Public satisfaction with the South Korean Police: The effect of residential location in a rapidly industrializing nation

Recent years have witnessed growing research interest in citizen perceptions of the police. This was likely the result of the community policing movement, which sought to strengthen ties between citizens and the police, as well as to concerns about the legitimacy of the police. Most of this research focused on police agencies in the United States, and little research had been conducted on citizen perceptions of the police in Asian countries. This study sought to fill this void through an analysis of citizen perceptions of the police in South Korea. To address these issues, telephone interview survey data gathered from 11,500 randomly selected citizens were obtained in the rapidly industrializing country, South Korea. Several sets of multiple-regression models were estimated to assess the effect of urbanization, demographics, evaluations of police services, and perceived corruption on citizen satisfaction with police. The results suggested that citizens in small to mid-sized cities and large urban cities were less satisfied with police than were residents of rural areas. In addition, age, evaluations of police service, and perceptions of corruption were related to citizen satisfaction. The results were discussed in comparison to previous research in Asia and the United States and other Western countries.