What Shapes Security Guards' Trust in Police? The Role of Perceived Obligation to Obey, Procedural Fairness, Distributive Justice, and Legal Cynicism

Abstract

There have been studies about citizens' perceptions of trust in the police in both developed and undeveloped economies relative to security guards, who for the most part are private citizens but whose job responsibilities and duties sometimes resemble some functions of the public police. In this paper, we examine security guards' attitudes regarding their trust and confidence in police officers in Slovenia. The data for the study come from a sample of security officers who were required by law to undergo professional development courses on a periodic basis as delineated by the Private Security Act (Zakon o zasebnem varovanju, 2011) of Slovenia. The findings suggest that distributive fairness, procedural justice, and legal cynicism are strong predictors of security guards' trust in police.