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Public Confidence Attitude Formation Toward the Police in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan: Similarities and Differences

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Abstract

While public attitudes toward the police have been extensively researched in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan over the past three decades, no comparative study has documented the similarities and differences in how citizens’ confidence in the police is sustained in these East Asian democratic societies. Additionally, research into the simultaneous impact of instrumental, expressive, and normative models on public assessment of police in Asian societies remains limited. Given the introduction of Western policing philosophies into East Asian societies since the 1990s, there is reason to believe that these models may vary in their relevance in Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese contexts. This study utilizes convenience sampling-based online survey data collected in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in 2022, with 2248 completed questionnaires for in-depth analyses. The results show that Taiwan has the highest level of confidence in the police, followed by Japan and South Korea, respectively. Notably, adherence to procedural justice, police effectiveness, and residential stability significantly increase citizen confidence in the police across all three countries. While the likelihood of sanctions for wrongdoers tends to increase Japanese confidence in their police, the perception of safety concern and distributive justice positively impacts confidence in the police among Taiwanese citizens.

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Notes

  1. Only respondents who met the following criteria were included in our analyses: (1) owning a desktop computer, laptop, or tablet; (2) owning a smartphone; (3) completing all questions containing both dependent and independent variables; and (4) selecting an appropriate answer on the directed question scale (DQS) (Maniaci & Rogge, 2014) inserted in the survey to filter out satisficers, who take shortcuts to conserve effort in responding to the survey (Barge & Gehlbach, 2012).

  2. We used these two variables, house ownership and length of residence, to capture the concept of residential stability. Based on the Pearson correlation coefficient (r = 0.29, p < 0.01), it suggests that these two variables are highly correlated.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Nicholas P. Lovrich of Washington State University for his proofreading of the manuscript.

Funding

This research is supported by a grant (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research C: Grant Number 19KT0046: Trust in Police Information Dissemination: Interdisciplinary problem solving from Behavioral Science, Ethics, and Policy Science, Principal Investigator: Takahito Shimada, Ph.D.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Chung Cheng University, Minxiong, Taiwan

    Yung-Lien Lai

  2. Graduate School of Human Sciences, Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan

    Yuka Haruta

  3. Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan

    Sato Sanai

  4. Fukushima University, Fukushima, Japan

    Ai Suzuki

  5. National Research Institute of Police Science, Chiba, Japan

    Takahito Shimada

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  1. Yung-Lien Lai
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  2. Yuka Haruta
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Correspondence to Yung-Lien Lai.

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All study procedures involving human participants were in accordance with in the ethical standards of the fields of Human Research Ethnic and researchers’ institutions. The project was approved by Research Ethnics Committee (IRB) at Osaka University in Japan (Reference No. HB021-115).

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Lai, YL., Haruta, Y., Sanai, S. et al. Public Confidence Attitude Formation Toward the Police in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan: Similarities and Differences. Asian J Criminol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11417-024-09426-0

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