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Police officers’ trust in criminal justice
International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice xxx (2016) 1e9
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Police officers’ trust in criminal justice* Jan Terpstra*, Jelle Kort University of Nijmegen, Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law & Criminology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 11 January 2016 Received in revised form 19 April 2016 Accepted 3 May 2016 Available online xxx
This study attempts to gain a clearer view of police officers’ beliefs about criminal justice and the factors that may contribute to their lack of trust in it. It is based on both qualitative interviews and an electronic survey of police officers in the Netherlands. The study shows that Netherlands’ police officers are generally highly critical of the criminal justice system. They complain that prosecutors and judges frequently let them down. Their negative views concentrate on the practices of criminal evidence, sentencing, and pre-trial detention. The negative views of police officers do not only result from their experience of specific failures of criminal justice, but also reflect a cynical police subculture. The notion of street justice may be important to understand the officers’ frustrations and their negative views on the practices of public prosecutors and the courts. © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords: Police Criminal justice Trust Street justice
1. Introduction Although police activities are only to a limited degree related to criminal law enforcement and criminal investigation (Bayley, 1994; Bittner, 1970; Ericson, 1982; Reiner, 2010), the police nevertheless have an important function in the criminal justice system. In many cases the police exert a great influence on decisions about which persons will be treated as suspects and will enter the criminal justice system. Moreover, the public prosecution service and the courts are highly dependent on how the police construct their cases and present information about them (McConville et al., 1991). The important role of the police in the criminal justice system prompts the very relevant question of how police officers perceive the practice of criminal law and the operations of the wider criminal justice system. This issue was analysed in great detail by Skolnick (1966) in his now classical study on Justice without Trial. In the 1960s in the United States Skolnick found that police officers are often very frustrated with the criminal justice system. In their view the system was not very effective in offering ‘justice’. They complained that cases are too often postponed, an important point which, in their view, ‘interferes with the purpose and outcome of their duties.’ Many police officers also feel that ‘judges are too lenient’ and that defence lawyers have too great an opportunity to frustrate the criminal justice process. Police officers also criticize ‘the “reasonableness” and “intelligence” of judges, sometimes expressing wonderment at how such wrongheaded men could rise to high positions of authority’ (Skolnick, 1966: 182e233). Given the importance of this issue to our understanding of the practices of policing and criminal justice, it comes as something of a surprise that since Skolnick’s work not much systematic attention has been paid to this issue in empirical research. Insofar as researchers dealt with the issue, it was often treated as of only minor importance, and often referred to
* This paper is based on a study funded by the Netherlands’ Foundation of Police & Science (Politie & Wetenschap), published in Dutch: Kort et al. (2014). * Corresponding author. University of Nijmegen, Faculty of Law, PO Box 9049, 6500 KK Nijmegen, The Netherlands. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Terpstra).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001 1756-0616/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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only indirectly. Still, this is a highly relevant issue. If police officers would lose their faith in how the criminal justice system operates, on the long run this may not only undermine its effectiveness and credibility, but police officers might be inclined to create their own informal strategies to do justice, with the risk of some negative side-effects. For that reason, we deal here with the issue of police officers’ views of criminal justice. This paper concentrates on two questions. First, what are the views of police officers about the criminal justice system? By answering this question we can ascertain to what extent the critical views as depicted by Skolnick can be found in contemporary policing and in another national and cultural context. Secondly, which factors contribute to the police officers’ views of criminal justice? The paper is based on an empirical study of police officers’ views of criminal justice in the Netherlands. First, the paper deals with the most relevant studies on this issue before going on to briefly present the research methods used, and an overview of the police and criminal justice system in the Netherlands. Finally, the main findings of this study are analysed in relation to police officers’ views of the criminal justice system and the factors that contribute to their (dis)trust of it. 2. Previous studies Any discussion of existing research on police officers’ views about criminal law and criminal justice should start with the classic study of Skolnick (1966). In his view, the principal problem of the police in a democratic society consists of the tension between effectiveness and legality: ‘the principle of legality places an unceasing burden upon the police’ (Skolnick, 1966: 6). The empirical part of his study focuses on the question of how police officers perceive the conflict between the obligations of maintaining order and complying with the rule of law. A central concept in his analysis is ‘the policeman’s working personality’. This refers to the ‘distinctive cognitive tendencies in police as an occupational grouping’ (Skolnick, 1966: 42). This working personality is understood as a reaction to the two main problems that confront police officers in their daily work: ‘danger’ and ‘authority’ (Skolnick, 1966: 44). Important elements of this working personality are: suspicion of dangers and risks, social isolation, solidarity with colleagues, and conservatism, both in a political and an emotional sense. Following Packer (1964), Skolnick distinguished two models of criminal justice, due process and crime control. In practice, police officers are often drawn towards the crime control model (Skolnick, 1966: 182e183). As a result they often perceive legal requirements as impeding their work, which is why many police officers feel frustrated by how the criminal justice system operates (in their view). In contrast to the legal presumption of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, police officers (who define themselves as specialist craftsmen in crime control) believe they are able to decide who is guilty of crime. Legal conditions are perceived as ‘needless restrictions’, hindering police officers from doing their job (Skolnick, 1966: 202e203). Several other studies over the past five decades have resulted in comparable findings. First, we deal with some ethnographic studies (with police culture as a common central concept), then some studies on policing styles are presented, and finally the result of a couple of quantitative studies are presented. To start with the ethnographic studies, Rubinstein (1973: 368e369, 398e401), in his study of the Philadelphia Police Department, concluded that the police had been given ‘an impossible responsibility’. In his view the police are not able to prevent crime and have no control over the sources of crime. Nevertheless, citizens expect police officers to protect them and to restore justice. Police officers were often greatly disappointed with the courts’ decisions. As a result, police officers often criticized the courts and the penal system, feeling obliged to break the law to do ‘what they must’. Comparable conclusions were found by Moskos (2008) in his study of Baltimore police officers. Many of them did not believe in the effectiveness of their tactics to do something about the problem of drug-related crime. Some officers blamed the Constitution for limiting their abilities to do something about the crime problem; they believed that criminals have too many rights. An important factor leading to conflicts between the Baltimore police officers and the court was a difference of perspective: the officers’ definition of a cause for arrest differed considerably from the judicial standard of reasonable suspicion. While police officers are interested in arresting criminals, the prosecution agencies seek to have ‘winnable cases and (to) reduce their caseload’. Practical and organizational factors are also relevant here: many of the cases presented by the police are hard to win because of the poorly written police reports, reluctant witnesses, or a lack of information (Moskos, 2008: 86, 128e129). Instead of Skolnick’s concept of the police working personality, other studies used the closely related notion of police (sub) culture as an analytic framework. Police officers’ views of the criminal law and criminal justice system have been interpreted as reflecting the police culture, especially the cynicism that is seen as a deep-rooted, core characteristic of the cop culture (Reiner, 2010). This notion had already been explored by Niederhoffer in the 1960s. According to him ‘cynicism is an ideological plank deeply entrenched in the ethos of the police world’ (Niederhoffer, 1967: 9). This cynicism was seen as the main factor contributing to the officers’ negative view of the criminal justice system: ‘the legal system affords too much protection to evildoers and hamstrings the forces of law and order’ (Niederhoffer, 1967: 152). This notion cropped up again in Loftus’ analysis (2009) of the cultural changes in an English police service. She argued that the ‘profoundly cynical and pessimistic view’ of police officers is, inter alia, directed towards the law and the wider criminal justice system. As a result, the courts were strongly criticized by the officers for ‘excessively favouring the criminal and eroding all the painstaking work officers put in to keep “the streets” safe’. Police officers also have an aversion to defence lawyers who, in their view, often frustrate their work. Many of the officers become strong advocates of a more punitive policy, including death penalties and boot camps (Loftus, 2009: 105e108). The relevance of these findings to other jurisdictions is not entirely clear. We might expect significant differences in police culture between different countries. For instance, in their electronic survey of Dutch police officers Terpstra and Schaap (2013) Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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found that cynicism is less prevalent among these officers than was often encountered in studies of the English and American police. This may be in line with what Punch (1979: 188) found: the officers of the Amsterdam inner-city police did not have the mistrust and disillusion with law-enforcement that often characterized the cynical American police culture, but still there was a ‘sour litany (-) about judicial decisions’. Studies using typologies of policing styles show considerable differences in police officers’ views, including those on criminal justice. For instance, White (1972) found negative and pessimistic views on criminal justice mainly among two of the four types of police officers he distinguished, the ‘tough cops’ and the ‘crime-fighters’. The tough cop is ‘particularly susceptible to angry resentment toward legal norms’ while the crime-fighter is said to be ‘resentful of any limitation on the police role (-) in terms of specific legal restraints’ (White, 1972: 71e75). A similar typology is presented by Worden (1995). Both the ‘tough cops’ and the ‘clean-beat crime fighters’ believe that ‘legal restrictions do more harm than good.’ Especially the crime-fighters feel frustrated by due process procedures and regulations (Worden, 1995: 57e60). In his study of a Paris anti-crime squad, Fassin (2013) found a serious gap between police officers’ views and the decisions made by judges. In many cases judges differed from the officers in their views of a suspect’s guilt. Police officers felt that they were working ‘with no purpose’: ‘We catch thieves, and judges set them free.’ Police officers also assumed that ‘more credence’ was given to criminals than to sworn officers. Many officers believed that ‘judges do not render justice, they feel they have the right to take the law into their own hands.’ What police officers often do not see, according to Fassin, is that the decisions of the judges are not a matter of leniency, but a consequence of the fact that they cannot decide otherwise due to the weakness of the criminal evidence and the inconsistencies and incompleteness of the police reports (Fassin, 2013: 196e197). Relevant quantitative studies often focus on the question whether police officers have more punitive attitudes than the general public or members of other professions. Several studies, conducted in different jurisdictions and at different times, showed that police officers are relatively more punitive in their orientation (Chen and Einat, 2015; Furnham and Alison, 1994; rez, 1992; Marshall and Mansson, 1966). According to Duffy et al. (2008: 34e36) the punitive orienOrtet-Fabregat and Pe tation of many police officers is often similar to what broad segments of the general public believe: not enough offenders are brought to justice, and they are not appropriately punished. In several of these quantitative studies punitive attitudes are seen as a consequence of the role and specific tasks of police officers (Fielding and Fielding, 1991; Furnham and Alison, 1994). According to the study of Fekjær et al. (2014), young police recruits in Sweden learned to adopt a more legalistic perspective during their academic training, but after some time they became more positive towards ‘non-legalistic’ police practices. Many of these young officers believed that if the law is inadequate, it is acceptable for the police to punish those who are viewed as obviously guilty. This finding closely resembles the analysis of Skolnick (1966) concerning ‘justice without trial’. It also is more or less similar to what police officers themselves call ‘street justice’ (Van Maanen, 1978; Sykes, 1986): in case formal institutions ‘fail’, police officers often use their discretion to mete out justice on their own initiative. In conclusion, both quantitative and qualitative studies from different jurisdictions and periods show that considerable numbers of police officers are highly critical of the wider criminal justice system. These studies also suggest a diversity of factors that contribute to these views. Several researchers assume that it is the experience of specific failures of the criminal justice system that causes police officers to adopt negative and unfavourable views (for instance Skolnick, 1966; Rubinstein, 1973; Fassin, 2013). Other studies argue that it is not so much the experience of specific cases, but a more general cynical (sub)culture that makes police officers highly critical of the wider criminal justice system. For instance, Niederhoffer (1967: 163e164) concludes: ‘the real threat is not the shackling of law enforcement, but the probable reinforcement of cynicism among policemen.’ This interpretation can also be found in the analysis of Loftus (2009). A somewhat similar analysis states that it is not only a question of a cynical (sub)culture, but (additionally) a difference in perspectives between on the one hand police officers and on the other criminal law and the judiciary (Sykes, 1986). Moskos (2008) and Fekjær et al. (2014) interpret the police officers’ perspective as related to the challenges and exigencies of daily police work. Some studies also refer to police officers’ lack of knowledge and skills. Police officers may blame the court for not doing its job, but they may not be aware of the fact that their own reports and information may fail to meet the conditions for an effective prosecution or a sentence by the court (Moskos, 2008; Fassin, 2013). The police officers’ negative views may also derive from a lack of cooperation and coordination between the police and the other agencies in the criminal justice system, especially the public prosecution service (De Vries, 2001). Researchers may use combinations of these factors to explain the negative views of police officers about the wider criminal justice system. A more comprehensive study of these factors has been absent until now. 3. The police and the criminal justice system in the Netherlands In the Netherlands the police, the public prosecution service, and the courts are the main institutions of the criminal justice system (Tak, 2008). The National Police force was established in the Netherlands in January 2013, replacing the former regionalized police structure. The establishment of the new structure did not change the authority over the Netherlands’ police. Where the enforcement of the criminal law (including criminal investigation) is concerned, the police have to operate under the authority of the public prosecution service. This implies that the public prosecutor has the power to issue instructions to the police for the enforcement of the criminal law. The public prosecutor has to share his authority over the police with the mayor, who has authority over the (local) police in relation to the enforcement of public order and the service tasks performed by the police. Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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Although the public prosecutor has the formal responsibility for criminal investigation, in practice the police have considerable discretion. The public prosecutor will often only be involved directly in cases of serious and complex crime. In cases of petty crime there is usually no prior consultation with the public prosecutor. The recent introduction of ‘ZSM’ (literally: ASAP, As Soon As Possible, a policy aimed at promoting the rapid disposal of criminal cases), involved the public prosecutors more directly in the investigation of petty crime (Jacobs and Van Kampen, 2014). The public prosecution service is a national organization. Although the Minister of Security & Justice has (political) responsibility for it, the public prosecution service is generally seen as independent from the Minister in its decisions on individual cases. Prosecutors in the Netherlands are members of the judiciary. The Netherlands has only professional judges. There is no jury system and (with some minor exceptions) no participation by lay persons in the criminal jurisdiction. Criminal offences are dealt with by courts at three levels: eleven district courts, four courts of appeal, and at the highest level the Supreme Court (Tak, 2008). As opposed to the Anglo-American adversarial systems of criminal justice, most continental European countries have inquisitorial systems. However, the criminal justice system in the Netherlands has been typified as having an intermediate position between accusatorial and inquisitorial systems (Tak, 2008: 29e30; Van Kempen, 2009: 16). According to Van Kempen (2009), the Netherlands system is largely inquisitorial in its pre-trial phases and moderately accusatory and adversarial in its trial proceedings.
4. Research methods The present study was carried out in four regional units of the Netherlands’ national police force. Two different methods were used to collect data. First, open interviews were held with 28 police officers, who were mainly working as patrol officers, neighbourhood officers or criminal investigators at local police stations in the four regional units (with both rural and urban areas). The 28 officers were selected by staff officers who were asked to give the names of several sworn officers, at different positions and working in different teams. These interviews focused on the question of how police officers perceived the criminal justice system and to what extent they trusted the public prosecution service and the courts. These open interviews took on average 60 min. Secondly, an electronic questionnaire was sent to 1600 police officers, consisting of four random samples of 400 sworn officers working at the four different regional units mentioned before. The items in this questionnaire were based on the 28 open interviews we had already conducted. The officers were asked about their views on how the criminal justice system operates, their trust in criminal justice agencies, their opinions about criminal sanctions, how often they were personally involved in cases where certain problems occurred, and the consequences of such problems for their work. A number of 710 police officers returned the questionnaire. However, only a total of 558 police officers completed the full questionnaire. Questionnaires that were not fully completed, were not used in the analysis. The main reason for this is that in the great majority of these cases police officers stopped filling in the questionnaire after only a small number of questions. This implies that the following analysis is only about the 558 officers mentioned before, a response rate of 35 percent. A comparison between the sample and the non-response group or the group with the incomplete questionnaires is not possible, due to a lack of information on the relevant (demographic) variables. More than half of the respondents were between 5 and 15 years at the police. The numbers of patrol officers, community officers and detectives who completed the questionnaire were comparable, each category comprising about 30 percent of the whole sample. The other about ten percent consisted of police officers with other operational tasks. The interviews were conducted in the autumn of 2012, the survey in the spring and summer of 2013. During that period of fieldwork the National Police system was introduced in the Netherlands. We did not find any clear indication that this transition may have had an impact on the results of this study, except for the fact that the rather low response rate may have been a consequence of the unrest among police officers caused by this process of restructuring of the Netherlands’ police force. In the following sections, data are used from both the open interviews and the survey. The open interviews were not only helpful to explore this topic, but also provided more detailed views and understanding of the processes and meanings that were underlying the answers of police officers given to the survey questions. If in the following sections numbers and percentages are mentioned, they are always based on the survey. In other cases the information about the views of police officers is usually based on the open interviews.
5. Police officers’ views of criminal justice Both the interviews with the 28 police officers and the outcomes of the questionnaire show that large numbers of Netherlands police officers are dissatisfied with the criminal justice system. Many of them feel that in practice criminal procedures do not fit in with their daily work. The dissatisfaction and criticism of police officers concentrate on three main issues: evidence, sanctions, and pre-trial detention.
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5.1. Evidence About 58% of the police officers stated that during the past six months they had been working on a case in which, in their view, the suspected person was unjustly acquitted (see Table 1). Many police officers (51%) believe that the courts make too high demands on criminal evidence. This is closely related to how police officers often judge the suspects’ guilt. As was also found by Skolnick (1966: 182e203), police officers tend to think in terms not of legal, but of ‘factual’ guilt. This notion is based on probabilistic reasoning with typifications (Schütz, 1932) being used to interpret guilt or innocence: for instance, the presence of a (certain type of) person, at a particular moment at a particular place, may be sufficient to convince a police officer of a suspects’ guilt, even if direct evidence in a legal sense is absent. Other phenomena may also be viewed in probabilistic terms, such as a suspect who remains silent during a police interrogation. This is likely to be interpreted as an indication that the person must be guilty: otherwise, he would have no reason to keep silent. Police officers often use what they call ‘street knowledge’. This is not so much a matter of a stock of ‘factual’ knowledge, but an interpretation of social reality consisting of meanings and normative schemes (Giddens, 1984). This street knowledge is very much rooted in practical experiences and is informally shared between colleagues. It may be helpful in understanding daily police practices and is used to recognize risks and potential offenders. Street knowledge may support officers to cope with the need to work under time pressure. It instructs police officers how to conduct themselves in certain situations and how to deal with different types of persons (Skolnick, 1966; Rubinstein, 1973). Representatives of the judiciary do not have this street knowledge. Police officers often see this as a main factor contributing to the problems they perceive. In the view of the police, members of the judiciary are often naive, they underestimate the seriousness of problems and do not understand the social impact of crime and disorder because they have not directly experienced daily life in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. They are accused of taking suspects’ stories at face value. In the police officers’ view, members of the judiciary are acting at too great a distance and often maintain a strict legal perspective. As a result, many police officers (71%) feel that the demands made on criminal evidence operate as an unnecessary barrier to justice. Their interpretation, involvement and feelings of justice lead police officers to feel that they judge matters of guilt and evidence differently from public prosecutors and judges. They often refer to the discrepancy between citizens’ feelings of justice and arguments based on criminal law. In their role as front line officers of the criminal justice system, they are confronted with the citizens’ dissatisfaction with the outcomes of criminal proceedings. Many officers find it hard to explain these discrepancies to citizens.
5.2. Sanctions An overwhelming majority of the police officers (85%) in the Netherlands state that in their view the sentences imposed by judges are generally too light (Table 1). The survey revealed that more than half of the police officers (58%) feel that this makes it difficult for them to do their work. Police officers are especially critical of the sanctions imposed in cases of petty crime, such as shoplifting, car break-ins, and dealing in drugs. Their dissatisfaction and disapproval concentrate on repeat offenders and certain groups of juvenile delinquents. In their view, recidivists, such as drug-addicts who are repeatedly involved in all kinds of petty crime, should be punished more severely. Special measures for drug-addicted repeat offenders, such as a two-year confinement (the so-called ISD measure), should be applied more often and at an earlier stage. Many police officers feel that the current ‘lenient’ sanctions mean that the criminal law generally fails to deter criminals. Police officers think that some Table 1 Police officers’ views of criminal justice (n ¼ 558)*. Questions and statements as presented to police officers
Answers %
Sentences for crime are too soft Sometimes during the past six months, have you worked on a case where in your view the suspected person was unjustly acquitted? Because many criminal law reactions fail, it is difficult for police officers to do their work properly
84.8 (agree very much) 57.7 (yes)
71.0 (agree (very much)) For police officers it is difficult to do their work because in many criminal cases there are no criminal law reactions 56.2 (agree (very much)) Criminal justice fails to provide adequate responses to cases of violence against public officials 54.8 (yes) In many cases, the decision by the criminal court corresponds with my personal view on what should be decided 71.0 (disagree (very much)) In general, the judges use standards for criminal evidence that are too strict 50.9 (agree (very much)) There should be more long-term community sanctions 47.6 (agree (very much)) Have you for the past six months worked on a criminal case where in your view the examining judge unjustly refused an order 40.7 (yes) to remand in custody? *: ‘Agree (very much)’ means that the question concerned had four categories of answers: disagree very much, disagree, agree, and agree very much and that here the two latter answers are taken together.
Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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categories of juvenile delinquents are much more, and more seriously involved in crime than judges often seem to assume. They wonder if in such cases it is right to apply juvenile criminal law. There is great discontent about sanctions for violence against public officials, including police officers. More than half of the police officers (55%) feel that in such cases the criminal law sanctions are generally too mild. This is remarkable because the Netherlands’ judges already impose more severe sentences in those cases than when violence against ordinary citizens is involved (Bosmans and Pemberton, 2012). Although many police officers do not oppose the sanction of community service (a form of community sentence) in general, there is nevertheless much dissatisfaction, especially about their appropriateness and severity. Once again, police officers feel that many criminals do not seem to be greatly impressed by these community sanctions. As a result, only a small group of police officers (18%) think that the sanction of community service should be used more frequently. Almost half of all police officers (48%) think that the community service should be imposed for longer periods. There is one exception to the police officers’ general view that sentences should be more severe. In case of traffic offences such as exceeding the speed limit, driving through a red light, or parking offences, police officers think that the penalties imposed are too harsh, especially as compared to criminal law sanctions. It is quite remarkable that many police officers seem to judge the severity of sanctions by looking, inter alia, to the amount of time they have to spend to establish the criminal fact and for the necessary administrative process. 5.3. Pre-trial detention Much of the police officers’ dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system concentrates on the use of pre-trial detention. In the Netherlands, detention by the police after arrest may last up to six hours, during which the detainee may be interrogated by the police (fifteen hours if it includes a night). After expiry of this term, the suspect has to be released or taken into police custody (inverzekeringstelling). The decision about police custody should be taken by the public prosecutor or the assistant prosecutor (a senior police officer). After the expiry of the period of police custody (which lasts a maximum of six days), the suspect has to be released or the examining judge can order a remand in custody (bewaring) at the request of the public prosecutor. This is the first phase of the pre-trial detention (voorlopige hechtenis), with a maximum term of 14 days (Tak, 2008: 91e95). Police officers often feel frustrated if they think it is necessary to keep the suspect at the police station for a longer period than six days, but the public prosecutor refuses to request pre-trial detention, or the examining judge decides not to order it. Almost half the police officers (41%) say that during the last six months they had been working on a case where in their view the examining judge unjustly refused an order to remand in custody. One police officer in four had been working on a case where the public prosecutor refused a request to remand in custody, even when, in their view, that would have been necessary. Although police officers realize that there are legal conditions for the use of pre-trial detention, many of them think this measure should be used more often. The interviews show that the arguments that are decisive here are other than strictly legal ones. Legally, pre-trial detention is only permitted if there is a risk that the suspect will abscond, that he/she will pose a serious danger to public safety, or if it is necessary to establish the truth by methods other than by the suspect’s statement (Tak, 2008: 94). However, many police officers seem to interpret pre-trial detention as a first and provisional sentence. Some of the officers who were interviewed, want to use pre-trial detention as a measure to prevent the return of a suspect to the neighbourhood, resulting in social unrest or in an escalation of social conflicts. On the other hand, police officers also expect that citizens will not understand if a suspect is set free because pre-trial detention was not applied. They fear they will be confronted with general public indignation. Interviews show that many police officers find it hard to explain to citizens why this elementary need ‘to do justice’ was not met, probably also in part because they share the citizens’ feelings about the usual practices of pre-trial detention. 6. Police officers’ trust in criminal justice Half of the police officers (50%) in the Netherlands say that they do not have (much) trust in the criminal justice system (see Table 2). A comparable group of officers (40%) do not have (much) trust in the judges. Police officers’ trust in judges is even lower than among the general public in the Netherlands as measured in a national survey (Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek, 2010), 60 respectively 70%. The police officers trust the judges considerably less even than they trust the public prosecution service: almost two-thirds of the police officers (65%) state they do have (much) trust in the public prosecution service. The survey shows a close relation between the dissatisfaction of police officers with the criminal justice system and their lack of trust (r ¼ 0.437, p < 0.05). According to this survey, the trust of police officers in the state in general is quite low (42%), considerably lower than the trust of the general public in Parliament (59%), in civil service (51%), and in the police (70%) (Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek, 2010). This study also shows that the dissatisfaction of police officers with the criminal justice system is statistically associated with a low level of trust in state institutions in general. It is difficult to say how this relation should be interpreted: does dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system result in a low level of trust in the state in general, or does poor trust in the state make police officers more critical of criminal justice? Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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Table 2 Police officers’ trust in criminal justice (n ¼ 558)*. Questions and statements as presented to police officers
%
How much trust do you have in the criminal justice system in the Netherlands?
50.2: 49.8: 65.1: 35.0: 59.6: 40.2: 20.2: 40.1: 52.7: 11.0:
How much trust do you have in the Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands? How much trust do you have in the judges in the Netherlands? The Penal Code does not offer sufficient means for adequate criminal sanctions In practice, the criminal justice system does not adequately employ all means and sanctions of the Penal Code
(much) trust no(t much) trust (much) trust no(t much) trust (much) trust no(t much) trust agree (very much) disagree (very much) agree (very much) disagree (very much)
*: Formulations like ‘(much) trust’ or ‘agree (very much)’ mean that in the table two categories of answers from the questionnaire were taken together.
The critical views and dissatisfaction of police officers relate more closely to the practices in the criminal justice system than to the criminal law. Only small numbers of police officers (20%) believe that the criminal law provides insufficient means for adequate responses to crime. Larger numbers (53%) believe that the problem is instead that the available means provided by criminal law are not adequately used in practice. These findings raise the question whether police officers are alienated from the criminal law. Some of the dimensions of ‘legal alienation’ as distinguished by Hertogh (2011) can be found among police officers, such as feelings of legal powerlessness (the feeling that the officers cannot determine the outcomes of their work), a lack of knowledge and an overview of what is happening in the criminal justice system. However, the other elements of legal alienation as distinguished by Hertogh (2011) cannot be found among Netherlands’ police officers, such as a state of ‘normlessness’ or a value conflict. On the contrary, this study shows that if police officers criticize the criminal justice system, they often refer to the values of law and justice. Even if they are critical of the criminal justice system, they mostly continue to do their job in accordance with rules and procedures. The perceived lack of adequate criminal law responses to crime and disorder may mean that in some cases police officers try to create their own solutions to the problems with which they are confronted. If it proves hard to deal with a notorious delinquent because of a perceived lack of adequate criminal law measures or a lack of legal evidence, officers may opt for a rude treatment of this person or they may choose other sanctions, such as an ‘easy fine’ for a traffic offence. This study did not provide indications that extralegal practices are very prevalent in the Netherlands’ police. This is in contrast to what studies in other jurisdictions suggest, such as those of Skolnick (1966) and Westley (1970) in the U.S. or Fassin (2013: 198) in France. On the other hand, one should realize that both interviews and questionnaires may not the best methods to collect information about such practices.
7. Understanding police officers’ criticism Earlier studies suggested several factors and circumstances that might contribute to the critical views that police officers hold about the criminal justice system. To what extent are these and other factors relevant to understanding the Netherlands’ police officers’ views? Large numbers of the police officers say they have no (clear) idea about the practices of other actors and agencies in the wider criminal justice system. Many of them (45%) only have detailed information about the work of the police themselves. Only about one in ten officers says he/she is familiar with what judges do. Even among the officers working in criminal investigation, more than two-thirds (67%) say they have no clear view of the work of judges (see Table 3). In addition, there is no significant statistical relation between the degree to which police officers are critical of the criminal justice system and the information they have about it (F ¼ 0.566, sign. ¼ 0.637). This implies that the police officers’ negative perceptions of the system are mainly based on the images that they themselves have created, which are strongly influenced by rumours and story-telling (Van Hulst, 2013) that circulate among the officers. Many police officers are highly critical of the criminal justice system, despite the limited information they have about what the public prosecution service and especially the judges do in practice. This means that it is not their detailed knowledge of the wider criminal system that makes them so critical and negative. To a large degree it seems to be an effect of the cynical police subculture, a notion that can be found in the work of Niederhoffer as long ago as 1967. Nevertheless, this does not mean that police officers’ personal experiences of criminal justice failures are of no importance at all, as may be inferred from the significant relation between the critical opinions of officers and their personal experiences with the system (r ¼ 0.335, p < 0.01). In other words, if police officers have personally experienced the absence or failure of a criminal justice response, this may contribute to their negative perceptions and evaluation of the criminal justice system in general. Police officers’ critical opinions are closely related to their views about the functions of criminal law and criminal justice. They tend to use an instrumental perspective, placing great emphasis on what criminal law may contribute to crime control and the management of public order. They often emphasize the importance of two functions: deterrence and incapacitation. The rehabilitation of offenders is only mentioned by about a quarter of all officers (27%) as an important function of criminal Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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Table 3 Police officers’ knowledge of and views on functions of criminal law and criminal justice (n ¼ 558)*. Question and statements as presented to police officers
%
My knowledge of the criminal justice system is limited to the police only My knowledge of the criminal justice system not only concerns the police, but also the public prosecution service and the courts To what extent do you receive a feed-back from the Public Prosecution Agency about decisions made in criminal cases that you worked on? In the Netherlands the legal protection of the suspected person has negative consequences for doing justice
45.0 (yes) 10.9 (yes)
Judges have enough information about the context of the crimes they have to make a decision on
In criminal justice, the resocialization of delinquents should be a highly important issue
78.6 (never or only rarely) 84.5: agree (very much) 4.7: disagree (very much) 16.8: agree (very much) 48.4: disagree (very much) 26.9: agree (very much) 36.9: disagree (very much)
*: Formulations like ‘agree (very much)’ mean that in the table two categories of answers from the questionnaire were taken together.
justice. During the interviews the protection of suspects’ rights is hardly mentioned as an important function of criminal law and criminal justice. This suggests that there are important differences in perspective between police officers and members of the judiciary. The police officers’ main orientation is to find solutions for all kinds of problems, such as social disorder, social conflicts, feelings of insecurity, and crime. The core of police work is to find solutions for urgent and pressing problems, if necessary against the will of the citizens involved (Bittner, 1970). The interviews show that police officers often expect the criminal law to provide them with the means to solve these problems. They often rely on everyday moral notions of good versus bad. Motivated by these notions, they try to create what Sykes (1986) called street justice if formal solutions prove not to be effective or if they feel that their authority was challenged (Van Maanen, 1978; Klockars, 1986). These notions of street justice may differ considerably from the notions of justice as used in criminal law and criminal justice. This implies that the difference in perspectives between police officers and judges are not the same as the conceptual dichotomy between crime control and due process (Packer, 1964; Skolnick, 1966). The unease and dissatisfaction of police officers with the criminal justice system should not be dismissed as only an instrumental view held by the crime controllers. Their dissatisfaction also reflects their moral commitment to find solutions to urgent problems, to protect vulnerable citizens, and to restore justice. This interpretation is in line with the findings of Moskos (2008) and Fekjær et al. (2014), who showed that the perspectives of police officers are closely related to the problems that confront them in their daily work. Many police officers realize that a lack of adequate criminal law responses to crime may partly be caused by factors within the police force. Lack of resources, inadequate priorities, and a poor quality of police work (such as incomplete police reports and files, and an inadequate presentation of evidential information) may mean that both public prosecutors and judges are not able to make the decisions that police officers expect or wish them to do (Moskos, 2008; Fassin, 2013). Finally, police officers’ dissatisfaction may also be related to the poor coordination and cooperation between the police and other criminal justice agencies (De Vries, 2001). Despite many policy measures to promote this cooperation in the Netherlands over roughly the past fifteen years, the feedback information given by the public prosecution service to the police is still rather poor, especially in cases of petty crime. More than three of every four police officers (79%) feels that they never or only rarely get feed-back information from the public prosecution service about criminal cases they have been working on. Much of the dissatisfaction of police officers is related to the distance between the police and the judiciary, not only in an organizational, but also in a social and cultural sense. Many police officers complain that public prosecutors and particularly judges are often not well informed about the context of the crimes they have to make a decision about, such as for instance problems in disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Table 3). This is not only a consequence of a lack of detailed knowledge about the context of crime. It is also suggested that members of the judiciary (especially judges) do not have the ‘street knowledge’ that experienced police officers claim to have. As a result, in the police officers’ perception, the members of the judiciary do not have the necessary sense and intuition to understand the atmosphere, context and seriousness of the problems that confront police officers. 8. Concluding remarks This study shows that critical views and dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system are extremely prevalent among police officers in the Netherlands. As a result, many police officers have a low level of trust in the judiciary. Our study demonstrates that many of the findings of Skolnick in the U.S. in the 1960s are still relevant today, even in such a different cultural, social and legal context as the Netherlands of the 2010s. To a significant degree, the police officers’ critical perceptions and evaluations result from differences in perspective between the police and the wider criminal justice system. This is not only a question of the police as crime controllers versus the judiciary as the ‘owners’ of due process values (Packer, 1964). The notion of street justice (Sykes, 1986) is important to understand the moral involvement of police officers, Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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which may contribute to the frustrations of police officers and their negative views on how criminal justice operates in practice. On the other hand, this study also shows that it is not only the police officers’ experience of specific failures of criminal justice that is relevant in this respect, but also that a cynical police subculture may contribute to the officers’ negative views about the way the prosecution and judges respond to crime and disorder. Other factors may even exacerbate the seriousness of the perceived problems, such as the lack of cooperation and coordination between the police and other criminal justice agencies, the social distance between the police and the judiciary, and the lack of feedback to the police. In our view the negative, and often also fatalistic and cynical views of many police officers about how criminal law operates in practice, should be a reason for concern. In the long run the legitimacy of the criminal justice system may be impaired if police officers e as the front line workers of criminal justice e no longer believe in its practical operation. This study did not find strong evidence of extralegal practices among the Netherlands’ police officers as a consequence of their cynicism about criminal justice. Nevertheless, if police officers do not trust the judiciary and feel that the criminal justice system does not support them in their daily work, they might decide to create their own strategies, which may conflict with legal rules and the rights of suspected citizens. As a result, these informal strategies may create new problems with even more serious consequences. Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. References Bayley, D.H., 1994. Police for the Future. Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford. Bittner, E., 1970. The Functions of the Police in Modern Society. A Review of Background Factors, Current Practices, and Possible Role Models. Cambridge (Mass.): Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain. Bosmans, M., Pemberton, A., 2012. Straftoemeting bij geweld tegen kwalificerende slachtoffers: een replicatiestudie. Intervict, Tilburg. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2010. Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek 2010. Available at: http://statline.cbs.nl/statline. Chen, G., Einat, T., 2015. The relationship between criminology studies and punitive attitudes. Eur. J. Criminol. 12 (2), 169e187. De Vries, M., 2001. Improving Police Performance. An Analysis of the Influence of Inter-organisational Tuning the Police and the Public Prosecution Service on Police Productivity in the Netherlands. IPIT, Enschede. Duffy, B., Wake, R., Burrows, T., Bremner, O., 2008. Closing the gaps. Crime and public perceptions. Int. Rev. Law Comput. Technol. 22 (1e2), 17e44. Ericson, R., 1982. Reproducing Order: a Study of Police Patrol Work. University of Toronto Press, Toronto. Fassin, D., 2013. Enforcing Order. An Ethnography of Urban Policing. Polity Press, Cambridge. Fekjær, S.B., Petersson, O., Thomassen, G., 2014. From legalist tot Dirty Harry: police recruits’ attitudes towards non-legalistic police practice. Eur. J. Criminol. 11 (6), 745e759. Fielding, N.G., Fielding, J., 1991. Police attitudes to crime and punishment: certainties and dilemmas. Br. J. Criminol. 31 (1), 39e53. Furnham, A., Alison, L., 1994. Theories of crime, attitudes to punishment and juror bias amongst police, offenders and the general public. Personal. Individ. Differ. 17 (1), 35e48. Giddens, A., 1984. The Constitution of Society. Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge. Hertogh, M., 2011. Loyalists, cynics and outsiders: who are the critics of the justice system in the UK and the Netherlands? Int. J. Law Context 7 (1), 31e46. Jacobs, P., Van Kampen, P.T.C., 2014. Dutch ‘ZSM settlements’ in the face of procedural justice: the sooner the better? Utrecht Law Rev. 10 (4), 73e85. Klockars, C.B., 1986. Street justice: some micro-moral reservations: comment on sykes. Justice Q. 3 (4), 513e516. Kort, J., Fedorova, M.I., Terpstra, J.B., 2014. Politiemensen over Het strafrecht.Apeldoorn: Politie & Wetenschap. Loftus, B., 2009. Police Culture in a Changing World. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Marshall, J., Mansson, H., 1966. Punitiveness, recall, and the police. J. Res. Crime 3 (2), 129e139. McConville, M., Sanders, A., Leng, R., 1991. The Case for the Prosecution. Routledge, London. Moskos, P., 2008. Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District. Princeton University Press, Princeton. Niederhoffer, A., 1967. Behind the Shield: the Police in Urban Society. Doubleday, Garden City, N.Y. rez, J., 1992. An assessment of the attitudes towards crime among professionals in the criminal justice system. Br. J. Criminol. 32 (2), Ortet-Fabregat, G., Pe 193e207. Packer, H.L., 1964. Two Models of the Criminal Process. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, pp. 1e68. November. Punch, M., 1979. Policing the Inner City: a Study of Amsterdam’s Warmoesstraat. MacMillan, London. Reiner, R., 2010. The Politics of the Police, fourth ed. Oxford University Press, Oxford. Rubinstein, J., 1973. City Police. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York. Schütz, A., 1932. Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt: eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie. Springer, Vienna. Skolnick, J.H., 1966. Justice without Trial. Law Enforcement in a Democratic Society. Wiley, New York. Sykes, G.W., 1986. Street justice: a moral defense of order maintenance policing. Justice Q. 3 (4), 497e512. Tak, P.J.P., 2008. The Dutch Criminal Justice System. Wolf Legal Publishers, Nijmegen. Terpstra, J.B., Schaap, D., 2013. Police culture, stress conditions and working styles. Eur. J. Criminol. 10 (1), 59e73. Van Hulst, M., 2013. Storytelling at the police station. The canteen culture revisited. Br. J. Criminol. 53 (4), 624e642. Van Kempen, P.H., 2009. The protection of human rights in criminal law procedure in The Netherlands. Electron. J. Comp. Law 13 (2), 1e37. Van Maanen, J., 1978. The asshole. In: Manning, P.K., Van Maanen, J. (Eds.), Policing: a View from the Street. Goodyear Publishing Company, Santa Monica, CA, pp. 221e238. Westley, W., 1970. Violence and the Police. MIT Press, Cambridge. White, S.O., 1972. A perspective on police professionalization. Law Soc. Rev. 7 (Fall), 61e85. Worden, R.E., 1995. Police officers belief systems: a framework for analysis. Am. J. Police 14 (1), 49e80.
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Police officers’ trust in criminal justice* Jan Terpstra*, Jelle Kort University of Nijmegen, Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law & Criminology, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history: Received 11 January 2016 Received in revised form 19 April 2016 Accepted 3 May 2016 Available online xxx
This study attempts to gain a clearer view of police officers’ beliefs about criminal justice and the factors that may contribute to their lack of trust in it. It is based on both qualitative interviews and an electronic survey of police officers in the Netherlands. The study shows that Netherlands’ police officers are generally highly critical of the criminal justice system. They complain that prosecutors and judges frequently let them down. Their negative views concentrate on the practices of criminal evidence, sentencing, and pre-trial detention. The negative views of police officers do not only result from their experience of specific failures of criminal justice, but also reflect a cynical police subculture. The notion of street justice may be important to understand the officers’ frustrations and their negative views on the practices of public prosecutors and the courts. © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords: Police Criminal justice Trust Street justice
1. Introduction Although police activities are only to a limited degree related to criminal law enforcement and criminal investigation (Bayley, 1994; Bittner, 1970; Ericson, 1982; Reiner, 2010), the police nevertheless have an important function in the criminal justice system. In many cases the police exert a great influence on decisions about which persons will be treated as suspects and will enter the criminal justice system. Moreover, the public prosecution service and the courts are highly dependent on how the police construct their cases and present information about them (McConville et al., 1991). The important role of the police in the criminal justice system prompts the very relevant question of how police officers perceive the practice of criminal law and the operations of the wider criminal justice system. This issue was analysed in great detail by Skolnick (1966) in his now classical study on Justice without Trial. In the 1960s in the United States Skolnick found that police officers are often very frustrated with the criminal justice system. In their view the system was not very effective in offering ‘justice’. They complained that cases are too often postponed, an important point which, in their view, ‘interferes with the purpose and outcome of their duties.’ Many police officers also feel that ‘judges are too lenient’ and that defence lawyers have too great an opportunity to frustrate the criminal justice process. Police officers also criticize ‘the “reasonableness” and “intelligence” of judges, sometimes expressing wonderment at how such wrongheaded men could rise to high positions of authority’ (Skolnick, 1966: 182e233). Given the importance of this issue to our understanding of the practices of policing and criminal justice, it comes as something of a surprise that since Skolnick’s work not much systematic attention has been paid to this issue in empirical research. Insofar as researchers dealt with the issue, it was often treated as of only minor importance, and often referred to
* This paper is based on a study funded by the Netherlands’ Foundation of Police & Science (Politie & Wetenschap), published in Dutch: Kort et al. (2014). * Corresponding author. University of Nijmegen, Faculty of Law, PO Box 9049, 6500 KK Nijmegen, The Netherlands. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Terpstra).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001 1756-0616/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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only indirectly. Still, this is a highly relevant issue. If police officers would lose their faith in how the criminal justice system operates, on the long run this may not only undermine its effectiveness and credibility, but police officers might be inclined to create their own informal strategies to do justice, with the risk of some negative side-effects. For that reason, we deal here with the issue of police officers’ views of criminal justice. This paper concentrates on two questions. First, what are the views of police officers about the criminal justice system? By answering this question we can ascertain to what extent the critical views as depicted by Skolnick can be found in contemporary policing and in another national and cultural context. Secondly, which factors contribute to the police officers’ views of criminal justice? The paper is based on an empirical study of police officers’ views of criminal justice in the Netherlands. First, the paper deals with the most relevant studies on this issue before going on to briefly present the research methods used, and an overview of the police and criminal justice system in the Netherlands. Finally, the main findings of this study are analysed in relation to police officers’ views of the criminal justice system and the factors that contribute to their (dis)trust of it. 2. Previous studies Any discussion of existing research on police officers’ views about criminal law and criminal justice should start with the classic study of Skolnick (1966). In his view, the principal problem of the police in a democratic society consists of the tension between effectiveness and legality: ‘the principle of legality places an unceasing burden upon the police’ (Skolnick, 1966: 6). The empirical part of his study focuses on the question of how police officers perceive the conflict between the obligations of maintaining order and complying with the rule of law. A central concept in his analysis is ‘the policeman’s working personality’. This refers to the ‘distinctive cognitive tendencies in police as an occupational grouping’ (Skolnick, 1966: 42). This working personality is understood as a reaction to the two main problems that confront police officers in their daily work: ‘danger’ and ‘authority’ (Skolnick, 1966: 44). Important elements of this working personality are: suspicion of dangers and risks, social isolation, solidarity with colleagues, and conservatism, both in a political and an emotional sense. Following Packer (1964), Skolnick distinguished two models of criminal justice, due process and crime control. In practice, police officers are often drawn towards the crime control model (Skolnick, 1966: 182e183). As a result they often perceive legal requirements as impeding their work, which is why many police officers feel frustrated by how the criminal justice system operates (in their view). In contrast to the legal presumption of ‘innocent until proven guilty’, police officers (who define themselves as specialist craftsmen in crime control) believe they are able to decide who is guilty of crime. Legal conditions are perceived as ‘needless restrictions’, hindering police officers from doing their job (Skolnick, 1966: 202e203). Several other studies over the past five decades have resulted in comparable findings. First, we deal with some ethnographic studies (with police culture as a common central concept), then some studies on policing styles are presented, and finally the result of a couple of quantitative studies are presented. To start with the ethnographic studies, Rubinstein (1973: 368e369, 398e401), in his study of the Philadelphia Police Department, concluded that the police had been given ‘an impossible responsibility’. In his view the police are not able to prevent crime and have no control over the sources of crime. Nevertheless, citizens expect police officers to protect them and to restore justice. Police officers were often greatly disappointed with the courts’ decisions. As a result, police officers often criticized the courts and the penal system, feeling obliged to break the law to do ‘what they must’. Comparable conclusions were found by Moskos (2008) in his study of Baltimore police officers. Many of them did not believe in the effectiveness of their tactics to do something about the problem of drug-related crime. Some officers blamed the Constitution for limiting their abilities to do something about the crime problem; they believed that criminals have too many rights. An important factor leading to conflicts between the Baltimore police officers and the court was a difference of perspective: the officers’ definition of a cause for arrest differed considerably from the judicial standard of reasonable suspicion. While police officers are interested in arresting criminals, the prosecution agencies seek to have ‘winnable cases and (to) reduce their caseload’. Practical and organizational factors are also relevant here: many of the cases presented by the police are hard to win because of the poorly written police reports, reluctant witnesses, or a lack of information (Moskos, 2008: 86, 128e129). Instead of Skolnick’s concept of the police working personality, other studies used the closely related notion of police (sub) culture as an analytic framework. Police officers’ views of the criminal law and criminal justice system have been interpreted as reflecting the police culture, especially the cynicism that is seen as a deep-rooted, core characteristic of the cop culture (Reiner, 2010). This notion had already been explored by Niederhoffer in the 1960s. According to him ‘cynicism is an ideological plank deeply entrenched in the ethos of the police world’ (Niederhoffer, 1967: 9). This cynicism was seen as the main factor contributing to the officers’ negative view of the criminal justice system: ‘the legal system affords too much protection to evildoers and hamstrings the forces of law and order’ (Niederhoffer, 1967: 152). This notion cropped up again in Loftus’ analysis (2009) of the cultural changes in an English police service. She argued that the ‘profoundly cynical and pessimistic view’ of police officers is, inter alia, directed towards the law and the wider criminal justice system. As a result, the courts were strongly criticized by the officers for ‘excessively favouring the criminal and eroding all the painstaking work officers put in to keep “the streets” safe’. Police officers also have an aversion to defence lawyers who, in their view, often frustrate their work. Many of the officers become strong advocates of a more punitive policy, including death penalties and boot camps (Loftus, 2009: 105e108). The relevance of these findings to other jurisdictions is not entirely clear. We might expect significant differences in police culture between different countries. For instance, in their electronic survey of Dutch police officers Terpstra and Schaap (2013) Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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found that cynicism is less prevalent among these officers than was often encountered in studies of the English and American police. This may be in line with what Punch (1979: 188) found: the officers of the Amsterdam inner-city police did not have the mistrust and disillusion with law-enforcement that often characterized the cynical American police culture, but still there was a ‘sour litany (-) about judicial decisions’. Studies using typologies of policing styles show considerable differences in police officers’ views, including those on criminal justice. For instance, White (1972) found negative and pessimistic views on criminal justice mainly among two of the four types of police officers he distinguished, the ‘tough cops’ and the ‘crime-fighters’. The tough cop is ‘particularly susceptible to angry resentment toward legal norms’ while the crime-fighter is said to be ‘resentful of any limitation on the police role (-) in terms of specific legal restraints’ (White, 1972: 71e75). A similar typology is presented by Worden (1995). Both the ‘tough cops’ and the ‘clean-beat crime fighters’ believe that ‘legal restrictions do more harm than good.’ Especially the crime-fighters feel frustrated by due process procedures and regulations (Worden, 1995: 57e60). In his study of a Paris anti-crime squad, Fassin (2013) found a serious gap between police officers’ views and the decisions made by judges. In many cases judges differed from the officers in their views of a suspect’s guilt. Police officers felt that they were working ‘with no purpose’: ‘We catch thieves, and judges set them free.’ Police officers also assumed that ‘more credence’ was given to criminals than to sworn officers. Many officers believed that ‘judges do not render justice, they feel they have the right to take the law into their own hands.’ What police officers often do not see, according to Fassin, is that the decisions of the judges are not a matter of leniency, but a consequence of the fact that they cannot decide otherwise due to the weakness of the criminal evidence and the inconsistencies and incompleteness of the police reports (Fassin, 2013: 196e197). Relevant quantitative studies often focus on the question whether police officers have more punitive attitudes than the general public or members of other professions. Several studies, conducted in different jurisdictions and at different times, showed that police officers are relatively more punitive in their orientation (Chen and Einat, 2015; Furnham and Alison, 1994; rez, 1992; Marshall and Mansson, 1966). According to Duffy et al. (2008: 34e36) the punitive orienOrtet-Fabregat and Pe tation of many police officers is often similar to what broad segments of the general public believe: not enough offenders are brought to justice, and they are not appropriately punished. In several of these quantitative studies punitive attitudes are seen as a consequence of the role and specific tasks of police officers (Fielding and Fielding, 1991; Furnham and Alison, 1994). According to the study of Fekjær et al. (2014), young police recruits in Sweden learned to adopt a more legalistic perspective during their academic training, but after some time they became more positive towards ‘non-legalistic’ police practices. Many of these young officers believed that if the law is inadequate, it is acceptable for the police to punish those who are viewed as obviously guilty. This finding closely resembles the analysis of Skolnick (1966) concerning ‘justice without trial’. It also is more or less similar to what police officers themselves call ‘street justice’ (Van Maanen, 1978; Sykes, 1986): in case formal institutions ‘fail’, police officers often use their discretion to mete out justice on their own initiative. In conclusion, both quantitative and qualitative studies from different jurisdictions and periods show that considerable numbers of police officers are highly critical of the wider criminal justice system. These studies also suggest a diversity of factors that contribute to these views. Several researchers assume that it is the experience of specific failures of the criminal justice system that causes police officers to adopt negative and unfavourable views (for instance Skolnick, 1966; Rubinstein, 1973; Fassin, 2013). Other studies argue that it is not so much the experience of specific cases, but a more general cynical (sub)culture that makes police officers highly critical of the wider criminal justice system. For instance, Niederhoffer (1967: 163e164) concludes: ‘the real threat is not the shackling of law enforcement, but the probable reinforcement of cynicism among policemen.’ This interpretation can also be found in the analysis of Loftus (2009). A somewhat similar analysis states that it is not only a question of a cynical (sub)culture, but (additionally) a difference in perspectives between on the one hand police officers and on the other criminal law and the judiciary (Sykes, 1986). Moskos (2008) and Fekjær et al. (2014) interpret the police officers’ perspective as related to the challenges and exigencies of daily police work. Some studies also refer to police officers’ lack of knowledge and skills. Police officers may blame the court for not doing its job, but they may not be aware of the fact that their own reports and information may fail to meet the conditions for an effective prosecution or a sentence by the court (Moskos, 2008; Fassin, 2013). The police officers’ negative views may also derive from a lack of cooperation and coordination between the police and the other agencies in the criminal justice system, especially the public prosecution service (De Vries, 2001). Researchers may use combinations of these factors to explain the negative views of police officers about the wider criminal justice system. A more comprehensive study of these factors has been absent until now. 3. The police and the criminal justice system in the Netherlands In the Netherlands the police, the public prosecution service, and the courts are the main institutions of the criminal justice system (Tak, 2008). The National Police force was established in the Netherlands in January 2013, replacing the former regionalized police structure. The establishment of the new structure did not change the authority over the Netherlands’ police. Where the enforcement of the criminal law (including criminal investigation) is concerned, the police have to operate under the authority of the public prosecution service. This implies that the public prosecutor has the power to issue instructions to the police for the enforcement of the criminal law. The public prosecutor has to share his authority over the police with the mayor, who has authority over the (local) police in relation to the enforcement of public order and the service tasks performed by the police. Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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Although the public prosecutor has the formal responsibility for criminal investigation, in practice the police have considerable discretion. The public prosecutor will often only be involved directly in cases of serious and complex crime. In cases of petty crime there is usually no prior consultation with the public prosecutor. The recent introduction of ‘ZSM’ (literally: ASAP, As Soon As Possible, a policy aimed at promoting the rapid disposal of criminal cases), involved the public prosecutors more directly in the investigation of petty crime (Jacobs and Van Kampen, 2014). The public prosecution service is a national organization. Although the Minister of Security & Justice has (political) responsibility for it, the public prosecution service is generally seen as independent from the Minister in its decisions on individual cases. Prosecutors in the Netherlands are members of the judiciary. The Netherlands has only professional judges. There is no jury system and (with some minor exceptions) no participation by lay persons in the criminal jurisdiction. Criminal offences are dealt with by courts at three levels: eleven district courts, four courts of appeal, and at the highest level the Supreme Court (Tak, 2008). As opposed to the Anglo-American adversarial systems of criminal justice, most continental European countries have inquisitorial systems. However, the criminal justice system in the Netherlands has been typified as having an intermediate position between accusatorial and inquisitorial systems (Tak, 2008: 29e30; Van Kempen, 2009: 16). According to Van Kempen (2009), the Netherlands system is largely inquisitorial in its pre-trial phases and moderately accusatory and adversarial in its trial proceedings.
4. Research methods The present study was carried out in four regional units of the Netherlands’ national police force. Two different methods were used to collect data. First, open interviews were held with 28 police officers, who were mainly working as patrol officers, neighbourhood officers or criminal investigators at local police stations in the four regional units (with both rural and urban areas). The 28 officers were selected by staff officers who were asked to give the names of several sworn officers, at different positions and working in different teams. These interviews focused on the question of how police officers perceived the criminal justice system and to what extent they trusted the public prosecution service and the courts. These open interviews took on average 60 min. Secondly, an electronic questionnaire was sent to 1600 police officers, consisting of four random samples of 400 sworn officers working at the four different regional units mentioned before. The items in this questionnaire were based on the 28 open interviews we had already conducted. The officers were asked about their views on how the criminal justice system operates, their trust in criminal justice agencies, their opinions about criminal sanctions, how often they were personally involved in cases where certain problems occurred, and the consequences of such problems for their work. A number of 710 police officers returned the questionnaire. However, only a total of 558 police officers completed the full questionnaire. Questionnaires that were not fully completed, were not used in the analysis. The main reason for this is that in the great majority of these cases police officers stopped filling in the questionnaire after only a small number of questions. This implies that the following analysis is only about the 558 officers mentioned before, a response rate of 35 percent. A comparison between the sample and the non-response group or the group with the incomplete questionnaires is not possible, due to a lack of information on the relevant (demographic) variables. More than half of the respondents were between 5 and 15 years at the police. The numbers of patrol officers, community officers and detectives who completed the questionnaire were comparable, each category comprising about 30 percent of the whole sample. The other about ten percent consisted of police officers with other operational tasks. The interviews were conducted in the autumn of 2012, the survey in the spring and summer of 2013. During that period of fieldwork the National Police system was introduced in the Netherlands. We did not find any clear indication that this transition may have had an impact on the results of this study, except for the fact that the rather low response rate may have been a consequence of the unrest among police officers caused by this process of restructuring of the Netherlands’ police force. In the following sections, data are used from both the open interviews and the survey. The open interviews were not only helpful to explore this topic, but also provided more detailed views and understanding of the processes and meanings that were underlying the answers of police officers given to the survey questions. If in the following sections numbers and percentages are mentioned, they are always based on the survey. In other cases the information about the views of police officers is usually based on the open interviews.
5. Police officers’ views of criminal justice Both the interviews with the 28 police officers and the outcomes of the questionnaire show that large numbers of Netherlands police officers are dissatisfied with the criminal justice system. Many of them feel that in practice criminal procedures do not fit in with their daily work. The dissatisfaction and criticism of police officers concentrate on three main issues: evidence, sanctions, and pre-trial detention.
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5.1. Evidence About 58% of the police officers stated that during the past six months they had been working on a case in which, in their view, the suspected person was unjustly acquitted (see Table 1). Many police officers (51%) believe that the courts make too high demands on criminal evidence. This is closely related to how police officers often judge the suspects’ guilt. As was also found by Skolnick (1966: 182e203), police officers tend to think in terms not of legal, but of ‘factual’ guilt. This notion is based on probabilistic reasoning with typifications (Schütz, 1932) being used to interpret guilt or innocence: for instance, the presence of a (certain type of) person, at a particular moment at a particular place, may be sufficient to convince a police officer of a suspects’ guilt, even if direct evidence in a legal sense is absent. Other phenomena may also be viewed in probabilistic terms, such as a suspect who remains silent during a police interrogation. This is likely to be interpreted as an indication that the person must be guilty: otherwise, he would have no reason to keep silent. Police officers often use what they call ‘street knowledge’. This is not so much a matter of a stock of ‘factual’ knowledge, but an interpretation of social reality consisting of meanings and normative schemes (Giddens, 1984). This street knowledge is very much rooted in practical experiences and is informally shared between colleagues. It may be helpful in understanding daily police practices and is used to recognize risks and potential offenders. Street knowledge may support officers to cope with the need to work under time pressure. It instructs police officers how to conduct themselves in certain situations and how to deal with different types of persons (Skolnick, 1966; Rubinstein, 1973). Representatives of the judiciary do not have this street knowledge. Police officers often see this as a main factor contributing to the problems they perceive. In the view of the police, members of the judiciary are often naive, they underestimate the seriousness of problems and do not understand the social impact of crime and disorder because they have not directly experienced daily life in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. They are accused of taking suspects’ stories at face value. In the police officers’ view, members of the judiciary are acting at too great a distance and often maintain a strict legal perspective. As a result, many police officers (71%) feel that the demands made on criminal evidence operate as an unnecessary barrier to justice. Their interpretation, involvement and feelings of justice lead police officers to feel that they judge matters of guilt and evidence differently from public prosecutors and judges. They often refer to the discrepancy between citizens’ feelings of justice and arguments based on criminal law. In their role as front line officers of the criminal justice system, they are confronted with the citizens’ dissatisfaction with the outcomes of criminal proceedings. Many officers find it hard to explain these discrepancies to citizens.
5.2. Sanctions An overwhelming majority of the police officers (85%) in the Netherlands state that in their view the sentences imposed by judges are generally too light (Table 1). The survey revealed that more than half of the police officers (58%) feel that this makes it difficult for them to do their work. Police officers are especially critical of the sanctions imposed in cases of petty crime, such as shoplifting, car break-ins, and dealing in drugs. Their dissatisfaction and disapproval concentrate on repeat offenders and certain groups of juvenile delinquents. In their view, recidivists, such as drug-addicts who are repeatedly involved in all kinds of petty crime, should be punished more severely. Special measures for drug-addicted repeat offenders, such as a two-year confinement (the so-called ISD measure), should be applied more often and at an earlier stage. Many police officers feel that the current ‘lenient’ sanctions mean that the criminal law generally fails to deter criminals. Police officers think that some Table 1 Police officers’ views of criminal justice (n ¼ 558)*. Questions and statements as presented to police officers
Answers %
Sentences for crime are too soft Sometimes during the past six months, have you worked on a case where in your view the suspected person was unjustly acquitted? Because many criminal law reactions fail, it is difficult for police officers to do their work properly
84.8 (agree very much) 57.7 (yes)
71.0 (agree (very much)) For police officers it is difficult to do their work because in many criminal cases there are no criminal law reactions 56.2 (agree (very much)) Criminal justice fails to provide adequate responses to cases of violence against public officials 54.8 (yes) In many cases, the decision by the criminal court corresponds with my personal view on what should be decided 71.0 (disagree (very much)) In general, the judges use standards for criminal evidence that are too strict 50.9 (agree (very much)) There should be more long-term community sanctions 47.6 (agree (very much)) Have you for the past six months worked on a criminal case where in your view the examining judge unjustly refused an order 40.7 (yes) to remand in custody? *: ‘Agree (very much)’ means that the question concerned had four categories of answers: disagree very much, disagree, agree, and agree very much and that here the two latter answers are taken together.
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categories of juvenile delinquents are much more, and more seriously involved in crime than judges often seem to assume. They wonder if in such cases it is right to apply juvenile criminal law. There is great discontent about sanctions for violence against public officials, including police officers. More than half of the police officers (55%) feel that in such cases the criminal law sanctions are generally too mild. This is remarkable because the Netherlands’ judges already impose more severe sentences in those cases than when violence against ordinary citizens is involved (Bosmans and Pemberton, 2012). Although many police officers do not oppose the sanction of community service (a form of community sentence) in general, there is nevertheless much dissatisfaction, especially about their appropriateness and severity. Once again, police officers feel that many criminals do not seem to be greatly impressed by these community sanctions. As a result, only a small group of police officers (18%) think that the sanction of community service should be used more frequently. Almost half of all police officers (48%) think that the community service should be imposed for longer periods. There is one exception to the police officers’ general view that sentences should be more severe. In case of traffic offences such as exceeding the speed limit, driving through a red light, or parking offences, police officers think that the penalties imposed are too harsh, especially as compared to criminal law sanctions. It is quite remarkable that many police officers seem to judge the severity of sanctions by looking, inter alia, to the amount of time they have to spend to establish the criminal fact and for the necessary administrative process. 5.3. Pre-trial detention Much of the police officers’ dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system concentrates on the use of pre-trial detention. In the Netherlands, detention by the police after arrest may last up to six hours, during which the detainee may be interrogated by the police (fifteen hours if it includes a night). After expiry of this term, the suspect has to be released or taken into police custody (inverzekeringstelling). The decision about police custody should be taken by the public prosecutor or the assistant prosecutor (a senior police officer). After the expiry of the period of police custody (which lasts a maximum of six days), the suspect has to be released or the examining judge can order a remand in custody (bewaring) at the request of the public prosecutor. This is the first phase of the pre-trial detention (voorlopige hechtenis), with a maximum term of 14 days (Tak, 2008: 91e95). Police officers often feel frustrated if they think it is necessary to keep the suspect at the police station for a longer period than six days, but the public prosecutor refuses to request pre-trial detention, or the examining judge decides not to order it. Almost half the police officers (41%) say that during the last six months they had been working on a case where in their view the examining judge unjustly refused an order to remand in custody. One police officer in four had been working on a case where the public prosecutor refused a request to remand in custody, even when, in their view, that would have been necessary. Although police officers realize that there are legal conditions for the use of pre-trial detention, many of them think this measure should be used more often. The interviews show that the arguments that are decisive here are other than strictly legal ones. Legally, pre-trial detention is only permitted if there is a risk that the suspect will abscond, that he/she will pose a serious danger to public safety, or if it is necessary to establish the truth by methods other than by the suspect’s statement (Tak, 2008: 94). However, many police officers seem to interpret pre-trial detention as a first and provisional sentence. Some of the officers who were interviewed, want to use pre-trial detention as a measure to prevent the return of a suspect to the neighbourhood, resulting in social unrest or in an escalation of social conflicts. On the other hand, police officers also expect that citizens will not understand if a suspect is set free because pre-trial detention was not applied. They fear they will be confronted with general public indignation. Interviews show that many police officers find it hard to explain to citizens why this elementary need ‘to do justice’ was not met, probably also in part because they share the citizens’ feelings about the usual practices of pre-trial detention. 6. Police officers’ trust in criminal justice Half of the police officers (50%) in the Netherlands say that they do not have (much) trust in the criminal justice system (see Table 2). A comparable group of officers (40%) do not have (much) trust in the judges. Police officers’ trust in judges is even lower than among the general public in the Netherlands as measured in a national survey (Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek, 2010), 60 respectively 70%. The police officers trust the judges considerably less even than they trust the public prosecution service: almost two-thirds of the police officers (65%) state they do have (much) trust in the public prosecution service. The survey shows a close relation between the dissatisfaction of police officers with the criminal justice system and their lack of trust (r ¼ 0.437, p < 0.05). According to this survey, the trust of police officers in the state in general is quite low (42%), considerably lower than the trust of the general public in Parliament (59%), in civil service (51%), and in the police (70%) (Nationaal Kiezersonderzoek, 2010). This study also shows that the dissatisfaction of police officers with the criminal justice system is statistically associated with a low level of trust in state institutions in general. It is difficult to say how this relation should be interpreted: does dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system result in a low level of trust in the state in general, or does poor trust in the state make police officers more critical of criminal justice? 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Table 2 Police officers’ trust in criminal justice (n ¼ 558)*. Questions and statements as presented to police officers
%
How much trust do you have in the criminal justice system in the Netherlands?
50.2: 49.8: 65.1: 35.0: 59.6: 40.2: 20.2: 40.1: 52.7: 11.0:
How much trust do you have in the Public Prosecution Service in the Netherlands? How much trust do you have in the judges in the Netherlands? The Penal Code does not offer sufficient means for adequate criminal sanctions In practice, the criminal justice system does not adequately employ all means and sanctions of the Penal Code
(much) trust no(t much) trust (much) trust no(t much) trust (much) trust no(t much) trust agree (very much) disagree (very much) agree (very much) disagree (very much)
*: Formulations like ‘(much) trust’ or ‘agree (very much)’ mean that in the table two categories of answers from the questionnaire were taken together.
The critical views and dissatisfaction of police officers relate more closely to the practices in the criminal justice system than to the criminal law. Only small numbers of police officers (20%) believe that the criminal law provides insufficient means for adequate responses to crime. Larger numbers (53%) believe that the problem is instead that the available means provided by criminal law are not adequately used in practice. These findings raise the question whether police officers are alienated from the criminal law. Some of the dimensions of ‘legal alienation’ as distinguished by Hertogh (2011) can be found among police officers, such as feelings of legal powerlessness (the feeling that the officers cannot determine the outcomes of their work), a lack of knowledge and an overview of what is happening in the criminal justice system. However, the other elements of legal alienation as distinguished by Hertogh (2011) cannot be found among Netherlands’ police officers, such as a state of ‘normlessness’ or a value conflict. On the contrary, this study shows that if police officers criticize the criminal justice system, they often refer to the values of law and justice. Even if they are critical of the criminal justice system, they mostly continue to do their job in accordance with rules and procedures. The perceived lack of adequate criminal law responses to crime and disorder may mean that in some cases police officers try to create their own solutions to the problems with which they are confronted. If it proves hard to deal with a notorious delinquent because of a perceived lack of adequate criminal law measures or a lack of legal evidence, officers may opt for a rude treatment of this person or they may choose other sanctions, such as an ‘easy fine’ for a traffic offence. This study did not provide indications that extralegal practices are very prevalent in the Netherlands’ police. This is in contrast to what studies in other jurisdictions suggest, such as those of Skolnick (1966) and Westley (1970) in the U.S. or Fassin (2013: 198) in France. On the other hand, one should realize that both interviews and questionnaires may not the best methods to collect information about such practices.
7. Understanding police officers’ criticism Earlier studies suggested several factors and circumstances that might contribute to the critical views that police officers hold about the criminal justice system. To what extent are these and other factors relevant to understanding the Netherlands’ police officers’ views? Large numbers of the police officers say they have no (clear) idea about the practices of other actors and agencies in the wider criminal justice system. Many of them (45%) only have detailed information about the work of the police themselves. Only about one in ten officers says he/she is familiar with what judges do. Even among the officers working in criminal investigation, more than two-thirds (67%) say they have no clear view of the work of judges (see Table 3). In addition, there is no significant statistical relation between the degree to which police officers are critical of the criminal justice system and the information they have about it (F ¼ 0.566, sign. ¼ 0.637). This implies that the police officers’ negative perceptions of the system are mainly based on the images that they themselves have created, which are strongly influenced by rumours and story-telling (Van Hulst, 2013) that circulate among the officers. Many police officers are highly critical of the criminal justice system, despite the limited information they have about what the public prosecution service and especially the judges do in practice. This means that it is not their detailed knowledge of the wider criminal system that makes them so critical and negative. To a large degree it seems to be an effect of the cynical police subculture, a notion that can be found in the work of Niederhoffer as long ago as 1967. Nevertheless, this does not mean that police officers’ personal experiences of criminal justice failures are of no importance at all, as may be inferred from the significant relation between the critical opinions of officers and their personal experiences with the system (r ¼ 0.335, p < 0.01). In other words, if police officers have personally experienced the absence or failure of a criminal justice response, this may contribute to their negative perceptions and evaluation of the criminal justice system in general. Police officers’ critical opinions are closely related to their views about the functions of criminal law and criminal justice. They tend to use an instrumental perspective, placing great emphasis on what criminal law may contribute to crime control and the management of public order. They often emphasize the importance of two functions: deterrence and incapacitation. The rehabilitation of offenders is only mentioned by about a quarter of all officers (27%) as an important function of criminal Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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Table 3 Police officers’ knowledge of and views on functions of criminal law and criminal justice (n ¼ 558)*. Question and statements as presented to police officers
%
My knowledge of the criminal justice system is limited to the police only My knowledge of the criminal justice system not only concerns the police, but also the public prosecution service and the courts To what extent do you receive a feed-back from the Public Prosecution Agency about decisions made in criminal cases that you worked on? In the Netherlands the legal protection of the suspected person has negative consequences for doing justice
45.0 (yes) 10.9 (yes)
Judges have enough information about the context of the crimes they have to make a decision on
In criminal justice, the resocialization of delinquents should be a highly important issue
78.6 (never or only rarely) 84.5: agree (very much) 4.7: disagree (very much) 16.8: agree (very much) 48.4: disagree (very much) 26.9: agree (very much) 36.9: disagree (very much)
*: Formulations like ‘agree (very much)’ mean that in the table two categories of answers from the questionnaire were taken together.
justice. During the interviews the protection of suspects’ rights is hardly mentioned as an important function of criminal law and criminal justice. This suggests that there are important differences in perspective between police officers and members of the judiciary. The police officers’ main orientation is to find solutions for all kinds of problems, such as social disorder, social conflicts, feelings of insecurity, and crime. The core of police work is to find solutions for urgent and pressing problems, if necessary against the will of the citizens involved (Bittner, 1970). The interviews show that police officers often expect the criminal law to provide them with the means to solve these problems. They often rely on everyday moral notions of good versus bad. Motivated by these notions, they try to create what Sykes (1986) called street justice if formal solutions prove not to be effective or if they feel that their authority was challenged (Van Maanen, 1978; Klockars, 1986). These notions of street justice may differ considerably from the notions of justice as used in criminal law and criminal justice. This implies that the difference in perspectives between police officers and judges are not the same as the conceptual dichotomy between crime control and due process (Packer, 1964; Skolnick, 1966). The unease and dissatisfaction of police officers with the criminal justice system should not be dismissed as only an instrumental view held by the crime controllers. Their dissatisfaction also reflects their moral commitment to find solutions to urgent problems, to protect vulnerable citizens, and to restore justice. This interpretation is in line with the findings of Moskos (2008) and Fekjær et al. (2014), who showed that the perspectives of police officers are closely related to the problems that confront them in their daily work. Many police officers realize that a lack of adequate criminal law responses to crime may partly be caused by factors within the police force. Lack of resources, inadequate priorities, and a poor quality of police work (such as incomplete police reports and files, and an inadequate presentation of evidential information) may mean that both public prosecutors and judges are not able to make the decisions that police officers expect or wish them to do (Moskos, 2008; Fassin, 2013). Finally, police officers’ dissatisfaction may also be related to the poor coordination and cooperation between the police and other criminal justice agencies (De Vries, 2001). Despite many policy measures to promote this cooperation in the Netherlands over roughly the past fifteen years, the feedback information given by the public prosecution service to the police is still rather poor, especially in cases of petty crime. More than three of every four police officers (79%) feels that they never or only rarely get feed-back information from the public prosecution service about criminal cases they have been working on. Much of the dissatisfaction of police officers is related to the distance between the police and the judiciary, not only in an organizational, but also in a social and cultural sense. Many police officers complain that public prosecutors and particularly judges are often not well informed about the context of the crimes they have to make a decision about, such as for instance problems in disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Table 3). This is not only a consequence of a lack of detailed knowledge about the context of crime. It is also suggested that members of the judiciary (especially judges) do not have the ‘street knowledge’ that experienced police officers claim to have. As a result, in the police officers’ perception, the members of the judiciary do not have the necessary sense and intuition to understand the atmosphere, context and seriousness of the problems that confront police officers. 8. Concluding remarks This study shows that critical views and dissatisfaction with the criminal justice system are extremely prevalent among police officers in the Netherlands. As a result, many police officers have a low level of trust in the judiciary. Our study demonstrates that many of the findings of Skolnick in the U.S. in the 1960s are still relevant today, even in such a different cultural, social and legal context as the Netherlands of the 2010s. To a significant degree, the police officers’ critical perceptions and evaluations result from differences in perspective between the police and the wider criminal justice system. This is not only a question of the police as crime controllers versus the judiciary as the ‘owners’ of due process values (Packer, 1964). The notion of street justice (Sykes, 1986) is important to understand the moral involvement of police officers, Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001
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which may contribute to the frustrations of police officers and their negative views on how criminal justice operates in practice. On the other hand, this study also shows that it is not only the police officers’ experience of specific failures of criminal justice that is relevant in this respect, but also that a cynical police subculture may contribute to the officers’ negative views about the way the prosecution and judges respond to crime and disorder. Other factors may even exacerbate the seriousness of the perceived problems, such as the lack of cooperation and coordination between the police and other criminal justice agencies, the social distance between the police and the judiciary, and the lack of feedback to the police. In our view the negative, and often also fatalistic and cynical views of many police officers about how criminal law operates in practice, should be a reason for concern. In the long run the legitimacy of the criminal justice system may be impaired if police officers e as the front line workers of criminal justice e no longer believe in its practical operation. This study did not find strong evidence of extralegal practices among the Netherlands’ police officers as a consequence of their cynicism about criminal justice. Nevertheless, if police officers do not trust the judiciary and feel that the criminal justice system does not support them in their daily work, they might decide to create their own strategies, which may conflict with legal rules and the rights of suspected citizens. As a result, these informal strategies may create new problems with even more serious consequences. Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. References Bayley, D.H., 1994. Police for the Future. Oxford University Press, New York/Oxford. Bittner, E., 1970. The Functions of the Police in Modern Society. 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Please cite this article in press as: Terpstra, J., Kort, J., Police officers’ trust in criminal justice, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.05.001