Public confidence in the police: using opinion survey data to explore the current ‘moment’ in British policing

On many accounts British policing is currently experiencing a legitimacy crisis, a claim frequently evidenced by data from opinion surveys. Such surveys have been in the field for more than half a century, generating a wealth of data demonstrating the waxing and waning of ‘trust and confidence’ in police. Yet, few nationally representative surveys field items that cover the full range of public attitudes towards police. In this paper, we present results from a representative survey of England, Scotland and Wales (n = 1,484) that fielded items tapping into a wide range of attitudes towards police, including trust, legitimacy, and measures of confidence developed through a novel series of deliberative focus groups that sought to define a ‘minimum policing standard’. We show that few people feel police are meeting these standards, and that legitimacy does indeed seem low. Views of policing are currently marked by high levels of uncertainty, disappointment, and disillusion. However, while confidence and legitimacy are low, public trust seems to be higher. Moreover, different aspects of police performance – or at least people’s judgements of it – have different associations with overall confidence, trust and legitimacy. Visibility and ‘presence’ seem more important for overall confidence, while fairness and proportionality are more important for legitimacy. Our findings both offer support to the idea police-public relations are under significant strain and provide insight into why this is so.