Article Youth Perceptions of the Police: Identifying Trajectories

The relevance of examining juveniles ’ attitudes toward the police has been firmly established in the literature. Employing group-based trajectory modeling, the present study builds upon this previous research by estimating police attitudinal trajectories among a general sample of youths. The models produced a 5-group solution for both males and females, with four of the trajectories remaining relatively stable over the time observed and one noticeably experiencing a downward trend. Furthermore, of the items making up the police attitudinal scale, for several of the groups, the item measuring prejudice most consistently oscillated away from the trajectory profile. Policy implica-tions are discussed. Keywords youth, juveniles, attitudes, police Maintaining a favorable image has been a prominent goal of the American police institution since its public relations crisis of the 1960s and the subsequent emergence of the community policing move-ment, stressing positive collaborative relationships between the police and the citizenry to tackle fear, crime, and disorder (Community Policing Consortium, 1994; Skolnick & Bayley, 1988; Walker & Katz, 2011; Wycoff, 1988). It is theorized that a collaborative citizenry, one that is more likely to assist the police in carrying out its core functions and serve as coproducers of protective services, is also one that is more likely to hold favorable attitudes toward the police (Decker, 1981; Goldstein, 1987; Skolnick & Bayley, 1988; Wycoff, 1988). One group that increasingly consumes a substantial amount of police time and resources (see Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2011; Leiber, Nalla