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Assessing the Determinants of Public Conﬁdence in the

Police: A Case Study of a Post-Conﬂict Community in
Northern Ireland
Article in Criminology and Criminal Justice · November 2012

DOI: 10.1177/1748895812462597
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Assessing the determinants of public confidence in the police: A case study

of a post-conflict community in Northern Ireland
Graham Ellison, Nathan W Pino and Peter Shirlow
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895812462597
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895812462597
police: A case study of a crj.sagepub.com
post-conflict community in
Northern Ireland
Graham Ellison
Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Nathan W Pino
Texas State University, USA
Peter Shirlow
Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Abstract
Drawing upon original survey research this article seeks to identify the generative processes that
influence perceptions of the police in the context of an inner-city neighbourhood in Northern
Ireland that has been affected by increases in crime and disorder in the aftermath of the peace
process. Conceptually we draw upon recent research from England and Wales that outlines
confidence in the police in terms of instrumental and expressive dimensions. We apply this
framework and consider whether it provides a useful template for understanding the post-
conflict dynamics of police–community relations in our study area. Contrary to much received
wisdom our analysis suggests that instrumental concerns about crime and illegal activity are a
more influential predictor of attitudes to the police than expressive concerns with disorder and
anti-social behaviour. Consequently our discussion points to the variance in local and national
survey data and questions the degree to which the latter can usefully inform our understanding of
trends and developments in discrete micro-spaces. Our conclusion outlines the potential policy
implications for state policing practice in deprived urban spaces.
Corresponding author:
Graham Ellison, Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice, School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast,
Northern Ireland, BT7 1NN, UK.
Email: g.ellison@qub.ac.uk
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2178532

2 Criminology & Criminal Justice 0(0)
Keywords
Crime, disorder, Northern Ireland, peace process, policing
Introduction
Throughout the conflict in Northern Ireland the deeply contested nature of state policing
meant that assessing levels of public satisfaction and confidence in the then Royal Ulster
Constabulary (henceforth RUC) was a complicated and messy affair (Ellison, 2000;
Mulcahy, 2006). The reforms enacted via the report of the Independent Commission on
Policing (henceforth ICP) have gone some considerable way to redressing many of the
problems associated with the RUC. Arguably, however, and in spite of the reform pro-
gramme being lauded on the international stage, the changes have been most visible at
the structural and institutional levels such as establishing the mechanisms for police
oversight, increasing Catholic recruitment and the adoption of a fully independent police
complaints machinery. What continues to be unclear is whether there has been any fun-
damental shift in levels of public confidence in the Police Service of Northern Ireland
(henceforth PSNI); particularly among those groups most alienated from public policing
structures in the past. Official survey data paint a somewhat ambiguous picture: an over-
whelming majority of respondents appear to have confidence in the PSNI’s ability to
treat both communities fairly with one survey putting this at 79 per cent for Catholics and
80 per cent for Protestants (Northern Ireland Policing Board, 2011). However, according
to the same survey when asked to assess the PSNI’s performance at local level consider-
ably fewer respondents (49 per cent of Catholics and 54 per cent of Protestants) have
confidence in the force to tackle issues around neighbourhood crime and disorder
(Northern Ireland Policing Board, 2011).
Even this dual reading of the Policing Board survey data is too simplistic and funda-
mentally, given the rationale for the ICP reforms in the first place, tells us nothing about
the attitudes of historically marginalized and alienated communities in Northern Ireland
to the new policing structures and arrangements. In what follows therefore, we report on
a subset of the data from the second (quantitative) phase of a study conducted within a
post-conflict community in Northern Ireland to assess perceptions of the PSNI. Our
study area is New Lodge: a predominantly Catholic (97.3 per cent) and strongly republi-
can,1 working-class, inner-city enclave of North Belfast that has been deeply affected by
conflict related violence and traditionally experienced a highly militarized form of coun-
ter-terrorist policing by the RUC.
New Lodge has a population of approximately 5000 inhabitants and comprises an
area of around one square kilometre on the northern edge of Belfast’s inner-city bound-
ary. It is one of the poorest and most economically depressed areas in Northern Ireland
ranking third highest out of 582 electoral wards across the full range of indicators of
multiple deprivation with persistent intergenerational unemployment, high levels of
alcohol and drug abuse (prescription and illicit), chronic mental and physical health
issues and low levels of educational attainment among young people (Northern Ireland
Information Service (NINIS), 2010).2 It also ranks 19th highest (again out of 582 elec-
toral wards) for the prevalence of officially recorded crime with the total offences rate
per 10,000 of population (2010/2011), four times the Northern Ireland average (NINIS,

Ellison et al. 3
2011). New Lodge’s immediate border with the predominantly loyalist/Protestant

Duncairn district (to the north-east) and Shankill district (to the south-west) are desig-
nated interface areas3 where sectarian skirmishes between rival groups of republican and
loyalist youth have been commonplace (Figure 1). Given the historical difficulties with
state policing in such areas New Lodge is euphemistically referred to as a ‘hard to reach
community’ in official parlance (Northern Ireland Policing Board, 2005).4 As such, the
issue of whether the PSNI can attract the support and confidence of a constituency such
as New Lodge is the acid test of the much-vaunted police reform process and a critical
indicator of the embeddedness of the peace process thus far. The best vantage point to
assess police–community relations should be from the most difficult place, not the
easiest.
Our principal aim in what follows is to assess the factors that drive perceptions of the
police in a working-class, inner-city community in Northern Ireland in the context of the
developing peace process and ongoing concerns about growing levels of crime and disor-
der (discussed below). On this basis we engage with a recent and significant body of
research and scholarship based on data from England and Wales that finds only a negligible
Figure 1. Area map of New Lodge

Source: Northern Ireland Land and Property Services. Reproduced with permission.

relationship between public perceptions of the police and instrumental concerns about
police effectiveness in tackling crime, the perceived risk of victimization (denoted as ‘fear
of crime’), and prior experience of victimization. Rather it is suggested that expressive
concerns with various manifestations of neighbourhood disorder, instability and break-
down and the prevalence of incivilities and anti-social behaviour are more important deter-
minants (see, for example, Jackson, 2004; Jackson and Bradford, 2009, 2010a, 2010b;
Jackson and Sunshine, 2007; Jackson et al., 2009).5 Both dimensions were tested for using
the New Lodge survey data.
Our discussion progresses as follows: in the first part of the article we provide some
contextual background to the New Lodge study before moving on to outline our theoreti-
cal framework by considering the expressive and instrumental dimensions of public con-
fidence in the police. In terms of our substantive discussion we then conduct a multinomial
regression analysis to assess whether it is dimensions associated with the instrumental or
expressive models that best explain perceptions of the PSNI in New Lodge. Our analysis
points to the considerable variance between national and local survey data and lends
qualified support to the instrumental model in effecting perceptions of the police in our
study area. Ultimately, however, we suggest that the instrumental/expressive distinction
is in many ways an artificial one and that it is perhaps more accurate to see them as rep-
resenting a set of interactive processes rather than fixed standpoints. Finally we suggest
that the peace process may have disrupted important sources of collective efficacy
(Sampson and Groves, 1989) to manage crime and disorder informally that have had a
consequent impact on perceptions of formal social control in the area.
Before we begin, a number of caveats are in order. First, we are not making any grand
claims as to the generalizability of our data. It is difficult to generalize from single-city
surveys to other locales (Weitzer et al., 2008: 421) – let alone a neighbourhood within a
city – and as such our findings should be regarded as tentative and exploratory rather
than definitive. Nor indeed should we generalize from New Lodge to other republican
areas in Northern Ireland that may have markedly different histories and characteristics.6
On the other hand, while we should be conscious of Northern Ireland’s rather unique
context this should not be overstated since many inner city areas in Britain exhibit simi-
lar structural characteristics to New Lodge and are similarly disengaged from the police
(the riots that occurred across England in August 2011 are the most recent illustration).
So we may be talking degrees of emphasis rather than kind here. As such our analysis of
police–public relations may be relevant to those areas with similar structural characteris-
tics since as Rob Sampson (2004) has argued, problems with legal authorities, concen-
trated disadvantage, spatial inequality and neighbourhood efficacy may vary only by
degree and not by kind.
Second, in a number of respects our data raise more questions than answers. Attitudes
to the police are multi-faceted and complex, and involve a constellation of viewpoints
that may be contradictorily held.7 Nevertheless, as has been suggested elsewhere (Ellison,
Shirlow and Mulcahy, 2012) the New Lodge data may be indicative of a slight shift in
the attitudes of republicans towards the state police – albeit heavily qualified within the
context of our study area (see note 5). While this needs further exploration only a minor-
ity of respondents in our sample raised legacy issues in relation to the RUC as a primary
reason for their negative perceptions of the PSNI. In the main such perceptions hinged

Ellison et al. 5
on more prosaic concerns with crime, disorder and quality of life issues. The PSNI are
not viewed collectively with any degree of enthusiasm, but neither are they viewed as
putative oppressors: For many residents, in the context of on-going concerns about
neighbourhood crime and disorder, they are simply the least-worst option.
Background to the New Lodge Study

In 2007 the authors were contacted by the Greater New Lodge Community Empowerment
Partnership (henceforth GNLCEP)8 and asked to assist with a research study to investi-
gate issues around neighbourhood crime and disorder as well as public perceptions of the
PSNI in the New Lodge area. Initially this took the form of a qualitative scoping exercise
involving a series of interviews and focus group sessions conducted with GNLCEP
members and New Lodge residents in 2008. Data from this phase of the research are
discussed in more detail elsewhere (see Ellison et al., 2012) but a brief summary is
required since the findings influenced the second phase of the quantitative research
reported here.
Broadly speaking, the GNLCEP perceived a number of issues relating to the provision
of state policing in New Lodge that potentially impacted on its own community role.
First, while Sinn Féin had agreed to support the PSNI (in 2007) and take its seats on the
Policing Board and District Policing Partnerships (DPPs) there was a sense at commu-
nity level that policing issues had been ‘sorted’ at the ‘high table’ but there was no effec-
tive communication to local residents and community development organizations about
how this would translate into practice on the ground. In the absence of any broader dis-
cussion a deeply mistrustful republican community was simply expected to embrace the
PSNI more or less overnight. As a GNLCEP member puts it:9
it is one thing joining a DPP [District Policing Partnership] and discussing policing and another
supporting it [policing] on the ground. But the problem was nobody was doing anything on the
ground. So the politics of policing was resolved up at the high table but not being sorted on the
ground.
Furthermore, community members were reporting incidents of crime to the GNLCEP

and asking whether they should also report to the PSNI. However, in the absence of any
clear public mandate to engage with the force the GNLCEP was unsure of what to
advise:
Sinn Féin had decided that they were going onto the Policing Board but that didn’t remove the
suspicion and animosities that people had. Increasingly people were coming to community
workers on the ground and saying look ‘should I go to the police about such and such ...?’
‘Somebody broke into my house, somebody tried to steal my car … there’s people causing anti-
social behaviour’. The CEP [Community Empowerment Partnership] was meeting on a regular
basis in the area and this issue came up on a number of occasions … We were saying, ‘look,
what is our position in relation to policing?’ (Interview GNLCEP member)
Second, the GNLCEP was conscious that while legacy issues involving the Royal
Ulster Constabulary (RUC) remained important in New Lodge, these were increasingly

undercut by more prosaic concerns about rising levels of crime and disorder in the area
(particularly involving young people) but also the more general perception that a social
control vacuum had emerged in the context of the peace process resulting in high levels
of community instability. As two GNLCEP members put it:
1. There were after the mid-1990s literally, and I am not joking, hundreds of young people
drinking and hanging about in the streets at times. Young people having sex in public, stealing
cars and damaging people’s property. Young people who told us to ‘fuck off’ when we asked
them to clear off the streets! It was like the whole place had been turned upside down and
nobody was in control anymore.
2. Everyday people were coming to us and saying ‘what are you going to do’, or ‘will the boys
(the Irish Republican Army (IRA)) not come out and sort these young ones out.’ All we could
say was that we were trying our best and that the IRA wasn’t doing that anymore. What made
matters worse was that the PSNI were doing nothing about it, and then people started saying
that this was the case. Others were saying that they had given up and just wanted to lock
themselves in their homes and that they were too afraid to challenge young people. They were
saying that since the IRA and the PSNI weren’t doing anything that they wouldn’t either. It was
a dreadful thing and we sensed that the community was cracking, turning away from getting
involved.
Finally, a number of residents and the GNLCEP acknowledged it was difficult for the
PSNI to develop community relations in areas such as New Lodge given the legacy of
mistrust. Nevertheless, there still remained a high degree of scepticism about the force’s
willingness to do this, particularly in relation to the provision of day-to-day policing. In
particular, a community or neighbourhood policing strategy remains relatively underde-
veloped in Northern Ireland in comparison to England and Wales (see, for example,
Topping, 2008). There is no PSNI station located in New Lodge and traditionally the area
is served by three larger stations that cover the entire North Belfast region. It is only
recently that New Lodge has been assigned a dedicated Neighbourhood Policing Team
(NPT) so perhaps understandably from a community perspective this reinforced the view
that the PSNI was not particularly keen to engage with local issues and concerns.
Generally the view appeared to be that the PSNI took an inordinately long time to respond
to calls for assistance, was not remotely interested in tackling issues around local crime
and anti-social behaviour, engaged in mainly reactive policing, was more interested in
recruiting informers (‘touts’) and officers were never around when they were needed.10
As such, the perception of the GNLCEP was that dissident republican groups11 were
capitalizing on community concerns about crime and neighbourhood disorder in order to
both legitimate attacks on police officers and engage in extra-legal punishment attacks
on offenders. Certainly, a recent study has pointed to increasing levels of community
punitiveness in urban working-class republican areas and a desire for a return to the pun-
ishment violence that characterized the conflict years (Topping and Byrne, 2012).12 The
faultline in the peace process can thus be delineated around perceived deficiencies in the
nature of state policing provision and issues around neighbourhood crime and disorder.
As we outline below the second phase of the research (towards the end of 2008)
involved conducting a quantitative study of community attitudes to the PSNI among
New Lodge residents. This had a number of aims. First it would provide a community

Ellison et al. 7
referendum on whether organizations such as the GNLCEP had a popular mandate to

work with the PSNI in co-hosting community safety initiatives. Quite simply without
such public endorsement Sinn Féin’s strategy of engagement would have been dead in
the water. Second, it would provide an audit of the extent of crime and anti-social behav-
iour, fear of crime and victimization in the area since these were significantly under-
reported in official PSNI data. Finally, it would provide some indication of the factors
that undermine or promote support for the PSNI in New Lodge in a post-conflict
environment.
Theoretical Backcloth:The Instrumental and Expressive

Dimensions of Public Confidence in the Police
In their pioneering study of public attitudes to crime and punishment Tyler and
Boeckmann (1997) suggest that there are two basic perspectives within which such atti-
tudes can be delineated: first, there is an instrumental perspective that concentrates on
risk-based assessments about the perceived severity of the crime ‘problem’. Second,
there is an expressive perspective that suggests attitudes to crime and punishment are
intertwined with moral evaluations of rule breaking and a lay prognosis of social cohe-
sion and moral order.13 In a number of recent studies based on data from England and
Wales, Tyler and Boeckmann’s framework has been applied to assess whether public
confidence in the police is similarly shaped by such instrumental or expressive concerns
(see, for example, Jackson, 2004; Jackson and Bradford, 2009, 2010a, 2010b; Jackson
and Sunshine, 2007; Jackson et al., 2009).
When applied to an analysis of the police the instrumental perspective implies a
‘straightforward relationship between the idea of the police role, perceptions of perfor-
mance and public confidence’ (Jackson et al., 2009: 103). First, in what can be termed
‘the risk model’ high levels of crime are seen to erode faith in the criminal justice system
as a whole and the police can mitigate against legal cynicism when they are perceived to
be a credible agent of social control by bringing offenders to justice (Sunshine and Tyler,
2003: 153). The police thus exert a crucial deterrent effect and establish the bounds of
legal order. Second, in what is termed ‘the performance model’ police effectiveness in
fighting crime may lead to greater levels of co-operation from the public since the police
are seen to be getting concrete results (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003: 153). As Jackson et al.
(2009: 100) suggest:
According to this [instrumental] perspective, people judge the police chiefly in terms of crime-
rates, perceived chances of victimisation, fear of crime, and so forth. This instrumental model
holds that personal worries about falling victim to crime drive confidence in the police.
Jackson et al. (2009) propose an alternative expressive perspective of confidence in

the police (also referred to by Jackson and Sunshine (2007) as a ‘neo-Durkheimian’ per-
spective). This draws its theoretical inspiration from the expressive dimensions of Tyler
and Boeckmann’s (1997) study (i.e. around moral rightness and lay prognoses of social
and moral order) but also from a cultural sociology of the police that focuses on their
symbolic, representational and communicative dimensions (see Loader, 1997, 2006;

Loader and Mulcahy, 2003). As Loader (2006: 210) remarks, public policing ‘routinely
produces and communicates an array of authoritative (if rarely uncontested) meanings
regarding such matters as order/disorder, justice/injustice, normality/deviance, inclusion/
exclusion, “us”/“them”’. The police in this sense are a conduit through which a number
of societal anxieties are condensed and communicated. At the risk of oversimplifying,
this expressive perspective contains a number of suppositions.
First, following the logic or what we said above, it proposes that ‘fear of crime’ is
related less to risk-based or actuarial assessments of victimization, and more to a per-
ceived breakdown in social and moral order (Farrall and Gadd, 2004; Innes, 2005). The
assumed instrumental association between fear of crime is problematized and it is
debated whether fear of crime – if ‘fear’ is even the correct word – can be related to crime
per se rather than to a host of other more intangible anxieties that are part of the routine
of day-to-day existence. For Jackson and Sunshine (2007: 214) fear of crime is a ‘lay
seismograph’ for a whole range of sensitivities around social (dis)organization and con-
trol. Similarly, Gray et al. (2010) have recently attempted to disentangle the various
dimensions of the concept to argue that some aspects – what they term ‘dysfunctional
worry’ – are associated with perceptions of social change and moral decline.
Second, it is suggested that how we perceive or ‘see’ disorder is bound up with social
meanings at the collective level (Putnam, 1995; Sampson, 2009) that are not just an
articulation of concerns about those visible signs of neighbourhood decay; but speaks to
a series of symbolic expectations about disorder as an idea and a state of mind (Geis and
Ross, 1998; Sennett, 1970). In other words, this ‘thicker’ conception of disorder com-
municates a series of meanings and expectations that are bound metaphorically rather
than literally to a sense of wider social malaise. In this way, confidence in the police is
expressive of a rather complex set of interpretive processes that lie ‘behind’ perceptions
of disorder and neighbourhood breakdown.
Finally, we have a symbolic-expressive understanding of the police as civic guardians
and representatives of community values (Loader, 1997; Loader and Mulcahy, 2003;
Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). While acknowledging a ‘high fantasy content’ in public
assumptions and expectations about the police role, it is nevertheless suggested that the
police are perceived as ‘an omnipotent source of order facing up to the criminal Other’
(Loader, 1997: 2). Over and above concerns about the severity of the crime ‘problem’,
the public expect the police to uphold and establish community order in the face of
shared threats. For instance, a Guardian/ICM poll following the August 2011 riots in
England, suggested that a majority of respondents were overwhelmingly supportive of
the police in the face of perceived lawlessness. In other ways, the police connect to a
desire to (re)establish a lost sense of ‘community’ – if perhaps only in Benedict
Anderson’s (1991) sense of an ‘imagined’ one.
Testing the Expressive Dimensions of Confidence in the

Police
Since the mid-1980s, the British Crime Survey (henceforth BCS) has fielded a number
of questions that attempt to map public confidence in the police. Drawing upon a time-
series analysis of 10 sweeps of BCS data from 1988 to 2005/2006, Jackson et al. (2009)

Ellison et al. 9
note that confidence in the police has been steadily declining in England and Wales and
they set out to ascertain if this is due primarily to instrumental or expressive factors. If
the assumptions of the instrumental perspective are correct then we should expect to see
confidence in the police improve as the crime rate, levels of fear of crime, and the pub-
lic’s perception of the crime problem decrease. In fact, as Jackson et al. (2009) demon-
strate, since the mid-1990s in the UK confidence in the police has become worse in spite
of an overall fall in crime rates; an overall reduction in fear of crime, and a less salient
position occupied by crime in the public consciousness. On this basis they find little sup-
port for the assumptions of instrumental perspective and suggest that something other
than concerns about crime or victimization must be driving confidence in the police.
What they identify from BCS data, as having the most determining effect, over and
above crime-related issues, are expressive judgements about neighbourhood disorder.
From their analysis they find that confidence in the police tracks public perceptions of
disorder almost exactly and independently of any concerns about crime rates or fear of
crime. As they acknowledge:
According to this [expressive] perspective, more day-to-day concerns over anti-social

behaviour, disorder and incivilities, signs of low community cohesion, and declines in moral
authority move towards the foreground of public confidence in policing. In part this is because
these things loom larger in most people’s lives than do more serious crimes. (Jackson et al.,
2009: 104)
They conclude therefore, that ‘public confidence [in the police] is based less on instru-
mental concerns about crime and more on expressive concerns about neighbourhood
stability and breakdown’ (Jackson et al., 2009: 100, emphases added). We provide an
empirical test of these instrumental and expressive dimensions using our own New
Lodge data shortly. However, before doing so it is necessary to provide a methodological
overview.
Methodological Overview and Rationale

As noted above the study was undertaken with the assistance of the GNLCEP, which as
a locally based and trusted organization was necessary to facilitate access to the area for
the researchers. Notices were placed in the local media informing residents that the
research was being conducted, what its purpose was and asking people to co-operate
with the researchers. Out of a total of 777 households in New Lodge, 300 were randomly
selected to participate in the survey that was undertaken in 2008 by interviewers utilizing
computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). This equates to 38.6 per cent of all
households in the area based on revised census estimates (NINIS, 2011). By far the larg-
est proportion of respondents (78.9 per cent) had lived in the area for five or more years.
The response rate was 93 per cent based on the completion of 280 questionnaires (N =
280). One respondent was selected per household on the basis of demographic targets
issued to each interviewer (e.g. around age and sex which were available from census
data) until each interviewer’s quota was reached (44.6 per cent of respondents were male
and 53.6 per cent were female). Missing data were not a significant issue in our analysis

owing to the fact that we conducted face-to-face interviews, but research participants
with missing scores on any of the variables in the analysis were omitted as part of a list-
wise deletion procedure in order to produce unbiased parameter and accurate (or at least
cautious) standard error estimates (Allison, 2001). The recall period used in the study
was two years.
Measures Used in the Bivariate and Multinomial

Analysis
Table 1 identifies the variables used in the regression analyses along with their means
and standard deviations. In the survey Sex was coded 0 for male and 1 for female (130
were male and 150 were female), and age was categorized as follows: 1 = 16–21 (16 per
cent); 2 = 22–30 (17 per cent); 3 = 31–45 (26 per cent); 4 = 45–64 (24 per cent); and 5 =
65+ (17 per cent).
For comparative purposes the variables are similar to those adopted by Jackson et al.
(2009) in their analysis of the BCS data. Through our dependent variable we elucidate
whether it is measures associated with the instrumental and expressive dimensions of our
theoretical framework that exert the most determining impact on structuring perceptions
of the PSNI in New Lodge. The dependent variable remained Positive Change in the
Police assessed by the following question: To what extent do you feel there has been
positive change to policing in New Lodge? Respondents were asked to evaluate such
change in terms of the following: no change at all = 67 (23.9 per cent); limited change =
70 (25.0 per cent); positive change = 97 (34.6 per cent); unsure = 42 (15 per cent). Four
respondents (1.4 per cent) did not answer the question. The variable was coded 0 = no
change at all, 1 = limited change and 2 = positive change. However, in spite of major
reservations about the quality and nature of existing policing provision there was strong
community support within New Lodge for enhancing the PSNI’s neighbourhood and
community liaison activities. For example, 194 (69.3 per cent) of respondents wanted the
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for variables used in the analysis.
Variable Mean Standard deviation

Positive change in the police 1.1 .83
Age 3.1 1.3
Police response to crime 2.2 1.2
Police response to antisocial behaviour .57 .77
Community organization efficacy 3.2 1.2
Disorder 23.5 3.7
Fear .11 3.9
Victimization .93 1.1
QOL affected by crime 4.7 2.8
QOL affected by antisocial behaviour 6.0 3.0
Gender .55 .50
Interface .47 .50

Ellison et al. 11
PSNI to undertake more neighbourhood patrols. Similarly, 210 (75 per cent) of respond-
ents wanted community organizations to work more closely with the force in order to
assess policing priorities in the area.
Police response to crime and police response to antisocial behaviour These variables were
chosen since they provide an indication of whether perceptions of police performance
in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour are significant in determining whether
positive change in policing has occurred in the New Lodge area. First, respondents
were asked: How would you rate the PSNI’s response to crime in the New Lodge
area? The variable is based on a five-point scale from 1 = ‘very poor’ to 5 = ‘very
good’. Respondents were also asked: How would you rate the PSNI’s response to anti-
social behaviour in the New Lodge area? which was similarly coded. Respondents
generally do not believe the police are responding to crime or anti-social behaviour
effectively in New Lodge. Based on the frequency distribution, only 35 (12.5 per
cent) respondents felt that the police were effective in responding to neighbourhood
crime, while only 43 (15.4 per cent) respondents felt that they were effective in deal-
ing with anti-social behaviour.
Community organization efficacy In spite, or perhaps because of its problems, New Lodge
has a strong and vibrant civil society. Earlier research in New Lodge found that the area
contains a high level of bonding and bridging capital with nearly three-quarters of resi-
dents participating in events or activities hosted by community organizations (Murtagh
and Shirlow, 2009). Overall in our study an overwhelming majority of respondents
placed a high level of trust in organizations such as the GNLCEP and felt that they could
play an important co-productive role with the PSNI in terms of community safety and
crime prevention. In order to see whether this was related to our dependent variable we
included the measure ‘community organization efficacy’ in our analysis. This was
derived from four individual variables that assessed the role respondents’ felt that com-
munity organizations should and could play in relation to the local management of crime
and disorder in New Lodge and the relationship between community organizations and
the PSNI. The statistical coefficient of reliability as measured by Cronbach’s alpha (α) is
high (.81), indicating that the four items used to create the latent construct are all related
to a single dimension.
The disorder scale assessed perceptions of social and physical disorder. It is con-
structed from nine Likert scale items that were grouped together to form a composite
measure and which relate to a single dimension (α =.72). The variables chosen reflect an
expressive concern with the various manifestations of social and physical disorder: noisy
neighbours; the prevalence of graffiti; young people hanging around on the streets;
underage drinking; family rows; vandalism; and litter, as well as broader perceptions of
area desirability and environmental decline. Again, these variables were specifically
chosen for comparative purposes, since as Jackson et al. (2009: 103) maintain, ‘Disorder
– teenagers hanging around, litter, vandalism and graffiti – may indeed be an important
driver of public confidence in policing.’
The fear scale is constructed from seven Likert scale variables that were standardized
and added together. They are designed to assess whether the dependent variable is

affected by instrumental concerns about the ‘fear of crime’ and the risk of victimization.
They relate to the four over-lapping dimensions of ‘fear of crime’ identified by Skogan
(1996) and reflect its cognitive and behavioural dimensions: a generalized concern about
crime (‘I think more about crime’); personal risk of victimization (‘I feel likely to be
burgled, attacked, have my property vandalized in this area …’); perceived threat of
victimization in the neighbourhood (‘I feel safe walking alone after dark in this area’);
and, how people modify their behaviour in response to perceived threat and risk (‘I take
more precautions when walking alone in the area’, ‘I am more aware that I should make
my home safe when I go out’).
Victimization relates to those questions asking about experiences of criminal victimi-
zation during the recall period (vandalism, burglary, theft/attempted theft, sectarian vio-
lence, physical assault, any other violent crime, ‘mugging’/street crime and any other
crime not mentioned previously). The composite scale is based on the addition of multi-
ple variables coded 0 = not victimized at all; 1 = victimized once; 2 = victimized twice;
and 3 = victimized three or more times. In line with the instrumental perspective model
this variable was included to assess whether prior victimization impacts upon percep-
tions of policing in the New Lodge area.
Interface is coded 0 for not living in proximity to an interface and 1 for living in prox-
imity to an interface. Proximity to an urban interface does not significantly correlate with
perceptions of positive change in policing in New Lodge but it is included here since it
may tap into aspects of fear of crime (given the traditionally high risk of sectarian vic-
timization in interface areas) and also disorder (given the prevalence of clashes between
republican and loyalist youth). The study sample was gathered in such a way that roughly
one-third of those sampled lived in proximity to an interface.
Quality of life affected by crime and Quality of life affected by antisocial behaviour
are designed to test the sensitivity of perceptions of crime and disorder (the latter mani-
fested in terms of anti-social behaviour) on respondents’ quality of life in the New Lodge
area. Quality of life assessments are assumed to relate to a sense of subjective well-being
(henceforth SWB) which can be defined as: ‘A broad category of phenomena that
includes people’s emotional responses, domain satisfactions and global judgments of life
satisfaction’ (Diener et al., 1999: 277). High levels of neighbourhood crime and disorder
have been demonstrated to impact negatively on an individual’s sense of SWB and rein-
force a sense of powerlessness (Geis and Ross, 1998). Using a Likert scale respondents
were asked to estimate the impact of each upon their perceived quality of life where ‘1’
signified the least affect and ‘10’ the greatest affect. In our descriptive statistics 58 per
cent of respondents stated that crime had some effect on their quality of life. The figure
for anti-social behaviour was 77 per cent.
Results
Unsurprisingly given the structural characteristics of the neighbourhood, data from the
New Lodge study reflect many of the same trends and tendencies that have been identi-
fied in local crime and victimization studies elsewhere (e.g. Jones et al., 1986; Kinsey,
1984). For example, there is a high level of non-reportage to the police (55.6 per cent),
the police are perceived to be unresponsive and disengaged while victimization

Ellison et al. 13
prevalence rates for a range of offences (vandalism, burglary, physical assault) are
between six and 12 times higher than that presented in the Northern Ireland Crime Survey
(which adopts a similar methodology to the British Crime Survey).
Importantly, however, in terms of our overall findings (discussed further below) it
seems that New Lodge residents by-and-large appear to make an assessment of a range
of neighbourhood problems in terms of their overall seriousness and harm inducing char-
acteristics. As we can see from Table 2 when they were asked to prioritize the most
important issues for the PSNI to address in New Lodge a higher percentage of respond-
ents ranked those that were crime related considerably higher (e.g. illegal drug use, phys-
ical assaults, sectarian violence, burglary, car theft/vehicle crime) than those associated
with anti-social behaviour and disorder (e.g. noisy neighbours, graffiti, people hanging
around the streets). We shall return to this distinction shortly but first it is necessary to
outline the results of the bivariate and multinomial regression analyses.
In both our bivariate and multinomial regression analyses the dependent variable
remained positive change in policing. In bivariate tests (for brevity correlational analy-
ses are not described in detail) sex was not significantly correlated with the dependent
variable. However, for those female respondents who lived in proximity to an interface
this did correlate with a belief that their quality of life was affected by anti-social
behaviour. Age was significantly and positively correlated with the dependent varia-
ble: the older the respondent, the more likely he or she felt that policing was changing
in a positive way. In addition, bivariate analyses indicate that older respondents were
more likely to perceive that their quality of life was affected by both crime and disor-
der, were more fearful and perceived more disorder in general, even though they were
much less likely to be victims of crime. Older respondents are also more likely to
perceive higher levels of community organization efficacy than younger community
members. Future research utilizing path analysis could examine whether age is signifi-
cantly correlated with perceptions of change in policing indirectly through other
Table 2. Priority areas for PSNI in targeting resources in New Lodge
Activity Stated by % respondents

Illegal drug use 81
Underage drinking 78
Physical assaults 73
Car theft/vehicle crime 71
Interface/sectarian violence 71
Domestic burglary 68
Vandalism to home/property 66
Street crime/‘mugging’ 65
Young people hanging around streets 63
Noisy neighbours/loud music 21
Family rows 21
Graffiti/litter 18
Other 17

independent variables. Finally, in line with the expressive perspective, perceptions of

area desirability and environmental decline are negatively correlated with the depend-
ent variable: Those respondents who rated New Lodge as becoming a less desirable
place to live and who perceived more environmental decline were also much less likely
to perceive positive change in policing.
These correlations disappear in our regression analysis however, and none of them
are significantly related to perceptions of change in policing when controlling for other
variables. Since our dependent variable is non-interval and contains three categories,
we determined that multinomial logistic regression was the most appropriate model to
utilize for our analysis (see Hosmer and Lemeshow, 2000). Table 3 displays the results
of the regression analysis with ‘positive change’ responses to the dependent variable
(the highest value) as the reference group. There is no direct measure of model fit that
corresponds to the percentage of variance explained (such as R2) in multinomial logistic
models, but various pseudo options have been proposed that each provide different
values for the same model (Hoetker, 2007). The Nagelkerke pseudo R2 (.58) is dis-
played here, which is valued between 0 and 1 and is based on log-likelihood (measuring
improvement from the null model to the fitted model). In other words, the approximate
proportion of variability in the dependent variable explained by our multinomial regres-
sion model is 58 per cent.
Contrary to the findings in the Jackson et al. studies (see earlier) the results from the
New Lodge study indicate overall that an instrumental concern with the PSNI’s perfor-
mance in responding to neighbourhood crime is a more powerful predictor (p < .001) of
perceptions of positive change in policing than an expressive concern with neighbour-
hood disorder. In line with the instrumental model those respondents who felt that there
was no positive change in policing within the study area were more likely to perceive a
less effective PSNI response to crime than the reference group (those who felt there had
been positive change to policing). Somewhat curiously those respondents who saw no
positive change in policing were also less likely than respondents in the reference group
(i.e. those who perceived definite positive change) to reflect an expressive concern with
neighbourhood disorder. We address this apparent anomaly below.
For those respondents who perceived only limited positive change the story is
similar. Again in line with the assumptions of the instrumental model these respond-
ents were also more likely than the reference group to identify a less effective PSNI
response to neighbourhood crime. This was the most powerful predictor of the
dependent variable. However, contrary to the thrust of the instrumental model this
group was less likely to feel that their overall quality of life was affected by crime
even though they were more likely than those who indicated a definite positive change
in policing to have been victims of crime. In addition, respondents who perceived
limited change in policing were also less likely to perceive community organization
efficacy in New Lodge.
Based on our New Lodge data the results of the multinomial analysis lend qualified
support to the instrumental rather than the expressive model. However, we emphasize the
word qualified. It was a performance-related dimension – the PSNI’s perceived effec-
tiveness in responding to neighbourhood crime – that had the most statistically signifi-
cant impact (p < .001) on perceptions of positive change in policing. However, it should

Ellison et al. 15
Table 3. Multinomial regression model with ‘policing is changing in a positive way’ as the
dependent variable and ‘positive change’ responses as the reference group
Independent variable B SE Wald Exp(B) Chi-Square R2

‘No positive change’ 98.2*** .58
Age –.39 .28 2.0 .67
Police response to crime –2.5 .50 24.1*** .09
Police response to antisocial –1.1 .61 3.2 .34
behaviour
Community organization efficacy –.42 .34 1.6 .65
Disorder –.30 .12 5.3* .76
Fear –.11 .11 1.1 .90
Victimization .41 .33 1.6 1.5
QOL affected by crime .07 .18 .13 1.1
QOL affected by antisocial –.32 .18 3.3 .72
behaviour
Male .21 .67 .10 1.2
Female –
Not near interface –.20 .67 .09 .82
Near interface –
‘Limited positive change’
Age –.30 .22 1.8 .18
Police response to crime –1.2 .34 12.0*** .30
Police response to antisocial –.38 .38 .98 .69
behaviour
Community organization efficacy –.56 .29 4.1* .57
Disorder –.15 .10 2.1 .87
Fear .01 .08 .01 1.0
Victimization .62 .27 5.1* 1.9
QOL affected by crime –.34 .16 4.2* .71
QOL affected by antisocial –.06 .14 .22 .94
behaviour
Male –.89 .53 2.8 .41
Female –
Not near interface .50 .54 .85 1.6
Near interface –
*p < .05; ***p < .001.
be pointed out that this performance dimension exerted a determining impact only in
relation to crime, not anti-social behaviour. In regard to other dimensions of the instru-
mental model those aspects concerned with risk had either no impact at all in the case
‘fear of crime’, or a limited impact (p < .05) in the case of previous victimization.
However, this was restricted to those respondents who perceived limited positive change
in policing. As such, our findings suggest that the relationship between instrumental and
expressive dimensions may be rather more muddied than previously alluded to, particu-
larly in areas that share similar structural characteristics to New Lodge.

Discussion
Utilizing a theoretical framework that has been adopted to assess public confidence in
the police in England and Wales using national-level data from the British Crime Survey,
this article has applied a similar analysis using data from a local crime and victimization
survey from within an area of high concentrated disadvantage in Northern Ireland. As we
noted above, previous research has suggested that expressive perceptions of neighbour-
hood disorder, social cohesion and instability are a more influential determinant in struc-
turing perceptions of the police than instrumental concerns with police effectiveness,
fear of crime and experience of victimization. These discussions have undoubtedly raised
important questions about the ‘generative processes’ (Jackson and Sunshine, 2007) that
underpin confidence in the police and may indicate that such confidence is affected by a
range of issues that are ultimately ‘not usually truly resolvable’ by the police (Jackson et
al., 2009: 109, emphasis in original). If this is the case then it has obvious implications
for the deployment of police resources and an awareness of the limitations of the police
role. Our analysis, however, paints a slightly different picture. In New Lodge – a high
crime environment – we found that performance-related, instrumental concerns about
crime control are a salient determinant in structuring perceptions of the PSNI.
Nevertheless in line with the expressive arguments, other dimensions of the instrumental
model – those associated with fear of crime and previous victimization – are rather less
influential.
While we should be cautious about overstating the case, a number of studies provide
general support for salience of instrumental, performance-related criteria in influencing
perceptions of the police in areas of high crime/high concentrated disadvantage. For
example, two early and now rather neglected studies from the United States (Block,
1971; Mirandé, 1981) found that those residents in deprived urban communities (poor
blacks and Hispanics) who had the most hostile relations with the police were paradoxi-
cally more likely to favour increases in police powers to deal with local crime and disor-
der regardless of civil liberties concerns.14 Furthermore, in something that may run
contrary to the assumptions of the procedural justice perspective, this association was
just as strong among some intra-group members who also felt liable to be mistreated by
the police. Similarly, in the UK, Maclean (1993: 51) noted from the Islington Crime
Survey15 data that those ‘who are the targets of biased policing practices often demand
more of the same’ but directed towards those who they feel are responsible for neigh-
bourhood crime and disorder. It may seem rather odd that those groups that have been
impacted upon by often belligerent policing place at least some level of faith in the
police. Perhaps it is the case that residents in poor communities feel a strong sense of
powerlessness in the face of persistent crime and disorder (Geis and Ross, 1998). This
may explain in part the somewhat counterintuitive finding (above) that those respondents
who perceive positive change in policing in New Lodge are also more likely to indicate
a concern with neighbourhood disorder. It may be that such respondents determine that
despite whatever concerns they have about the delivery and nature of it, public policing
provides the only realistic (and accessible) solution to a range of complex neighbour-
hood problems. This may underscore Jackson and Bradford’s (2009: 497) observation
that the public police represent both ‘threat and promise’. In other words, the finding

Ellison et al. 17
reflects the ‘promise’ of what reformed policing might potentially be able to deliver in
the post-ICP environment: it may be that residents are looking to the PSNI to impose a
sense of order and stability and (re)establish community cohesion within an environment
that they perceive to be inherently disordered and unstable.
Our findings reinforce the view that perceptions of the police and the factors that
sustain confidence (or otherwise) in them may reflect considerable spatial differentia-
tion and point to the widely acknowledged variance between local and national survey
data and problematize the degree to which the latter can usefully inform our under-
standing of discrete micro-spaces. As Jock Young (1988: 166) has argued, crime is
concentrated
both geographically in certain areas and socially in certain social groups. Crime figures which
add together low and high crime areas are useful in assessing large scale service provision, but
tend to obscure the pinpointing of crime within the population.
In areas of high concentrated disadvantage concerns about crime are not some form of
epiphenomenal abstraction (linked to irrational fears for example) but are grounded in
the lived and concrete experiences of community residents. While Northern Ireland may
comparatively speaking, retain its status as a low-crime society (see Van Dijk et al.,
2008), the reality is that this glosses over fundamental differences in how crime is expe-
rienced in different areas and by different social groups. In terms of the ecology of place,
some areas – particularly working-class urban inner-city environments such as New
Lodge – have been profoundly affected by a rise in all forms of crime, but particularly
alcohol-related violent crime, for instance – while there has been an increase in instances
of anti-social and nuisance behaviour in the aftermath of the peace process (Northern
Ireland Policing Board, 2011; Topping and Byrne, 2012). It is perfectly plausible then
that New Lodge residents are making a fairly realistic and actuarial appraisal of the situ-
ation and basing their perceptions of police performance accordingly – hence the sali-
ence of instrumental concerns about police performance in local crime control.
Furthermore, we suspect that the emphasis on instrumental performance-related
factors in our sample is fuelled to some degree by unrealistic mass-mediated represen-
tations of what the police ‘do’ (see, for example, Jackson and Sunshine, 2007). This is
compounded in New Lodge by a historic lack of understanding of what civil policing
‘means’ that has placed unrealistically high expectations on the PSNI and are unlikely
to be met (possibly ever). While criminologists and policing scholars have recognized
for decades that the police are not particularly effective at crime control, in Northern
Ireland the politics of police reform were massively over-hyped at the community level
with the ‘new’ PSNI promoted as the panacea to neighbourhood crime and disorder
(Ellison and O’Rawe, 2010). Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that New
Lodge has got the standard and level of policing common to many urban, working-
class areas. Comparatively the PSNI’s performance in New Lodge is probably no
worse nor better than that of the police in Mosside, Kirby or Tottenham but this holds
little sway when community expectations reside somewhere in the stratosphere. The
critical evaluation of police performance in our study is simply reflective then of
overly enhanced community expectations.

However, we suspect that there is a more complex story being played out in New
Lodge and that the actual relationship between instrumental and expressive dimensions
of confidence in the police warrants more detailed empirical research. One of the most
curious findings from our multinomial regression analysis is that a performance-related
instrumental concern with police effectiveness in dealing with crime is statistically sig-
nificant (p < .001) in impacting on perceptions of the PSNI but an equivalent perfor-
mance-related concern with police effectiveness in dealing with anti-social behaviour
(which may include elements of disorder) is not. This finding is made all the more curi-
ous by our observation in the descriptive statistics (above) that over two-thirds of the
sample felt that anti-social behaviour exerted some effect on their quality of life in the
area. However, in terms of our regression model police effectiveness in dealing with
what respondents perceived as anti-social behaviour as a key manifestation of neigh-
bourhood disorder had no significant impact on perceptions of the PSNI in New Lodge.
As such, our finding may be pointing to one of two processes that involve the ‘defining
up’ and conversely, the ‘defining down’ of anti-social behaviour and disorder and the
emphasis attached to them in structurally disadvantaged communities.
First, the ‘broken windows’ thesis proposed by James Wilson and George Kelling
(1982) suggests that crime and disorder share similar structural origins and theoretical fea-
tures and that for residents in areas of high concentrated disadvantage both come to be
perceived as part of the same overall dynamic: they are not viewed as discrete phenomena
but instead viewed as manifestations of the same phenomenon (see also Innes and Weston,
2010; Kubrin and Weitzer, 2003; Sampson and Raudenbush, 2004). Consequently, in areas
such as New Lodge anti-social behaviour/disorder may be ‘defined up’ and is perceived on
the basis of experience to be a solid predictor of more serious risks and threats. In this ‘no
smoke without fire’ scenario, disorder and anti-social behaviour are thus refracted through
the more serious prism of ‘crime’ (see Hayward and Sharp, 2005). Conversely, for resi-
dents in affluent residential suburbs, crime and disorder may be viewed in isolation since
they are further apart on the spectrum of experience and thus remain perceptually distinct
(Brunton-Smith and Sturgis, 2011; Innes and Weston, 2010).
On the other hand our data suggest (albeit tentatively) that the critical threshold or
tolerance level for when disorder becomes an outright annoyance or nuisance (and thus
a cause for complaint or concern) may be considerably higher in areas such as New
Lodge than in more affluent residential suburbs.16 In other words, residents may prior-
itize issues and behaviours in terms of their perceived seriousness (i.e. the threat or risk
that they pose to individual or collective security). Certainly, as we can see from Table 1,
New Lodge residents appear to make a fairly clear distinction between behaviours that
they perceive as the most serious (drug taking, physical assaults, car crime) compared to
those behaviours (teenagers hanging around the street, noisy neighbours, graffiti) that are
more commonly associated with disorder and anti-social behaviour. Therefore, disorder
and anti-social behaviour may be ‘defined down’ and the emphasis on police perfor-
mance in dealing with crime may simply reflect an actuarial calculation of what New
Lodge residents perceive to be the most serious issues affecting their community.
We do concede, however, that our data may be tapping into a bigger expressive narra-
tive that is being played out in New Lodge and that relates to the disruption brought
about by the peace process and the impact that it has had on informal controls and

Ellison et al. 19
community stability. Traditionally republican areas such as New Lodge had relatively
complex structures in place to deal with the local management of crime and disorder
(Brewer et al., 1998). These incorporated a range of community sanctions that at the
extreme end of the scale involved punishment violence by members of paramilitary
organizations (beatings, shootings and so forth). By and large though, such activities
were at variance with the ethos of the peace process, not to mention human rights con-
cerns and were curtailed following Sinn Féin’s entry into government. In republican
areas restorative justice programmes and the newly reformed PSNI were supposed to fill
this vacuum, but in New Lodge it has proved difficult to establish a restorative justice
initiative17 while the PSNI has been beset by problems of legitimacy, effectiveness and
capacity (Ellison and O’Rawe, 2010; Topping and Byrne, 2012). Consequently a broadly
defined social control vacuum has emerged in New Lodge.
What this means is that confidence in the police is impacted negatively by the per-
ceived collapse of informal social control processes and a weakening of collective effi-
cacy (Sampson and Groves, 1989) that is intimately tied up with the disruption brought
about by the peace process. As Émile Durkheim (1947) recognized only too well, war
and conflict provide for their own kinds of certainties. In hardline interface areas such as
New Lodge, violent conflict provided residents with a cognitive mental map that pro-
duced ‘communities of interest’ (Simmel, 1904: 490) through which identity and rela-
tionships with others, including the police were delineated as a matter of taken-for-granted
routine. The pernicious violence of the conflict fostered close-knit, ontologically secure
communities where crime and disorder were seen as an affront to community values and
where neighbourhood resources and the threat of paramilitary reprisal could be mobi-
lized to deal with such behaviours (Brewer et al., 1998). Furthermore, the certainties of
conflict are often easier to cope with than the psychological uncertainties of peace, since
in protracted ethnic conflicts the former are so ‘effortlessly reproduced as part of the
cultural continuity – as part of the traditions, history and institutions of society’ (Brewer,
2010: 199). The peace process may have ruptured this mental map leading to a signifi-
cant crisis of identity and high levels of community fatalism (Lederach, 2005). It is this
fatalism together with the perceived breakdown in community controls that we suspect
our data are reflecting, and into which the PSNI are cast in the invidious position of being
‘blamed’ for much of what is occurring in terms of neighbourhood crime and disorder
(see Ellison et al., 2012). This is important to our analysis because very often people
evaluate the efficacy of formal social control processes by the efficacy of informal social
control processes (Jackson and Bradford, 2010a, 2010b; Kubrin and Weitzer, 2003).
Confidence in the police is strongest when informal community controls are also per-
ceived to be strong. When confidence in the police is low and when policing itself is
perceived to be variant, the capacity to stimulate effectiveness and trust in both formal
and informal modes of social control is destabilized.
So what then are the implications of our findings for policing policy and practice in
Northern Ireland and perhaps elsewhere in the United Kingdom? As noted above the
thrust of the expressive model suggests that confidence in the police is governed by
nebulous concerns about disorder, instability and cohesion. We agree up to a point here,
but would suggest that in high-crime environments such as New Lodge, instrumental,
performance-related criteria in regard to police effectiveness also play a key role.

Certainly our data problematize how far we can use findings derived from national-level
survey data to explain processes occurring in discrete micro-spaces. It may be – contrary
to existing wisdom – that an undue police emphasis on anti-social behaviour and ‘inci-
vilities’ in structurally disadvantaged communities is not in fact what is required. Rather
residents want targeted police interventions in regard to what they perceive as the most
serious issues affecting their community – which in New Lodge revolve around illegal
drug use and violent crime. While we should be clear there is no magic wand that the
police can wave, perspicacious police interventions can make a difference by removing
or alleviating those activities that cause the most distress and annoyance to residents and
in so doing establish a modicum of social order to allow informal community-based
controls to develop organically (see, for example, Dixon, 2005). In regard to what are
termed ‘signal’ crimes and disorders (Innes, 2005) the police need to engage much more
robustly with community concerns and ‘read’ the signals about what residents feel are
the problems in their area.
Our study suggests that in areas such as New Lodge community organizations such as
the GNLCEP can act as an important communicative conduit between residents and the
police. Since the survey data were published the PSNI has redoubled its efforts at neigh-
bourhood policing (through the introduction of Neighbourhood Policing Teams) and has
devoted considerable energy and resources to targeting those issues (mainly around
drugs, sectarian attacks and underage drinking) that were highlighted in the study as
causing the most concern to residents. More importantly, as has been noted elsewhere
perceptions of the police are often influenced by poor police–public communication (e.g.
Bradford et al., 2009). In the aftermath of the study strenuous efforts have been made by
the PSNI and the GNLCEP to educate New Lodge residents about what they can expect
from the police (including importantly what they cannot do!) but also to stress that this
is a two-way process and that the police need public co-operation in order to function
effectively.
Conclusions
Our discussion has drawn attention to the variance between local and national survey data
and the ways that discrete neighbourhood trends are often masked in national level data.
While we acknowledge that New Lodge has historically experienced unique problems in
relation to the conflict we do not see these as undermining or precluding residents’ demands
for safety and security. In this sense the broad context of our study area resonates with
many inner-city environments across the UK that are characterized by multiple depriva-
tion, high levels of crime and disorder and unresponsive and ineffective policing (Newburn,
2011). As the recent riots in a number of English cities served to exemplify, it is becoming
clear that the late modern city is fracturing not only along traditional lines of social class,
gender and race but also by increasingly variant modes of policing and security provision/
delivery (Herbert, 2001; Newburn, 2011). This urban crisis remains tied to the demoniza-
tion of socially excluded places and the idea that they are inhabited by residents who are
atavistic and belligerent. As evidenced here, New Lodge residents, in the main, view the
provision of fair and effective policing as necessary and view themselves not as promoters
of criminality but as excessively burdened victims of it.

Ellison et al. 21
Drawing upon previous research from England and Wales we sought to test whether
expressive concerns with neighbourhood disorder were more influential in structuring
perceptions of the police than instrumental concerns with crime in a post-conflict neigh-
bourhood in Northern Ireland. While we should bear in mind that what counts as ‘crime’
and ‘disorder’ may be open to significant interpretation/definition (Sampson and
Raudenbush, 2004) our findings suggest that in New Lodge it is a performance-related,
instrumental concern with crime control that is the most salient factor affecting percep-
tions of the PSNI. We noted in the opening section that a failure to deal with this perfor-
mance dimension has led to growing community support for the crime-management
activities of dissident republican organizations who perceive (probably accurately)
policing to be the faultline of the peace process. We have also suggested, however, that
our findings go beyond the police and are embedded in a broader expressive narrative of
social change and the role played by the peace process in disrupting traditional commu-
nity certainties. Here perceptions of the police are negated by a perceived decline in the
efficacy of informal social control mechanisms. However, a key problem in our study
area concerned both unrealistically high public expectations about the police role but
also a lack of communication between the public and the police in terms of how these
expectations could be managed and made realizable.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Paul O’Neill and his colleagues from the Greater New Lodge Community
Empowerment Partnership (GNLCEP) for their assistance in facilitating the research. Grateful
thanks also to John D Brewer, Jonathan Jackson, Kieran McEvoy, Shadd Maruna, Eric Stewart and
the anonymous reviewers who made helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of the
manuscript.
Notes
1. Republican refers to those groups or individuals who have traditionally sought to bring about
a united Ireland by violent means.
2. It is beyond the scope of this article but it would appear that the peace process has made
little difference in socio-economic terms to those communities such as New Lodge that
experienced the brunt of conflict-related violence. At the time of the signing of the Belfast
Agreement in 1998 New Lodge ranked among the top 10 wards for the highest concentration
of multiple deprivation/concentrated disadvantage in Northern Ireland. It is still there some
14 years later.
3. Interfaces are the boundary zones between predominantly Catholic and Protestant working-
class districts in urban areas. They are often characterized by security walls or other spatially
designed buffer zones that aim to limit the potential for sectarian violence.
4. We recognize that many loyalist communities suffer from similar problems of concentrated
disadvantage as their republican counterparts and have historically had a difficult relationship
with the police. However, the focus of our discussion is on a republican community in New
Lodge.
5. While we have no wish to oversimplify what has been argued we nevertheless contend that
the broad thrust of these discussions posits a distinction in one form or other, between instru-
mental (crime-related) and expressive (disorder-related) factors in structuring confidence lev-
els in the police. For ease of exposition we will refer throughout to the study by Jackson et al.
(2009) since it most clearly aligns with the arguments expressed in our discussion.

6. For instance, support for dissident organizations opposed to the peace process is more pro-
nounced in some republican communities than others. Political support for Sinn Féin is rela-
tively strong in New Lodge and the party remains the dominant political grouping.
7. For example, in our focus group data many respondents had reservations about the status
of the PSNI as a ‘British’ force, but this did not preclude a desire to see fair, effective and
accountable policing in New Lodge.
8. The GNLCEP is a co-ordinating organization for a number of voluntary and community
groups in the North Belfast area. It has a number of ex-IRA members on its staff and as such
is trusted in the wider community. The GNLCEP took the lead in facilitating the research
discussed in this article.
9. All interviews with GNLCEP members were undertaken between January and February
2008.
10. In a curious way this may illustrate the growing normalcy of policing in Northern Ireland.
Any discussion of policing in any inner-city area of Britain published over the last 30 years
would no doubt highlight similar complaints by local residents.
11. Such groups go by the moniker of ‘Real’ or ‘Continuity’ IRA and are opposed to the peace
process and Sinn Féin’s entry into government. While their numbers are small these organi-
zations have nevertheless been responsible for the deaths of two British soldiers and two
(Catholic) police officers.
12. PSNI data indicate that in 2011/2012 there were 33 victims of paramilitary punishment
shootings in Northern Ireland. Dissident republican groups were responsible for all of these
(Northern Ireland Policing Board, 2012).
13. Tyler and Weber (1982) also refer to this as a ‘symbolic perspective’. We use ‘expressive’
here since it best aligns with the contours of our argument.
14. Incidentally this is supported in our focus-group discussions. New Lodge residents did not
appear to be particularly concerned with civil liberties issues for those they deemed to be caus-
ing problems in the neighbourhood and wanted the PSNI to crack down hard on offenders.
15. While parts of Islington have been gentrified since the mid-1990s it has historically been
an inner-city area of London with high levels of crime and profound levels of concentrated
disadvantage.
16. For instance, we are aware of a recent example from a leafy residential suburb of Belfast
where a number of residents complained that the installation of a satellite dish on a property
had ‘lowered the tone’ of the area.
17. Owing mainly to inter-organizational wrangling (interview with GNLCEP member).
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Biographies
Graham Ellison teaches in the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Queen’s
University Belfast. He has published widely on policing and police reform. He is the
author (with Mike Brogden) of Policing in an Age of Austerity: A Postcolonial Perspective
(Routledge, 2012) and Police Reform, Globalization and Development: Doing It the
Western Way? (with Nathan Pino) published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Nathan W Pino teaches in the Department of Sociology at Texas State University, San
Marcos, USA. He is the editor (with Michael D. Wiatrowski) of Democratic Policing in
Transitional and Developing Countries. He is also the author (with Graham Ellison) of
Police Reform, Globalization and Development: Doing it the Western Way?
Peter Shirlow teaches in the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Queen’s
University Belfast. He is the author of The End of Ulster Loyalism (Manchester University
Press) and has co-authored (with Brendan Murtagh) Belfast: Segregation, Violence and
the City (Pluto Press).
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Assessing the Determinants of Public Conﬁdence in the

Article in Criminology and Criminal Justice · November 2012

Graham Ellison Nathan Pino

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Assessing the determinants of public confidence in the police: A case study

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British Society of Criminology

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Criminology & Criminal Justice

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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2178532

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2011). New Lodge’s immediate border with the predominantly loyalist/Protestant

Figure 1. Area map of New Lodge

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Background to the New Lodge Study

Furthermore, community members were reporting incidents of crime to the GNLCEP

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referendum on whether organizations such as the GNLCEP had a popular mandate to

Theoretical Backcloth:The Instrumental and Expressive

Jackson et al. (2009) propose an alternative expressive perspective of confidence in

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Testing the Expressive Dimensions of Confidence in the

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According to this [expressive] perspective, more day-to-day concerns over anti-social

Methodological Overview and Rationale

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Measures Used in the Bivariate and Multinomial

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for variables used in the analysis.

Variable Mean Standard deviation

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Activity Stated by % respondents

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independent variables. Finally, in line with the expressive perspective, perceptions of

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Independent variable B SE Wald Exp(B) Chi-Square R2

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162205. Available at: http://skogan.org/files/Measuring_What_Matters-Crime_Disorder_

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