Victims’ perceptions of police services: The perspectives of tourists as outsiders

Abstract

This article presents the first research to consider perceptions of the police held by non-resident victims, in this case US citizens on holiday either at home or abroad. Based on a small sample of 84 US residents victimised while holidaying in either the USA or four other countries, and drawn from Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a crowdsourcing platform, it is, essentially exploratory. However, the findings suggest that tourist victims in our sample commonly reported their crimes and held extremely positive views of the way they were treated by the police, indeed more so than their experiences ‘back home’ had led them to expect. Most victims, nevertheless, said they would have appreciated more support, from the police and other sources. Although more research is needed to build on this study, the findings do underline the need for a greater focus on the experiences of foreign visitors and offer a template for future research on outsiders’ views of their experiences as victims.

The impact of crime on tourists and the need for greater support for tourist victims

“…This is all the more notable given that, as we have demonstrated elsewhere (Mawby and Ozascilar, 2022), victims’ evaluations of the police, again largely based on CSEW questions, were very positive.…”

“…I would have loved to get justice, with those responsible for the crime apprehended and prosecuted. This is all the more notable given that, as we have demonstrated elsewhere (Mawby and Ozascilar, 2022), victims' evaluations of the police, again largely based on CSEW questions, were very positive.…”

“…tour reps; US embassy). Finally, we asked explicitly about the police, most especially whether or not they reported the incident and additionally their perceptions of the service they received from the police (for more details see: Mawby and Ozascilar, 2022).…”

Theft Victimization in Urban Settings: Comparison of Tourist and Resident Case Profiles

“…Several interventions have been suggested to reduce and prevent crimes against tourists: some examples include establishing partnerships between the tourism industry and criminal justice agencies, facilitating crime reporting by tourists, creating specialized tourism police units or tourism victims' support services, making an effort to collect and analyze tourist victimization data to aid in the creation of targeted crime prevention initiatives, and tourist education campaigns (Buil-Gil and Mawby 2022;Albuquerque and McElroy 1999;Mawby 2017;Mawby and Özaşçılar 2022).…”