 Using a brief contact to improve trust in the police by the youthGwen-Jirō Clochard Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2025, vol. 117, issue C Abstract: Trust in the police has many positive effects, so it is important to explore solutions to improve police-community relations, especially in areas where such relations are deteriorated. In this paper, I use a lab-in-the-field experiment in two high schools in France to investigate the effect of a brief and controlled discussion - contact - between police officers and students on trust. The results indicate a positive effect of contact on trust at the individual level, i.e. toward the specific police officer met. However, the effect does not translate into an increase in trust in the police in general. A Bayesian model of belief formation can shed light on why a single contact may not be sufficient in the case of prior — negative — interactions. This paper can have implications for the most widely used policy to improve perceptions of the police, namely community policing. Keywords: Contact hypothesis; Trust; Police; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:117:y:2025:i:c:s2214804325000436 DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2025.102376 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier |
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