A Study on Factors of Trust between Police and Citizen Patrols

Since 1953, citizen patrols have been utilized as auxiliary police forces due to the shortage of regular police personnel, contributing significantly to crime prevention and maintaining order within local communities. The necessity for legislation regarding the organization and operation of citizen patrols emerged in 2006, leading to the enactment of the ‘Law on the Installation and Operation of Citizen Patrols’ in April 2022. With its full implementation in April 2023, there is a need to contemplate the effective enforcement of the law for institutional consolidation. This study aims to measure the level of trust between the police and citizen patrols and the perceptions of police officers responsible for citizen patrol activities at the stage of devising institutional support systems alongside the full implementation of the law. It seeks to identify correlational and influential factors towards enhancing mutual trust and derive crucial variables for future citizen patrol support system establishment. For this, through a survey conducted among police officers in charge of citizen patrols in 258 police stations, variables with correlations and influences on the level of mutual trust between the police and citizen patrols were identified. The research findings confirmed that factors such as “evaluation of citizen patrol activities by police officers” and “affiliated city or province” are significant in increasing mutual trust between the police and citizen patrols, reflecting the relational dynamics and regional characteristics between them