Abstract
The paper focuses on comparing sources of trust in the police in Czech society. It draws on cultural and institutional theories of trust and compares relevance of its exogenous (cultural norms and socialization experiences) and endogenous (police performance) sources.
Prior studies in post-communist European countries including the Czech Republic revealed that trust in political institutions is shaped relatively stronger by their perceived performance. We expected police performance (such as perceived effectiveness, fairness) to be a stronger predictor of police trust than culturally related variables (such as perceived fairness of others, political affiliation, punitiveness, personal morality, gender, age, education, region size or income).
The assumption is tested with binary logistic regression on datasets from three surveys (quota sampling, N = 926 in 2015, N = 1199 in 2011, N = 1361 in 1999). Among those with experience with the police and in general population, perceived police performance is more important for predicting trust than cultural factors in all datasets.
However, both models are statistically significant. The results thus support the previous findings from the political domain and indicate validity of life-time learning model regarding police trust in Czech society.
Implications for criminal justice policy and theory of institutional legitimization are discussed.