National identity and distrust in the police: The case of North West Wales

What is it about?

In many countries, there are tensions between minorities that speak a different language and the majority population. In North West Wales, about half of the population are Welsh-speakers and a sizeable part holds negative views of England/Britain. People who have moved in from other parts of the UK, sometimes have the opposite attitude. Now that the police in North Wales has embraced the Welsh language, for example by marking their patrol cars in bilingually, and requiring Welsh language skills from officers, it turns out that support among Welsh-speakers is better than among those who only speak English. More specifically, the key thing is the preference to speak Welsh in all sorts of situations that distinguishes the core group of Welsh speakers. Our study used a sample of students at Bangor University. We found also that trust in the UK institutions was related to trust in North Wales Police, as well as news on the work of the police.

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Why is it important?

Trust in the police is key: the officers will be most successful if the public supports them, and citizens will be disadvantaged if they do not feel they can trust. Therefore, one needs to understand people's views of the police. In this case, we added an additional layer, namely, the situation that members of a majority and a minority population have competing demands on the police. Situations like this are quite frequent and it is important to understand their dynamics.

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