An Exploratory Study on the Influencing Factors of Police Trust by Gender: Focusing on Stepwise Regression Analysiss

Abstract

This study separated male and female samples from 539 citizens living in Seoul to explore the factors that have the greatest influence on increasing police trust among instrumental, expressive, and fairness factors, and compared gender-based influencing factors. First, the variable that best predicts the increase in police trust in both men and women was found to be an police effectiveness. This means that the most important factor in enhancing police trust is police effectiveness for both men and women. Second, procedural fairness and lawfulness, which are factors that affect police trust after police effectiveness in both men and women, have been verified. Third, the difference between men and women regarding the factors influencing police trust is that men's social cohension and women's informal control have been verified as factors that explain the increase in police trust. The result of this study are meaningful in that it derived more specific analysis results by exploring the most influential factors through stepwise regression analysis in understanding the direction of enhancing citizens' trust in the police.