LEGITIMATING THE SIERRA LEONE POLICE: POLITICS, CORRUPTION, AND PUBLIC TRUST

GASSAN ABESS

There are considerable variations in the level of trust and legitimacy of the police among the citizenry in different countries for a host of factors. The purpose of the current study is to determine how citizens' perception of the level of corruption and politics within the Sierra Leone police influences citizens' levels of trust and legitimacy of the police in Sierra Leone. The present study utilizes quantitative and qualitative data collected from Sierra Leone to test the following hypotheses: 1) Perceptions of police corruption will reduce public trust in the police in Sierra Leone; 2) Perceptions of corruption will reduce legitimacy of the police among the citizenry in Sierra Leone; 3) Perceptions of political interference in police operations will reduce public trust in the police in Sierra Leone; 4) Perceptions of political interference in police operations will reduce the legitimacy of the police among the citizenry in Sierra Leone. A total sample size of 800 respondents was selected from the 2004 Population and Housing Census of Sierra Leone. Freetown (study area) had approximately 800,000 people. The response rate was 70 percent as a total of 560 individuals actually consented to participate in the study and answered the questions on the questionnaire. The study was conducted from February 28th, 2014 through April 27th, 2014. The unit of analysis was at the individual level and the Ordinal Logistic Regression Model was used to analyze the data The findings of the current study provide empirical support for two research hypotheses. That is, "Perceptions of police corruption will reduce public trust in the police in Sierra Leone" and "Perceptions of police corruption will reduce the legitimacy of the police among the citizenry in Sierra Leone". A statistically significant negative relationship was found to exist between corruption and legitimacy, and that of public trust. Thus, as corruption increases, public trust in the police decreases, and legitimacy of the police also decreases. Two hypotheses were not confirmed by the analysis of the data. Perceived political interference in the work of the police were not significantly related to levels of trust and legitimacy in the police. Two of the control variables were also found to be strong predictors of police legitimacy: that is the age and education variables. With regards to age, older people are more likely to view the police as legitimate. For the education variable, individuals with less than senior high school, and senior high school were more likely to view the police as legitimate compared to those with above high school education. Two control variables were also found to be strong predictors of public trust, that is, annual income and age. As annual income increases public trust of the police also increases. Similarly, as age increases, public trust also increases. Policy implications and recommendations are discussed.

LEGITIMATING THE SIERRA LEONE POLICE: POLITICS, CORRUPTION, AND PUBLIC TRUST

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