We modified the participant perception survey utilized in the Multi-Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation and administered it to participants at a majority Hispanic drug court in south Texas. Results revealed generally positive perceptions of the judge and various measures of procedural justice. Results also revealed that participants perceived the ability to communicate with the (bilingual) judge in Spanish as important to their success in drug court and that this was true even of those participants who were fluent in English as well as Spanish. Our results generate an important policy consideration for these future courts, namely, the language abilities of the judge. We believe that judges at majority Hispanic drug courts will be most effective when they are bilingual in English and Spanish and we call on drug court planners to consider our findings as they develop new courts to serve this growing population.

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:226685 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This study attempts to determine how political legitimacy and regime change affect the level of public confidence in the Mexican police. The current study also aims to examine to what extent socioeconomic and attitudinal factors are associated with levels of police confidence among Mexican citizens. Design/methodology/approach -The data used in this study were obtained from two Mexican surveys conducted as part of the World Value Surveys (WVS) in 1996 and 2005. Owing to the nature of the dependent variable, a series of ordinal logistic regression analyses was employed to examine the effects of political legitimacy, regime change, attitudinal, and socioeconomic factors on public confidence in the Mexican police while controlling other relevant factors. Findings -Consistent with prior research, results confirmed that public confidence in the police was positively associated with political legitimacy (i.e. support for regime institutions and system support), happiness, life satisfaction, marital status, and religious activity. Yet, age, education, and size of the town were negatively related to public confidence. Research limitations/implications -Since the current study used secondary data, the availability of information was limited. Only one nation was studied which limits the generalizability of the findings. Future research may attempt to study other Latin-American nations, including Mexico, in order to address the issue of public confidence in policing on a greater scale. Further, as the police alone cannot take full credit in the public's perception of law enforcement, it is imperative that future studies also examine other government agencies (i.e. courts, prosecutors) that may lend more information on this subject. Originality/value -While the police and some governing agencies may not be able to change most of the factors studied in this research, they can strive to cultivate better trust among the citizenry and seek to improve quality of life in neighborhoods which may lead to greater happiness and life satisfaction factors that may then increase the...