‘Leveling’: showing the person behind the police uniform

Central to this master thesis is the question how interactions between police officers and youths impact trust in the police in the city of Rotterdam. Especially youths from marginalized groups have a low rate of trust in the police. The goal was to come to effective strategies that police officers can use in an interaction with youths. In order to get there, micro-sociological theories about interactions were elaborated and were proliferated with procedural justice theory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with police officers and youths in Rotterdam to detect different meanings from interactions. The findings suggest that strategies lead to trust in the police if police officers can ‘level’ with youths and show them that they are as much human as they are. This was especially true for people from marginalized groups who fear the authority role of the police. Future research should focus on these groups and analyze if ‘leveling’ lead to trust in the police on a wider scale.