Vietnamese Australians' perceptions of the trustworthiness of police

Abstract

Trust is a central concern in the policing of ethnically and racially identified communities. A challenge for contemporary policing research on trust, as for related concerns such as confidence or cooperation, is to relate the quality of personal police trust encounters to public views about the trustworthiness of the policing institution. Within the criminological literature on policing, many quantitative empirical studies are directed towards the measurement and comparison of how confidence, trust, effectiveness and fairness are related to community perceptions of police practice. Overall, there is a general scarcity of integrated frameworks applied to empirical studies of trustworthiness although the organisation and leadership literature offer some models. In this qualitative study, a sociological framework is used to explore Vietnamese Australian's perceptions of police trustworthiness. The paper investigates the key factors that influence Vietnamese Australians' perceptions of police trustworthiness using dimensions of trustworthiness described by Sztompka, namely, reputation, performance, appearance and accountability.

Keywords

Community policing ethnic groups trust trustworthiness Vietnamese

Introduction

Gaining trust is a paramount concern in policing, particularly in relation to ethnically and racially identified communities. Because trust is deeply implicated in community feelings of safety, it is central to the reform of policing institutions in postmodern societies (Goldsmith, 2005). The building of trust is especially difficult in multi-ethnic environments when communities are characterised by low social capital, social disadvantage or face complex security problems (Hulse & Stone, 2007). In addition, building trust in ethnically or racially identified communities may be affected by past negative experiences of police or authorities and refugee trauma. Policing approaches are challenged when ethnic community values and normative behaviours are not reflected in policing practice. Tankebe (2013) suggests that shared values and common beliefs underpin normative behaviours to cooperate or not cooperate with police. Other scholarship suggests policing operations perpetuate rather than address existing social exclusions and inequalities by reinforcement of disadvantage through ethnic or racial profiling or a failure to address the specific security needs of minority communities (Bowling, 2007). Innes et al. (2009) warn police practitioners against treating all communities as if they are the same; instead, they suggest an assessment of the trust building assets necessary for each ethnic or racial community. Other scholars argue that empirical research that focuses on location-specific relations between ethnic communities and police is essential to the implementation of neighbourhood policing in ethnically or racially differentiated communities (Bowling & Phillips, 2003a; Grossman et al., 2013; Murphy & Cherney, 2011a; Pickering, Wright-Neville & McCulloch, 2007).

This study of Vietnamese Australian communities in Melbourne investigates how culture, structural factors and experiences of police affect perceptions of the trustworthiness of police. The study employs sociological understandings of trust to address empirical issues of trust, an approach which is underutilised in criminological research. The study makes a contribution to the literature on police relations from the perspective of an ethnic minority; a field of interest because of the increasing complexity in policing multi-ethnic cities.

Trust and trustworthiness

Integrated studies of trustworthiness are challenged by a general lack of frameworks or models in the applied literature, although some trust models are found in the organisation and leadership literature (Mayer & Norman, 2004). Trust is common to human experience but in empirical studies has proven elusive and difficult to investigate. Fukuyama (1995: 26) defines trust as ‘the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, and cooperative behaviour, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of the community’. Sztompka (1999: 26) uses a straightforward definition of trust as ‘committing ourselves to action’ and the metaphor, ‘placing a bet’ to indicate the anticipatory nature of trust acts. Mayer, Davis and Schoorman (1995: 712) define trust as the ‘willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform particular actions important to the trustor, irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party’.

Trust is differentiated from trustworthiness as trust as a behavioural intention and trustworthiness a judgment made by the trustor (the actor who creates a trust) about the trusted (actor or agency in whom trust is invested) (Mayer et al., 1995). The decision by a potential trustor as to whether or not to confer trust in another party is based on the other party's perceived trustworthiness (Sztompka, 1999). Trustworthiness according to these conceptions, integrates the act of trusting by the trustor with the expected trustworthiness of the trusted. While trustworthiness is mostly relational, it may include psychological and cultural elements (Hardin, 2002; Sztompka, 1999). The perceived trustworthiness of an organisation affects strategic outcomes and the capacity to form partnerships (Mayer & Norman, 2004).

Luhmann (1980) argues that trust and risk should be considered together, since trust arises only in situations where there is recognised risk. While the act of trust requires the trustor to make a positive assessment of the trustworthiness of the trusted, the trusted does not necessarily have to make a similar assessment of the trustor. The one-way nature of trust thus entails a risk to the trustor, for the reason that the act of the trustor occurs ‘irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party’ (Mayer et al., 1995: 712; Mayer & Norman, 2004). Distrust is described by Sztompka (1999: 26) as the ‘negative mirror image of trust’. Because trust investments in the untrustworthy are risky and perhaps even dangerous, some scholarship suggests distrust should not be viewed as problematic but instead as a necessary and functional aspect of daily living (Hardin, 2002; Sztompka, 1999). In the case of policing, Goldsmith (2005: 447) suggests distrust of police by ethnic or other marginalised groups is a necessary means of self-protection and if police intend to overcome distrust, they need to show ‘tangible indicators’ of increased trustworthiness.

Sztompka's (1999) integrated conceptualisation of trustworthiness is based on experiential elements that provide clues for trustor actors to make assessments of the degree of trustworthiness of trusted actors. The indicators or trustworthiness are affected by contextual factors in which the relations between trustor and trusted are enacted. The key elements directly influencing trustworthiness assessments of the trusted are reputation, performance and appearance. These elements are influenced by indirect contextual factors that include culture and accountability.

Of the three elements that establish trustworthiness, reputation is considered the main mechanism, particularly in traditional cultures. Sztompka (1999: 71) defines reputation as ‘the record of past deeds’ of individuals, institutions or other social objects. Performance, as defined by Sztompka (1999), includes effectiveness and the motivation that drives the trusted to perform. Unlike reputation that hinges on whether the trusted is acting in or out of character, performance relates to the current perceptions of conduct. Sztompka (1999) contends performance gives trustors less reliable clues of trustworthiness than reputation because it requires an evaluation of the potential future trustworthiness of trustees, based on their current actions. Predictable and consistent actions are claimed to create a sense of certainty and enable people to assess whether the trusted have behaved in accordance with expectations. Appearance, as utilised by Sztompka (1999) refers to the external characteristics of the physical body, civility and dress and their influence on trust judgements. Sztompka (1999) contends that when trustors make observations about the trusted's appearance, they unconsciously use these to make prejudgements about personality, identity or status (Sztompka, 1999). A significant factor affecting trustworthiness cues is whether the trusted is perceived to have cultural or values alignment with the trustor. Accountability mechanisms provide incentives and motivation for the trusted to demonstrate trustworthy behaviours and impose sanctions to discourage unacceptable behaviours. The effectiveness of the accountability process relies on the power to act effectively, to ensure the trusted acts in the interest of trustors. While these monitoring systems may maintain the anonymity of the complainant, Sztompka (1999) states anonymity cannot be a condition for the trusted.

Other scholarship endorses the significance of individual aspects of Sztompka's conception and framework for understanding trustworthiness. Hardin (2002) similarly prioritises reputation as a key factor in trust relations and further suggests a good reputation is self-reinforcing because it is an incentive to live up to expectations. Connerton (1989) claims past observations, memories, biographies, rumours and stories form the fabric of reputation and consequently history as a general rule, cannot be severed from reputation. Other scholarship links competency and consistency of performance to trustworthiness and whether institutional measures of performance measures meet community expectations of effectiveness (Goldsmith, 2005; Mayer et al., 1995; Mishra, 1996; Nooteboom, 2002). Loader and Walker (2007: 101) describe the maintenance of a public image of neutrality and consistency as ‘a precarious reputational prize’. Local accountability and involvement in the police process are rated by Goldsmith (2005) as the main imperative for building trust in police in societies emerging from conflict and authoritarian rule. Lewis and Prenzler (2008) similarly contend that how complaints are handled and how the outcomes are communicated to the public, strongly influences satisfaction with police. Goldsmith (2005: 464) advocates the need to build a reflective type of trust whereby ‘“reasons to trust” need to be identified, reiterated and built upon in the context of police/citizen contacts and relationships’.

Empirical studies of factors affecting trustworthiness of police in ethnic minorities

Racially and ethnically identified minorities consistently report more negative interactions with police than other communities (Lai & Zhou, 2010; Weitzer & Tuch, 2004). The most negative evaluations of police occurred when groups or individuals believed they were targeted by police. Bowling and Phillips (2003a) link distrust to discriminatory policing including aggressive policing tactics, excessive use of stop and search powers and stereotypical attitudes of police towards members of racially identified communities. Studies in Cabramatta, similarly found that over-zealous drug policing strategies implemented for Vietnamese Australian drug users and offenders had deleterious effects on the targeted individuals and damaged relations in the wider Vietnamese Australian community (Dixon & Maher, 2002). Young people in Australia from ethnically and racially identified communities claimed they were targeted by police and treated with a lack of respect (Grossman & Sharples, 2010; Grossman et al., 2013).

A study by Bradford and Jackson (2010) attributed trust to three areas: effectiveness of the system and individual officers; fairness; and demonstration of values that align with those of the community. Overriding all these factors, they found low trust towards police in communities impeded trust relations even where strenuous efforts are made to demonstrate procedural fairness. Other studies show similar trends across the UK, USA and Australia for ethnic and racially identified cultural groups with consistently low levels of trust towards police (Fagan & Davies, 2000; Murphy & Cherney, 2011a; Pickering et al., 2007; Sharp & Johnson, 2009; Tyler, 2005). Rosenbaum et al. (2005) concluded that prior attitudes towards police far outweighed more current contrary experiences, which led them to conclude the establishment of trust with disenfranchised ethnic groups posed a ‘formidable challenge’ (Rosenbaum et al., 2005: 362).

Stereotypes of police may be reinforced through ‘confirmation bias’ whereby only information that is consistent with established perceptions is selected and opposing information is ignored (Rosenbaum et al., 2005). Asymmetry in the effects of good and bad encounters with police has also been found to affect evaluations of police performance, with far greater impact arising from bad experiences (Skogan, 2006). In fact, Skogan's research shows that both favourable and unfavourable encounters with police lowers people's appraisal of police and no contact at all with police has the most positive effect on public attitudes. The study by Rosenbaum et al. (2005: 354) of the public's vicarious experiences of police officers was more predictable in that they found when people indirectly received positive or negative information about police, it instilled in the recipient, respectively, more positive or negative attitudes towards police. Unexpectedly, when contrasted with Skogan's (2006) study, Rosenbaum et al. (2005) found positive vicarious experiences had greater impact than negative vicarious experiences on changing public attitudes toward police.

The importance of procedural justice is widely recognized within the literature although some research indicates procedural justice may be less effective in encouraging cooperation with police among ethnically and racially differentiated groups (Murphy & Cherney, 2011b; Tankebe, 2013; Tyler, 2005; Tyler & Huo, 2002). In a study by Innes et al. (2007), police effectiveness was a key concern to young Muslim men and led to lowered perceptions of police trustworthiness. The study demonstrated how ‘reassurance policing’ overcame ‘trust deficits’ through ‘cycles of trust building’ by targeting and fixing crimes of concern to the local communities (Innes et al., 2007). Other scholarship casts doubt on a direct relationship between effectiveness and trust mainly because covert intentions of increased intelligence flows through reassurance policing may compromise motivational trust (Pickering, McCulloch & Wright-Neville, 2008). Public perceptions of the effectiveness of police depend on whether citizens or police initiated the contact, with police effectiveness being more highly rated in citizen-initiated contacts (Schafer, Huebner & Bynum, 2003; Skogan, 2006). The English-speaking language proficiency of citizens also affects the frequency and type of contacts with police officers (Skogan, 2005).

The ethnic or racial representation of police officers is a highly politicised aspect of appearance. In advanced democracies, government and police recruitment policies have espoused the value of police forces that reflect the broader society. Strategies have met with some successes, although generally for police forces in Australia and other English speaking countries proportional representation of the racial and ethnic groups present in the wider community has not been achieved (Sharp & Atherton, 2007; Victoria Police, 2003, 2009). The most visible aspect of a police officer's appearance and identity, the uniform, is intended to signal to the public the presence of an effective police force (Bradford & Jackson, 2010). Innes (2004) claims the symbolic power of policing is as important as its instrumental functions and that the uniform along with the foot patrol and other practices are the cultural symbols that connote protection. However, police uniforms cannot be assumed to be a signal for reliability and trustworthiness, as for some ethnic groups the signal may have a different or opposite effect. A study in the USA found that officers wearing traditional uniforms were perceived by the white public as helpful and competent when compared with officers in casual attire and yet recognisable as police. In contrast, for black residents in the same vicinity the uniform reinforced negative and hostile attitudes to police (Mauro, 1984: 55). Studies show that the race, ethnicity and social status of members of the public, affects whether or not they are subjected to stop and search procedures by police officers (Bowling & Sheptycki, 2011; Phillips & Bowling, 2003; Quinton, 2011).

Methodology

The paper draws on qualitative data from an ARC Linkage Project¹ on trust relations between police and Vietnamese Australian communities in Melbourne and the implications for policing. The project investigated Victorian police officers' experience of professional relations with members of Vietnamese Australian communities and the attitudes of Vietnamese Australians to police, crime, security and community policing. This paper analyses the data from the Vietnamese Australian participants to investigate how direct and indirect experiences of police and contextual factors shaped perceptions of police trustworthiness. The study was conducted in three Police Service Areas with high population of people with Vietnamese heritage.

The research tools were focus groups and semi-structured interviews that incorporated investigative and grounded theory approaches to allow for the emergence of unexpected or new insights into old problems (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). Eleven focus groups were conducted and involved 100 Vietnamese Australian community members. The interviews and focus groups were conducted in Vietnamese or English dependent on participants' primary language. Participants for the focus groups included generation one and two residents; women and men; employed and unemployed people; and representatives from three localities. Generation one Vietnamese Australians were defined in this study as people born in Vietnam and generation two Vietnamese Australians as born in Australia with at least one parent born in Vietnam and also for this study includes people who were born in Vietnam and migrated to Australia under the age of 11. This definition of generation two accommodates the way in which the respondents thought about themselves and incorporates the influence of social and political contexts for determining membership of a generation (Wyn & Woodman, 2006). Youth in the study referred to any respondents who were 24 years of age or younger. In response to advice from the reference groups, separate focus groups were conducted for generation one and two and separate focus groups for men and women in generation one. Table 1 provides a summary of the key characteristics of the participants and the methods used for data collection. Because social justice workers were interviewed in regard to their professional knowledge of the crime and policing issues in the community and not their personal experiences as members of the community, gender is the only demographic provided for this data group.

Table 1.

Summary of characteristics of Vietnamese Australian participants and methods used in study.

The data groups	Number	Gender		Age			Generation		Language data collected in	Research method
The data groups	Number	F	M	18–29	30–49	≥50	One	Two	Language data collected in	Research method
General community members	100	59	41	25	14	61	80	20	Vietnamese and English	Focus groups
Past offenders	13	1	12	1	12	0	3	9	Vietnamese	Interviews
Social justice workers	19	8	11	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	English	Interviews
Total participants	132

Snowball sampling was used to recruit participants for the focus groups from Vietnamese Australian networks including: committees and volunteers associated with the Buddhist religion; professional networks; mothers' groups; community workshop groups and social networks. Researchers attended the focus groups at the venues provided by Vietnamese community organisations to administer the ethics requirements and answer questions. The focus group schedule asked participants about situations that fostered feelings of lack of safety and insecurity in their everyday lives, their reporting of crime, and their views on how police dealt with crime and other issues of concern. A training session for Vietnamese Australian facilitators was conducted at the university in order to attain a degree of consistency and expose any potential cultural misunderstandings in the focus group schedules.

Nineteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with selected Vietnamese Australians working in the legal, social or community sectors who are referred to collectively in this article as social justice workers. Interviewees from the community sector worked in community liaison positions at county courts or for Vietnamese Australian associations or did paid or voluntary work at drug rehabilitation or needle exchange centres. The sample of social justice workers also included social workers and lawyers. The snowball sampling method was used to recruit interviewees, as the approach is a useful technique for groups that are closed or reticent to be involved in research (Corbetta, 2003). The interviews with the social justice participants were conducted by the researchers from the project and were in English. An additional 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted with Vietnamese Australian past offenders all of whom had multiple drug offences and many of whom had past prison sentences. The interviewees were recruited by Vietnamese Australian facilitators who used the snowball method to find participants from community organisations or drug rehabilitation organisations. The interview schedule explored offenders' experiences of police and the justice sector. All interviews with past offenders were conducted in Vietnamese and their responses if recorded translated into English. For offenders who did not agree to a recorded interview, the interviewer wrote their responses in English.

The data was analysed to find the factors affecting perceptions of police trustworthiness for general community members, social justice workers and past offenders. After coding emergent themes, it became apparent that the data showed a strong compatibility with Sztompka's (1999) three elements of trustworthiness, which were subsequently applied as a framework for the analysis. The study addresses two research questions, the first is: What are the main factors that influence Vietnamese Australians assessments of the trustworthiness of police in the areas of reputation, performance and appearance? The second related research question is: How are these assessments affected by contextual factors? We do not claim that the research represents the views of all Vietnamese Australians or can be generalised to other Vietnamese Australians. This is a specific account that provides insights into how and why Vietnamese Australians in several regions within Melbourne evaluate police trustworthiness.

Findings on reputation of police

Comparisons with police in Vietnam

Victorian police were favourably compared to police from Vietnam. Officers from the Department of Police Vietnam were said to be untrustworthy because of their character, their relationship with the government or corruption. They were described as puppets of the communist regime and frequently referred to as generally bad people. The reputation of police in Vietnam was damaged by the violent and discriminatory pre-migration experiences of Vietnamese people who left the country as refugees or migrated following the end of the war in Vietnam in 1975. More recent experiences for many family members in the Republic of Vietnam rekindled a distrust in police because of persistent corruption, a view consistent with the location of Vietnam in 2010 on an International, Corruption Perceptions Index with a given ranking of 116 in a list of 178 countries (Transparency International, 2012). When asked if there was any similarity between the local police in Australia and police in Vietnam a social justice worker responded:

Nothing at all. We are only afraid of [Vietnamese police]. We don't respect them. And we hate them because we think that they have all the powers and they can do anything to you any way they want. So normal people would avoid the police and the criminals would buy the police. (INC02)

The difference between police forces in Vietnam and Australia was explained by research participants as primarily related to the distinction between a communist and democratic country. Vietnamese Australians believed that in Australia police were mandated to keep people safe, whereas in Vietnam people were vulnerable to political and localised manipulation. Understanding the relationship of police to the state was important to Vietnamese Australians and was a reason why they chose to live in a democratic country. Vietnamese Australian men, many of whom were past members of the South Vietnamese army, strongly endorsed a role for police in maintaining the security of the State. For many men, the trustworthiness of police in Australia was related to an expected role to ‘maintain order in society’. Nonetheless, the male supporters who commented on the role of police in protecting society, also said that the force consisted of good and bad characters, which for one respondent meant wariness was essential when dealing with police. Another respondent's view was the police were not any different from any social group: ‘As with any group of people, there exist good and bad characters. The police are no exception. Citizens must put their trust in the law, the police and the authorities’ (FGS03).

Research participants were clear that they understood the different roles of police in the two countries. In Vietnam, police were viewed as oppressors, whereas in Australia police were part of democratic governance. Similarly, Dixon and Maher (2002) found in their study that Vietnamese Australians did not conflate Australian police with police from their country of origin and held high expectations for the behaviour of police in a liberal democracy. While Vietnamese Australians respondents in this study, emphasised they understood police operations in Australia were different from Vietnam, it was apparent the adverse reputation of police in Vietnam affected their trust in the local police in Australia. Some people spoke of persistent feelings of uncertainty and lack of trustworthiness that emanated from Vietnam but remained with them in relation to police in Australia:

I think in any culture trust in relationships is important. I think coming from Vietnam, which is a country of authority, power held by the police force and government, people have a negative attitude to the police. So some people may bring with them and carry with them that attitude. (INC17)

The historical memory of police in the Republic of Vietnam was revealed in patterns of distrust and discordance between the cognitive and the emotional responses. Overcoming damaged trust from the past is difficult according to Sztompka (1999) as it is embedded as psychological reactions, which need remediation through new experiences of consistent performance from the trusted whereby new reputations are built over time. Traumatic experiences in Vietnam with police and other authorities had left a deep-seated, perhaps sublimated, fear of police.

Corruption claims

Negative attitudes were not solely due to experiences in Vietnam. Research participants claimed the police force in Melbourne was not corruption-free but agreed only a minority of police officers were corrupt. Some community members in the study showed their preconceptions of corruption of police changed when the police force acted in the 1990s to remove corruption from their neighbourhood. Even so, one participant suggested ‘there are still a small number of corrupt police officers’ (FGY01). Interviewees and focus group members were not questioned directly about corruption, but the issue emerged in general responses about perceptions and attitudes towards police. Corrupt practices were almost entirely recounted in relation to the policing of drug crimes in the three neighbourhoods in the study. The least number of comments on corruption were raised in the focus groups and as they comprised people from across the communities, they were more representative of normative attitudes. Most comments on corruption were made in interviews with social justice workers based on their work with drug offenders or by the drug offenders themselves, most of whom had multiple convictions and whose life experiences were based at the coalface of drug use, crime and policing. No details were given on the sources of information about the corruption and the researchers have no way of verifying whether the accounts are authentic. Social justice workers claimed they felt excluded from reporting corrupt practices because of the lack of a safe public reporting process. Lodging a formal complaint was explained as counter-cultural because deference to authority was a cultural disposition in the Vietnamese community. Some explained the reluctance to report originated from feeling they didn't have the right to question officers.

Given that Vietnamese Australian communities are highly networked, incidents of police corruption achieved wide circulation. Even a small element of corruption was experienced vicariously by the wider community and appeared to have a long lasting and damaging effect on the reputation of police. This is consistent with Rosenbaum et al.'s (2005: 360) study that found vicarious experience to be an important factor in shaping attitudes towards police, particularly for racially and ethnically defined groups. For one social justice worker, the major impact of accounts of corruption was rekindling awareness of past insecurities experienced in Vietnam.

Because they come from a system that was so corruptible, what faith do they have about our system in Australia? Especially when there is corruption as well, I'm not saying the whole police force is, I'm saying there is (some). (INC14)

Past offenders appeared less concerned by police corruption than the social justice workers and community members. This finding aligns with Rosenbaum et al.’s (2005: 347) de-sensitivity hypothesis, which the authors encapsulate as: ‘This is nothing new to us—we expect it’. The strongest criticism was expressed by social justice workers and arose from the opposite position: they expected professionalism. The asymmetry in the attention given to negative over positive stories and negative bias towards police were contributing factors to perceptions of police corruption (Brown & Benedict, 2002; Rosenbaum et al., 2005; Skogan, 2006).

Findings on police performance

Policing home burglaries

When asked about safety and crimes of concern to their community, participants in focus groups designated home burglaries as a crime of concern. While police may have regarded home burglaries as a crime not warranting their attention unless it involved harm to an individual, the participants clearly used it as a crime on which to judge policing effectiveness. Respondents used three indicators to judge performance in policing home burglaries: police response times to their calls; the care or concern shown for the victim and police's capacity to catch the offender or find the stolen goods. Stories of prompt attendance left good impressions of police performance even if they occurred many years previously such as in the following incident:

Burglars also broke into my house ten years ago. At the time, the police came right after I called. They were good and enthusiastic. The burglars broke my door to get in the house so the door was locked from inside. The police were willing to get in through the window. … The police seemed nice, they were quite big but still went through the small window to get in and opened the door for me. (FGS03)

Non-attendance at the crime scene was understood by many respondents as evidence of lack of concern for Vietnamese Australians. A respondent said: ‘I call them up, but they don't seem to care and help’ (FGS05) and another claimed it was racism ‘I think it's more likely racial discrimination, if I were white they would come quickly’ (FGS03). Many Vietnamese Australians did not know why police did not attend or assist with home burglaries and interpreted this as lack of interest or motivation. Sztompka (1999), as does Tyler (2005), emphasises the public's understanding of police's motivations is a critical aspect of performance and trustworthiness. One person stressed the failure to attend the crime was experienced as a failure to help them:

When you call the police, they not going to come, or they can't solve this problem, so half the Vietnamese they have this same perception too, or they have this incident and they call, they're not coming, so they're not helping. (INC16)

Comments by police officers stated that the stolen possessions were unlikely to be returned were understood as poor performance. The return of stolen goods, which were often cash, gold jewellery or other items traditionally kept as an investment were important for Vietnamese Australians. Data on Australian household burglaries shows money (19%) and jewellery (18%) were the most commonly stolen items (AIC, 2011). Police did not provide updates on progress and other studies show that if police share information on progress victims are more satisfied with police (Skogan, 2006; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Huo, 2002). Many Vietnamese Australians said they did not have home property insurance and this was commonplace in the community. Consequently, Vietnamese Australians had different expectations concerning the policing of burglaries from Anglo Australians, the majority of whom report burglaries to submit an insurance claim and do not expect a police response.

The perceived lack of performance discouraged reporting; one man expressed the disincentive as making people feel ‘tired’ and ‘not trust police’ (FGS04). Another person in the same focus group believed it would lead to a more insecure and dangerous society: ‘If incidents like this keep increasing then it would be really dangerous, society should take a serious view of this matter’ (FGS04). Home burglaries were crimes on which the community based judgements about their exposure to collective risks and could be considered a signal crime from their perspective. Innes (2004: 162) defines signal crimes as ‘any criminal incident that causes change in public behaviour and/or beliefs’. Police's apparent apathy to respond contributed further to feelings of social disorder. Innes et al. (2004, 2009) claim police have to shift their standpoint from dictating crime priorities to understand instead the incidents the communities find troublesome and the visible signal crimes that generate feelings of social disorder. The insecurity beyond the immediate incidents of home burglaries were expressed by this respondent:

Although it's a minor incident but if it is allowed to continually happen again and again, it will reduce our confidence in relying on police security. This time we may have lost our property, but in the future, it may be our lives that are lost. (FGS04)

Sztompka (1999) claims consistency is critical in building reputation and police's failure to respond to calls consequently contributed directly to a reputation of unreliability. In the few accounts provided where police did arrive promptly, usually described as within half an hour, the action created a good impression, although Skogan's (2006) asymmetry hypothesis indicates that overall negative experiences have greater impact than positive experiences.

Policing drug crimes

The policing of drug crimes was almost exclusively police-initiated and was judged by the community members as ineffective. Vietnamese Australians were reticent to report drug crimes but all the same expected outcomes because of their concern for the social consequences of these crimes. Generation one and two gave different reasons for the lack of police performance. Generation one men disagreed with policing approaches, sentencing periods and what they saw as too comfortable jail conditions, adding that none of these were deterrents. Generation two did not agree harsher penalties would solve the drug-related crime, and instead supported a multi-agency response.

Reasons for not reporting drug-related crime included fear of reprisals and refusal to be witnesses. Some participants described a cultural preference to not get involved: ‘People usually think that since this does not concern us, we should not get involved’ (FGS04). Generation two respondents were more willing to report crimes to police, but similarly to generation one, respondents did not want to be witnesses or have any further contact with police, sometimes expressed as a fear of payback. In one case, a generation two male said he would be too frightened to be a witness for fear of payback from the offender's gang, although overall gangs were not an emergent theme in the data:

We should just report what we feel is happening and then hang up the phone; we should only cooperate with the police to that extent. In the event that the police ask us to remain there and be witnesses, I would not do so as if the gangs see me calling the police, I would be a dead man. (FGF08)

Vietnamese Australian respondents did not feel safe to make contact with police to pass on information or report drug-related insecurities experienced in the high-rise public housing including theft, intimidation, exposure of children to drug injecting in public areas and requests for young mothers to hide drugs in their baby's rooms. Adopting a no-contact approach with police prevented further visits from police to their premises or requests for information, as most claimed they feared further damage to their property such as their car windows being smashed by offenders. Other contributing factors to non-reporting were a lack of English and Vietnamese face-saving behaviours that kept crime or drug issues hidden in families.

Prejudice and bias

A widespread criticism in the community generally was that police stereotyped Vietnamese Australians as belonging to a drug-crime culture; many claimed to be treated as if they were guilty first rather than innocent. People generally accepted that it was not only police who made these assumptions but the broader community. In particular, they blamed the media for stereotyping Vietnamese people as associated with drugs through casting them in drug-related roles in police television dramas. Others said the pre-judgements by police were racial in that being Asian was sufficient to be criminalised; ‘they think of crime and the Asians’ (FGY11): ‘Just say if they're white, then they'll treat them with respect and it's like us Asians, they’d be like downgrading us and just not respecting us’ (FGY11).

In minor car accidents, some generation one drivers claimed police gave preference to a white person's account of an incident over a Vietnamese Australian's account. Anglo Australians, they said, were forthright in giving their opinion and usually managed to gain the full attention of police. Vietnamese Australians preferred to only answer questions when asked by an officer, rather than volunteering information. They claimed to be further disadvantaged in explaining technical aspects of traffic laws with limited English without an interpreter, which police often did not provide for minor car accidents. The lack of opportunity to tell their side of the story to police led to strong feelings of unfairness, which is broadly consistent with research demonstrating the priority placed on procedural fairness (Skogan, 2005; Tyler, 2001).

In contrast to generation one for whom police prejudice was a general belief, generation two and youth with Vietnamese heritage were divided on the issue. Some generation two respondents thought that while the policing institution itself was not prejudiced against people with Vietnamese backgrounds, some individual police officers were biased. This differentiation between interpersonal bias and institutional bias, allowed this group to accept a degree of racism among certain officers without developing a negative view of all police. Their bicultural position enabled them to make observations from Australian and Vietnamese cultural standpoints. They believed that because police already had a suspicious attitude towards Vietnamese people, cultural misunderstandings occurred in communications between generation one and police officers with limited experience of other cultures.

But I think there are still misunderstandings. I think in a group when I think of the police aren't like that, but I think it does come down to individuals as well and some may not be as exposed to different cultures or have an understanding there (FGS10).

Male youths who participated in the study vociferously claimed they were subjected to police bias in stop and check processes. More male youth than female youth said that police officers were biased, and male youth expressed the most negative views of police. The most positive views of police were expressed by female university students who said that some perceptions of being targeted were simply police following procedures. This segmentation of views of fairness is consistent with the empirical findings in the wider study that showed perceptions of targeting on the basis of ethnicity, race or visible appearance whether true or not, damages trust and trustworthiness of police (Weber, 2010).

Unethical behaviours

Respectful behaviours by police for all people whatever their background, featured as an important theme among respondents, which many linked to their Buddhist beliefs. In Australia, 58.6% of Vietnamese-born people belong to the Buddhist religion (Ben-Moshe & Pyke, 2012). Recounted incidents of unethical behaviours by some police were circulated in the respondents’ networks and damaged the reputation of police in some localities. Whereas corruption was usually spoken of as indirect experiences by community members, the accounts given of unethical behaviours were either first hand observations or accounts from family or other members of the community. One participant observed an incident whereby police allegedly rough handled an Aboriginal drug user: ‘he had a spray can and he was sniffing it, the police came and they were really rough with the man’ (FGY11). These views are supported by Tyler's (2005) contention that institutional trust is contingent on police exercising their professional responsibilities for every citizen.

Vietnamese Australian social justice workers claimed their clients with drug-related offences were often subjected to rough handling or violence by police officers. Social justice workers differentiated between breaches of interpersonal trust through unprofessional behaviours from individual officers and a wider belief they held in the institutional trustworthiness of the police force (Bradford & Jackson, 2010; Tyler, 2005). One social justice worker commented: ‘I don't mean every policeman is bad, there's lot of good policemen out there, but there are a few bad police to make the Vietnamese feel very different about them because of the treatment’ (INC06). Another social justice worker believed that it was inevitable and part of the job that police developed prejudice towards ex-offenders, or offenders. ‘But I reckon say if you are in the police force for a while, you would develop that kind of mind. You would look at junkies as junkies, offenders as offenders’ (INC02). Views on police were modified when relationships were formed between social justice workers and police officers through participation in community policing activities such as youth camps. Collaboration with officers provided opportunities for demonstrating alignment of values in mutual concern for youth and enabled a re-evaluation of the bad stories heard from offender clients about police, as an inevitable part of the job. A Vietnamese Australian working in the legal system who understood the pressures on police in handling difficult criminals, nonetheless made the following observation about the loss of trust through rough handling, trickery and coercion:

Coppers, I don't blame them, they deal with criminals and criminal activity on a daily basis so their view's not that great of offenders, they treat them very roughly and they don't treat them with respect. I'm not blaming them, I mean you get difficult people, who're drugged out, alcohol fuelled, so they're manhandled quite a lot. Most of the time, I mean they trick them into talking, try to get them on board by just being friendly with them. But then get all the answers out of them in a recorded interview. So they're not completely upfront with them and I can't see how that can illicit any trust, or respect. (INC12)

The 13 past-offenders claimed to have experienced police abuse, which they said included intimidation or violence. Past-offenders spoke of expecting nothing better; they spoke as if violence or abuse from police was a fact of life. Incidents of humiliation appeared to cause the most anxiety, particularly acts that shamed them in front of their community such as a reputed incident where an offender claimed to be walked in his underwear through public areas by officers and claims from other past offenders of public strip-searches. Rough handling was more of a concern to the offenders than claims of venality, which some offenders described as a transactional aspect of their dealings with police officers. Past-offenders referred to police officers as Anh Hai (big brother). One past-offender spoke of the mismatch between calling police officers big brother and their behaviours: ‘They're not really any big brother really. They just take too much, because they think they have got authority they kind of, you know, take advantage of it’ (INF007). Incidents to build trust among past offenders were few but powerful when they occurred, as shown by one past-offender's memory of an officer who took the time to speak with him as an individual:

One time and after he sit down, after he arrest me so many time he's just, or actually questioned me so many times, or harassed me so many times he just sat down and talked to me, ‘Why you keep on doing this?’. (INOF07)

These findings support the view that trust remains a paramount concern even for sub-groups that are more vulnerable to misuse of police powers and where trust is likely to be low (Goldsmith, 2005).

Findings on appearance

The two main components of Sztompka's (1999) appearance dimension, civility and visible appearance, were both commented on negatively. Disrespect was commented on by generation one and two respondents in various settings including a Buddhist religious centre, homes, on the street or at the police station and the incidents involved rudeness, dismissiveness or patronising behaviours from police officers. Some respondents objected to the language used by police, in particular, swearing in front of family members, which people claimed, sometimes insulted the entire extended family. One Vietnamese woman interpreted disrespectful behaviours from police officers as implying Vietnamese Australians were from a socially subordinate group: ‘the police officer just waved his hand and did not answer her question implying that we are of lower class in this country’ (FGF07). Inappropriate behaviours by police reportedly included not speaking to the oldest family member or using incorrect family titles such as addressing any older women as grandma.

The visible appearance of Victoria Police was perceived by respondents as a white Anglo force. This is consistent with the statistics at the time that showed extremely low numbers of Vietnamese Australian officers in the force and an over-representation of white Anglo officers (McKernan, 2008). Differences in race and ethnicity between officers and people of Vietnamese heritage, was perceived as a basis for unfair treatment: ‘Here the policemen are almost exclusively Western, we are Vietnamese, Asian, and so we feel that there is a certain degree of discrimination’ (FGS04). It was widely believed that Asian or Vietnamese Australian police would not show prejudice towards Vietnamese Australians. Rather contradictorily, research participants claimed more Vietnamese Australian police would be beneficial because they would understand the culture, while at the same time parents strongly discouraged their daughters or sons to pursue a career as a police officer. The general reason given by generation two for their parent's resistance to them becoming a police officer was because it was considered a low status and dangerous occupation. In addition, height was perceived as a barrier to entry into the police force by Vietnamese Australians despite the changes made to recruitment in 2001 that reduced/eliminated height requirements.

The physical appearance of police officers was also criticised with gender distinctions evident in the different reasons given by women and men for their poor appraisals. Women commented on the general countenance of officers as frightening. One Vietnamese woman who worked as a counsellor spoke of the conflicting feelings of fear and yet respect for the work of police, as illustrated by this example:

I respect the police, I admire the young women police … . I saw the young women police, I wanted to talk to them but they had a cold face. I know they need to be strong to do their job. I wanted to tell them that ‘Oh yes I support you’. (INC01)

A focus group participant contrasted the frightening aspects of the physical appearance of police officers with their verbal communications, which she did not find frightening: ‘They're big they look scary, when they talk they don't talk like that’ (FGFAC). Women who could not speak English, did not have the opportunity to experience a potentially different aspect of the officers’ appearance. In contrast to these women's perceptions of police officers as intimidating, prior research showed police officers viewed both male and female members of Vietnamese Australian communities as unintimidating and respectful; assessments based on physical characteristics and general demeanour. Both generation one and two women described the prospect of walking into a police station as ‘very intimidating’ (FGFAC). Some men referred to police cars and weapons as invoking fear.

Generation one men related trust assessments to inadequate physical attributes and a consequent lack of capacity to defend civilians or catch offenders. They described police officers as not fit and lacking in muscular strength. Strong bodies and high levels of fitness were attributes that promoted confidence in their ability. Local police officers were also described as lazy by some Vietnamese Australian men, a behaviour they linked to an inferior and ineffective police service. Australian police were compared unfavourably to police in the USA where American police were stereotyped as strong and athletic in appearance and Australian police as weak and overweight with ‘very big bellies’ (FGS03). Another respondent in the same focus group suggested: ‘our police need to improve to be stronger, be athletic and more muscular’ (FGS03). Consistent with Sztompka's (1999: 58) scholarship on gender differences in attributes associated with trust, this study found gender differences in trust attributes. Women related trust to ‘soft’ attributes such as benevolence and helpfulness and men related trust to ‘hard’ attributes, in particular physical effectiveness.

Conclusion

Thirty years on from the settlement of people from Vietnam in Australia, police had not established a reputation of being trustworthy in these communities. As recognised in the literature, negative reputational effects from respondents' past experiences with police in Vietnam played a significant part in Victorian police being assigned a poor reputation. However, it was also evident that respondents' past experiences of police and authorities in Vietnam, did not entirely account for the reputational challenges faced by police in Victoria. The breaches to the trustworthiness expectations participants held for police in a democratic country, whether true or not, were widely commented on and significantly undermined trust in police. Reputations of the members of Victoria Police were most damaged by their reputed involvement in incidents of violence or corruption. When incidents involving local police in Australia mirrored the bad behaviours of police in Vietnam, the negative reputational effects for local police were amplified.

While it was agreed that violators of ethical standards may be a small minority of officers, the effects were widely spread through the closely networked communities. Participants' lack of trust in police did not originate from the question of whether police officers were entitled to implement the law; in fact, it was quite the contrary; respondents reiterated that police were a necessary part of the democratic system. Nonetheless, reputations of local officers were fragile and contingent on a consistent demonstration that police in Australia were different from police in Vietnam particularly in delivering ethical policing. The findings support other studies that highlight the centrality of ethical behaviours in shaping perceptions of police officer trustworthiness, particularly among groups previously exposed to violence and authoritarian rule. The findings indicate the need for ethnically appropriate and trusted accountability processes that encourage reporting of unethical behaviours.

The research showed that the police crime priorities were implemented without knowledge of local insecurities. Policing of street-level drug related crimes, a priority crime for police in the three Police Service Areas was judged as entirely unsuccessful by all participants. While the areas that police focused on were in the high density ‘Vietnamese’ business shopping streets or markets, few participants spoke about experiencing risk or fear in these busy trading precincts (McKernan & Scambary, 2011). Instead, many spoke of insecurities associated with drug dealing after hours in the immediate vicinities of their flats or residences. It was apparent that many incidents and threats causing fear and emotional or physical insecurity for Vietnamese Australians in their local environment were not made known to police. Some viewed the policing of street drug traders and drug users cynically, saying it placated the non-Vietnamese Australian public by targeting low-level Vietnamese drug dealers or users with high rates of recidivism because they made the public street spaces appear risky for non-Vietnamese Australians. A fear of police requests for Vietnamese Australians to act as witnesses to crime, and cultural reticence to speak in public about crime in their family or community contributed further to the lack of communication and trust between the Vietnamese communities and police. The study indicated a lack of police who were skilled and/or motivated to uncover the risks and safety concerns of Vietnamese Australian community members, which contributed to a perception of ineffectiveness in local crime management. It was apparent that the police standpoint highlighted elements of neighbourhoods considered problematic in the wider Australian community and these did not align with the Vietnamese Australian respondents’ perception of the everyday risks and insecurities they experienced.

A rigid adherence to priorities identified through ‘intelligence-led’ policing approaches, resulted in lost opportunities for police to regenerate trustworthiness. The policing of home burglaries in these communities was demonstrated, by all accounts from participants, to be of low importance to police but was a crime of concern raised by many respondents. When contacted about home burglaries, police officers’ slow response to calls was interpreted as a lack of concern for Vietnamese Australian people and inability to solve house burglary crime. The inconsistency in police response to calls was in itself a factor that directly undermined police reputations, as consistency according to Sztompka (1999) is foundational to reputation. The poor performance on home burglary crime was extended by some respondents to questioning the capability of the police force to protect Vietnamese Australians if faced with more serious safety threats. Performance was the active dynamic of trustworthiness in which new reputations could have been forged or strengths reinforced, however police rarely built on the key opportunities offered in these citizen-reported crimes.

The widely held belief that police officers criminalised Vietnamese Australian communities by stereotyping members as drug-traders was a major impediment to assessing police officers as trustworthy. Some participants experienced these pre-judgements as a risk in their encounters with officers because they felt they were judged first as guilty and treated with suspicion, rather than being more universally trusted, at least from the outset, to be innocent. The risk embedded in the one-way nature of trust relations whereby Vietnamese Australian trustors are expected to be ‘willing to be vulnerable to the actions of police’, without the ability to control or monitor them, entailed a positive risk for the Vietnamese Australians who held strong beliefs that police did not trust them (Mayer et al., 1995: 712). The contention at the heart of this is whether you can trust a person or organisation you believe does not trust you. This poses a paradox for policing a community located in high drug use locations and with a significant proportion of offenders, which fosters suspicion for both parties and is consequently self-reinforcing of low-trust relations.

This study emphasises the powerful influence on perceptions of police trustworthiness of ethical behaviours and the importance of culturally inclusive processes for making complaints, which provides feedback to complainants. Police reputations are fragile, easily damaged but also malleable and open to renegotiation if police demonstrate effectiveness, fairness and attentiveness to the crimes of concern to community members in all encounters.

This research indicates that police need to focus both on their effectiveness and reputation in order to be perceived as trustworthy within these communities. The actions taken have to reach the Vietnamese speaking community members, and there were scant examples from this study of information from police reaching generation one. The daughters and sons, the second generation, also have reservations about the police force in relation to bias and intention to assist their communities, indicating that action is required rather than complacent hopes of acculturation.

The study indicated new professional skills are required to enable police to respond not only to the most obvious aspects of street-level drug crime but also the more hidden insecurities faced by residents, and importantly, to understand how standpoint influences the interpretation of crime and insecurity. This points to the crucial importance of promoting intercultural skills for front-line officers that improve the quality of interactions through reduced bias and increased capacity to understand the issues from the perspective of different cultural groups. A significant outcome from the study was that Vietnamese Australians remain unconvinced their police force is committed to assisting them. For these communities indicators of increased trustworthiness are linked to improved culturally sensitive responses to crime that is reported, local strategies to uncover unreported crime including links to the expert knowledge already within the communities, culturally appropriate mechanisms to increase accountability and transparency of policing and ongoing media communications in Vietnamese that emphasise local issues and policing personnel.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Australian Research Council for funding this linkage research project LPO776899 whose chief investigators were Denise Meredyth, Trang Thomas, Leanne Weber, Nita Cherry and Michael Gilding. Further, the authors thank the significant contributions from the partner organisations Victoria Police and Australian Vietnamese Women's Association, without whose support the project would not have been possible. We also acknowledge the contribution from the fellow researcher James Scambary and the members of the Vietnamese community who participated in the project as convenors of focus groups and interviewers. The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

Note

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