Citizen ratings of the importance of selected police duties

This paper reports on citizen ratings of the importance of different police duties. Nine cumulative logistical regression models are estimated using data from a city-wide survey of urban conditions and sendees, and the effects of 77 independent variables compared across the 9 models. The findings indicate differences for 7 of the 9 models. The most consistent differences across models are for race-ethnicity and marital status. In addition, the parameter estimates for income, education, age, and gender is significant for some of the models. No significant parameter estimates were found for the models for investigating drug crimes and investigating gang activity. Nearly all respondents, regardless of personal and social characteristics, gave high ratings to these two duties.