jpj Abstract Extensive empirical researches have addressed how police work environment affects police behaviour in their interactions with citizens on the street level. However, most of the explanations addressing these issues have focussed on the negative culture of the police work environment in phrases such as “bad apple theory, Window dressing, and the Blue Wall of Silence” Regardless of their accuracy or not these pejorative phrases are often used to explain why police officers’ behave in certain ways. However, in Finland cross-national studies on migrants’ perception of the police: trust and legitimacy are still few in the country. The aim of the present research is to examine, those factors that determine, migrants’ perception of police civility in Turku. The data on which this analysis is based consists of sixty-five immigrants; however, our analysis is based on thirty-five interviews, out of the total participants especially among those who have resided in the country for a certain number of years with resident, permanent permits and nationality status. This includes students, refugees and naturalised citizens of African descent on the basis of how they perceive contacts, experiences and language proficiency acquisition in their interaction with the police on the street level. The findings indicated that Police and immigrants’ encounter are the main 1 Author & Independent researcher/Consultant Cosconsult International Turku, Finland
[email protected] Egharevba Justice Policy Journal, Spring 2014 determinant of the general attitude toward the police.