Media use and the Process-Based Model for Police Cooperation: An Integrative Approach towards Explaining Adolescents' Intentions to Cooperate with the Police

Public cooperation with the police is essential for successful crime control. Police can particularly benefit strongly from adolescent cooperation, since young people have a disproportionally high chance of police contact. The current study examines how media use relates to adolescents' willingness to assist police. Using survey data collected from a sample of 1,968 Flemish adolescents, we test an integrative model which combines Tyler's process-based model of police cooperation with assumptions from media effects theories. We find that crime show exposure directly and indirectly predicts adolescents' willingness to cooperate with police. Our findings highlight the importance of media use as an antecedent of police cooperation net of the influence of adolescents' direct police contacts, age, gender, ethnicity or educational level.