| The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the factors associated with cooperative attitudes toward police as expressed through perceptions of university students from Japan, China, and the United States. The study examined the subjects' values, attitudes, and perceptions derived from knowledge of their police and general experience in their countries.;This study was done mainly through mailed questionnaire surveys and partially through interviews conducted from August through December, 1990. The sample consisted of the three groups of university students: Americans and nationals from Japan and China residing temporarily on the campus of a midwestern university in the United States. The sample size of the three groups was made up of 121 Americans, 119 Japanese, and 91 Chinese. The study utilized the t-test, and correlation analysis as major statistical techniques.;For the American group, police-related and crime-related factors--visibility of the police, evaluation of police performance, and perception of crime--were found to be significantly related to the public's cooperative attitude toward the police and willingness to contact them.;For the Japanese group, factors which were obviously community-related--community cohesion, awareness of the police, awareness of neighborhood police posts, and a feeling of safety due to the existence of these neighborhood police posts--were found to be associated with police-public relations.;The public's cooperative attitude towards the police was the dependent variable. All independent variables were categorized into five factors--political factors, crime- related factors, police-related factors, community-related factors, and cultural-ideological factors.;For the Chinese group, a greater variety of factors were found to be related with the public's cooperative attitude to contact the police. Such elements as political, crime-related, police-related, and community-related factors were also determined to be significant regarding the public's cooperative attitude towards the police. Among these variables, political efficacy and perception of the police appeared to be most significant. |
