More Cops, Less Trust? Disentangling the Relationship between Police Numbers and Trust in the Police in the European Union

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between number of police officers per inhabitant and trust in the police in the EU. By compiling data sources from the Eurobarometer, the Eurostat and the Corruption Perception Index, we test whether the number of police officers per inhabitant is a robust predictor of trust in the police on the country level. While there is a strong negative correlation between the two variables that justifies stating that the police are trusted most in countries where the number of police is minimal, controlling for relevant covariates reveals that the correlation is technically spurious. In line with distributive justice theory, perceptions of corruption in the respective countries explain most of the variation in trust in the police, which completely levels the influence of number of police officers per inhabitant. Implications for research and policy are discussed at the end of the paper.