ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book broadens and expands current perspectives on the sources of police legitimacy and citizens' trust in the police. During the last 20 years, police legitimacy has emerged as an important academic theme and a political issue, but empirical studies of police-citizen relations have existed in the USA as early as 1930. Procedural justice theory posits that perceptions of fair procedures have a strong causal influence on whether the public ascribe legitimacy to legal authorities. Ben Bradford, Jonathan Jackson and Mike Hough use data from the European Social Survey to assess whether accounting for 'modes of incorporation' reduce the statistical effect of a dichotomous majority versus minority indicator on police legitimacy. A series of hypotheses relating to the role of institutions might be worth testing in future research. Regimes and quality of government may influence the quality of policing.
