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18 Police Q. 3 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/policqurt18 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Police Quarterly 2015, Vol. 18(1) 3-26 Exploring the @ The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: Dim ens ions of Public sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1 177/1098611114561304 Attitudes Toward pqx.sagepub.com the Police OSAGE jihong Solomon Zhao', and Ling Ren' Abstract Public attitudes toward the police (PATP) have become a key area of policing research. Even a cursory review of the literature shows that few studies pay attention to the development of theoretical constructs concerning outcome variable(s)-PATP. The purpose of this study is to advance our knowledge of the psychometric proper- ties of PATP. More specifically, drawing upon Easton's theory of public support, we examine the discriminant validity of diffuse PATP and specific PATP and explore whether there is a neighborhood-conditioning effect in the response to items tapping into the concept of PATP. We use the two waves of telephone surveys collected in Houston, Texas in 2010 and 2012, which include responses from more than 2,500 residents. Confirmatory factor analysis is utilized to conduct the psychometric ana- lysis, as it is an appropriate approach to testing theory-driven factor structures for the attitude-based constructs. The initial results were validated and then replicated. The results lend support for a two-factor model of PATP, where neighborhood is identified as a key moderator. Three important observations concerning measures of PATP are highlighted. Keywords discriminant validity, diffuse support, specific support 'Department of Criminal justice and Criminology, College of Criminal justice, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA Corresponding Author: jihong Solomon Zhao, Department of Criminal justice and Criminology, College of Criminal justice, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX 77341, USA. Email: jzhao@shsu.edu

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