Twenty-first International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

Police forces have been criticized around the world in the last year. The United States, Hong Kong, Belarus, and Chile are examples of this wave. This is highly relevant for any society because public attitudes toward police are central to the legitimacy of monopoly over the use of force and law enactment and enforcement. Therefore, understanding the content and meanings of citizens’ attitudes is highly relevant to address this phenomenon. In this study, I use topic modeling to examine how public attitudes have changed in Chile over the last decade. A large corpus of citizens complaints from 2008 to 2019 is analyzed. The text analysis reveals five different topics that emerge from these complaints, covering specific domains of action (e.g., neighborhood patrolling, traffic control) and procedural justice. Over time, the evolution of these topics in the last decade provides insights that could explain changes in attitudes toward police. Overall, this study informs potential drivers of recent changes in how people relate to the police forces and shed light on possible paths to action.