The Investigation of Factors Affecting Citizen's Trust in Police (Case Study: City of Kashan)

Citizens’ trust in the police arises from several factors among which the police performance in providing the community’s security and the police social dignity among the citizens are of particular importance. This paper examines the relationship between citizens’ attitudes toward police dignity and also security provision by police, and degree of trust in police. This study is of a survey research type and the data were collected using questionnaires and interviews. The reliability and validity of research tools were approved using Cronbach alpha coefficient (maintaining social security by the police a=0.775, attitude towards police social dignity a=0.872, trust in police a=0.908). The statistical population of the study includes the working population (15-65 years old) of Kashan in 2012. The sample size was set to 700 persons using Cochran formula. The data were analyzed by SPSS using two-way ANOVA and Spearman correlation coefficient.Findings and The findings of the study showed the relationship between citizens’ attitudes towards security provision by police, and police dignity in society with the degree of trust in police (0.615 and 0.576, respectively) in a 99% level of confidence. The findings of two-way ANOVA showed that 58 % of the dependent variable’s variance is explained by the effects of the variables of attitudes towards police social dignity and maintaining security by the police.