Communicating reform: apologies and policy implementation for policing's history

Abstract

Governments sometimes apologize for their mistakes but apologizing for mistakes does not always impart legitimacy on governments. Policing's history in the United States creates the context through which policing is understood today. Because people are socialized into understanding government throughout their lives, individuals come to an understanding of what police are like, how police act, and biases that police have. Policing's history is full of enforcing racial inequity which creates a context today that imparts illegitimacy, especially among African Americans, and legitimacy is crucial for government's effective operations. After conducting a literature review and exploratory qualitative research, this dissertation designed two experiments to test apology's effects on police legitimacy among African American respondents. The initial experiment showed little legitimizing effects on the police from a supplementary apology. The second experiment showed some legitimizing effect from a police chief apologizing for policing's history, especially compared to not responding to policing's history at all, but sustained policy reform implementation seems to be a stronger and more durable approach. While administrators like police have the ability to address the past through reconciliation, they also have the power to change the future through policy implementation.