How Do Gender Differences Affect Student Attitudes Toward University Police?

In general, the public tend to hold a positive view of the police. In terms of University Police, Maharry (2013) demonstrated that a vast majority of University of Iowa students had a generally favorable review of the university’s police department (Maharry, 2013). Jennings, Gover, and Pudrzynska (2007) added that prior research has shown that a large proportion of students report feeling safe in general (Jennings et al., 2007). In light of the recent events across college campuses such as Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University, studying students attitudes towards University Police becomes extremely important, especially within the areas of satisfaction and perceptions of safety on campus. Satisfaction with University Police and feeling safe on campus, or perception of safety are influenced by a host of factors and differs between
Although prior research on attitudes towards the police indicate that there is no consensus on the effects of gender, some research suggests that females view the police more favorably than males (Brown & Benedict, 2002). Brown and Benedict (2002) also stated that males are somewhat more likely than females to believe that the police use too much force. The authors also noted that a study conducted in New Zealand revealed that females are more likely than males to be satisfied with the police handling of problems and are more likely than males to hold favorable attitudes towards the police (Avdija, ‎2010; Brown & Benedict, 2002). Other studies indicate that males tend to hold more favorable view of the police than females (Brown and Coulter, 1983; Thomas & Hyman, 1977). Specifically, Thomas and Hyman (1977) noted that females were slightly more unfavorable in their attitudes towards the police than males. Nonetheless, various body of works suggest that gender has no effects on perception of the police (Chow, 2012; Hurst and Frank,