Police Image

INTRODUCTION

In almost all societies police is a source of controversy as it constitutes a legitimate force, interposed between the state and the law on one side and citizens on the other. What people think about the police and their work becomes extremely important and can serve as a significant social indicator of the political health of a society as a whole (Benson, 1981 cited by Andreescu & Keeling, 2010, p.1). The manner in which the stakeholders "see" the police can determine the perceived legitimacy of the institution itself, the respect and the citizens’ compliance with the law (Tyler & Huo, 2002), and the quality of their interaction and cooperation with the police as well. The police equally represents a matter of substance and image,

The first one approached the topic through the theory of social representations, according to which the image represents the stable and the central part of the social representations (Abric 1993, 1995); the second perspective brought to the forefront the assessment of the public image of the police through the Scale Semantic Differential; in the third stage, the central point was represented by the mediated image reflected by the press. If the first three steps aimed descriptive goals, highlighting the elements outlining the perceived public image of the Romanian police officers, the last stage brought conceptual clarifications: it emphasized the relationships between some factors and the perceived image and helped establishing explanatory models.

Throughout this evaluative process we opted for the assessment of the organizational image referring to it’s employees, as a highly relevant imagological component. That is, in general, employees can be the best resource for supporting and promoting the image of an organization (Belasen, 2008) by the interactions they have with the outside world (Bromley 2001 cf. Moizer, García Benau, Humphrey & Martinez, 2004; Hatch & Schultz, 1997; Hinings & Malhotra, 2008). The image is reflected by the attitude of employees, their presence and manner of communication with the stakeholders (Miles & Mangold,

General issues of police forces. The importance of public image to the organization

An unfavorable image can affect how the police perform their duties (Goldsmith, 2003): citizens are reluctant to address the police in problematic situations (Davis & Henderson, 2003; Tyler, 2006), to voluntary cooperate with the police forces (Huq, Tyler & Schulhofer, 2011; Tyler & Fagan, 2008) or to positively respond to the various police requests (Bradford & Jackson, 2010; Jackson, Hough, Bradford, Hohl & Kuha, 2012). The more so, in terms of the general public there is no "effective or real police action " that can be separated from the image people hold on the police activity (Salmi, Voeten & Keskinen 2000 ).

In addition, in the absence of a favorable image we cannot talk about a consented police act (Goldsmith, 2005). Studies have shown that the perception of police legitimacy has a major influence on the citizens’ behavior and their compliance to authority and law in general (Paternoster, Bachman, Brame, & Sherman, 1997), being connected also to crime rate (LaFree, 1998; Tyler,