Police Effectiveness as the Influencing Factor of the Community Policing Strategy on Citizens' Sense of Safety in Croatia

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to determine the connection between the individual components of the Community Policing Strategy in Croatia with the sense of safety; the perception of fear of crime, perception of crime risk and frequency, as well as the perception of incivilities in Croatia. The research encompassed a total of 1,096 respondents over 18 years of age. The field research combined two quantitative methods: telephone interviews and face-to-face interviews in households. The results indicate that there is a complex relationship between community policing and citizens' affective and cognitive perceptions of safety. While certain extracted components positively influence the perception of safety, others are not significantly related or are related contrary to expectations. The result of the quasi-canonical correlation analysis speaks in favour of opinions on the police and perception of police effectiveness in preventing and detecting crime as factors of community policing having the greatest effect on the sense of safety. On the other hand, the perception of incivility is the main characteristic of the perception of safety that influences the perception of the police. To put it differently, all efforts of community policing that lead to strengthening citizens' confidence in the police and to building positive opinions, and that increase police visibility are key to achieving success in terms of increased perception of safety.