ALEX C. MICHALOS

POLICING SERVICES AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE (Accepted 27 December 2001)

ABSTRACT. In this paper results are reported of a random sample survey of 698 residents of Prince George, British Columbia taken in May 2001. The main aim of the survey was to measure respondents’ assessments of local police services in Prince George, and their relative impact on the quality of respondents’ lives. Generally speaking, the evaluations were quite favourable. For example, in response to the question ‘what kind of a job do you think the RCMP are doing’, 30% said a ‘very good job’ and 38% said a ‘fairly good job’, compared to 2% who said they were doing a ‘very poor job’ and 4% more a ‘fairly poor job’. Compared to a 1997 survey, fewer people thought that crime had increased in the past few years, which is actually consistent with official crime statistics. The biggest perceived problem was with speeding and careless driving, although respondents rated traffic and highway enforcement as the least important of a dozen kinds of police activities. People most appreciated police work aimed at preventing crimes. Of the things people did to protect themselves from becoming a victim, keeping items in their cars out of sight headed the list. As in previous surveys in this community, highest levels of satisfaction were expressed for living partners and family relations generally. Estimating the relative impact of three police/crime related variables (satisfaction with feelings of personal safety around one’s home and in one’s community, and with local policing services) on the quality of life measured in five different ways in the context of 12 other variables, it was found that only the last variable (satisfaction with policing services) had a statistically significant association to the quality of life measured in three of the five ways. Forty percent of the variation in happiness scores and 63% of the variation in life satisfaction scores could be explained by five and six predictors, respectively, without any significant association with satisfaction with policing services. Sixtytwo percent of the variation in satisfaction with respondents’ overall quality of life scores could be explained by eight predictors, with satisfaction with policing services as the third most influential predictor behind satisfaction with respondents’ self-esteem and friendships. Sixty-one percent of the variation in satisfaction with respondents’ standard of living scores was explained by seven predictors, with satisfaction with policing services being least influential. Finally, 76% of the variation in an index of subjective well-being (summing the scores of the other four global indicators) was explained by nine predictors, with satisfaction with policing services being second least influential.

Social Indicators Research 61: 1–18, 2003. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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1. INTRODUCTION

In two broad-based quality of life surveys reported in Michalos (1996) and Michalos and Zumbo (1999) it was reported that the reduction of crime ranked second and third, respectively, as things to change to improve the quality of life of two random samples of residents of Prince George, British Columbia. In Michalos and Zumbo (2000) we undertook a survey focussed on criminal victimization in order to assess its impact on the quality of life of Prince George residents in greater detail. The survey results reported here focus on respondents’ assessments of local police services in the same community, and their impact on the quality of respondents’ lives. In the next section (2) the sampling technique and questionnaire are described. Following that, there is a short section (3) characterizing the demographics of the sample. In the fourth section (4) descriptive statistics are presented that indicate various reasons for people contacting the police, several evaluations about police helpfulness, professionalism, politeness, and overall levels of satisfaction with police performance. In the next section (5) descriptive statistics are presented indicating respondents’ perceptions of increases or decreases in crime, feelings about police visibility, neighbourhood problems, protective behaviours, importance of various aspects of police work, awareness of available police services and police performance. This is followed by a section (6) describing respondents overall health and quality of life, as well as levels of satisfaction with some specific domains of life, e.g., job, family relations and personal safety. In the seventh section (7) 15 potential explanatory variables are used to account for respondents’ overall happiness, life satisfaction, satisfaction with the quality of their lives and their standard of living, and their overall perceived subjective well-being. Then there is a short conclusion.

2. SAMPLING TECHNIQUE AND QUESTIONNAIRE

In May 2001, twelve-page questionnaires were mailed out to a random sample of 2000 households in the city and another 500 were sent to a random selection of individuals and/or businesses that were

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known to have had some contact with the RCMP in the past three years. The first five pages of the questionnaire contained a set of questions identifying the mode of contact respondents had with the RCMP, if any, in the past three years (e.g., telephone, in person), the reason (e.g., victim of an offence, witness to an offence), person contacted (e.g., RCMP member, municipal employee), time required to make contact, duration of contact, expectations about services, attitudes of service personnel (e.g., apparent levels of interest, helpfulness, professionalism), and levels of satisfaction with various aspects of the contact (e.g., satisfaction with service response time, with overall handling of the case and with RCMP performance in general). These were followed by three pages of questions about respondents’ perceptions of increases or decreases in crime, importance of crime-related issues in their neighbourhoods (e.g., vandalism, burglary, violent crime), feelings of safety, the importance of various aspects of the job of the RCMP (e.g., protecting people, educating people about crime prevention), and views about policing (e.g., RCMP patrolling time in their neighbourhoods, response times). The remaining pages contained a variety of aspects of people’s lives, including such things as family relations, financial security, health, jobs and so on. The extent to which people were satisfied with these things was measured on a 7-point Likert scale with response categories ranging from “very dissatisfied = 1 point”, through “an even balance = 4”, to “very satisfied = 7”. Following these questions, there was a question designed to measure the extent to which people were happy with their lives as a whole, ranging from “very unhappy = 1 point”, through “an even balance = 4”, to “very happy = 7”. There were then four self-reported health items designed and used extensively by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in all of the 50 states. An example of one of these items is “Would you say that in general your health is (a) excellent, (b) very good, (c) good, (d) fair or (e) poor?” Finally, there were a number of demographic questions about such things as respondents’ gender, age, education, employment, income and marital status.

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3. SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS

By mid-May, 698 (28%) useable questionnaires were returned, which form the working data-set for the survey. A simple random sample of this size should be accurate within plus or minus 4 percentage points 19 times out of 20. Respondents identifying their gender included 358 (52%) females. Four hundred and sixteen (60%) were married and living with their spouse. The average age was 45, with a range from 18 to 88. Sixty (9%) had some university education, and another 125 (18%) held a university degree. Four hundred and ninety-one (70%) identified their cultural/ethnic backgrounds as Canadian or English-Canadian and another 19 (3%) identified their backgrounds as French-Canadian. Four percent (26) had aboriginal or metis backgrounds. Three hundred and twenty-six (47%) were employed full-time, 63 (9%) part-time and 82 (12%) self-employed. The average household income before taxes was $64 635. According to the 1996 census, which is still the last official full population count available from Statistics Canada, 49% of Prince George’s adult residents aged 15 years or older were female. Nine percent held a university degree, 66% were employed fullor part-time, and the average family income was $56 125. Broadly speaking, then, our working sample is fairly representative of the total population of Prince George, although we have higher percentages of people with university degrees.

4. CONTACT WITH THE RCMP

Four hundred and forty-four (64%) respondents reported that they had “contacted or been contacted by the RCMP” in Prince George within the past 3 years. Most of them (57%) had this contact by telephone. Exhibit 1 lists the main reasons given for the contacts. One hundred and seventy-two (38.7%) were victims of an offence, which compares fairly favourably with results of our victimization survey taken in November 1997 (Michalos and Zumbo, 2000). At that time, 38% of a random sample of 730 Prince George residents reported that they had been victimized within the past year. Another 66 (14.9%) respondents contacted the police to complain

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EXHIBIT 1 Main reasons for contacting the RCMP, number and percent Reason: Respondent

N

%

was a victim of an offence got in touch to complain about something got in touch to ask a question was a witness to an offence was asked for information or help with an investigation was charged with a driving/traffic offence was charged with a non-driving offence was involved in a motor vehicle accident other (e.g., road check, family member in accident)

172 66 21 42 29 38 1 12 63

38.7 14.9 4.7 9.5 6.5 8.6 0.2 2.7 14.2

Total

444

100

about something, e.g., noisy neighbours, barking dogs. Only one respondent admitted being charged with a non-driving offence. Forty-four percent of those who contacted the RCMP characterized the person contacted as “very helpful” and another 28% characterized her or him as “fairly helpful”. At the other end of the scale, 6.3% characterized the person as “very unhelpful” and 3% as “fairly unhelpful”. Forty-five percent said that the RCMP showed “a lot of interest” when first contacted, compared to only 6.8% who said there was “no interest”. Forty-four percent of those who contacted the RCMP expected an officer to be sent to them and 45% reported that an officer was sent. Thirty-one percent were “very satisfied” with the amount of time it took for an officer to arrive and another 31% were “satisfied”, compared to 8% “very dissatisfied” and 8% more “dissatisfied”. Forty-one percent found the officer who dealt with their issue “very professional” and 45% found him or her “professional”, compared to only 4% who found the officer “very unprofessional” and 7% more “unprofessional”. Fifty-seven percent found the officer “very polite”, while 4% found him or her “very rude”. Looking back on the incident that brought them into contact with the RCMP, 37% described their overall feelings about “how the

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RCMP handled it” as “very satisfied” and another 29% described them as “fairly satisfied”, with 9% “very dissatisfied” and another 10% “satisfied”. All things considered, 48% of respondents reported that after their contact with the police, their feelings “toward the RCMP in general” were “very favourable”, compared to only 5% who described them as “very unfavourable”. In response to the question “what kind of a job do you think the RCMP are doing”, 30% said a “very good job” and 38% said a “fairly good job”, compared to 2% who said they were doing a “very poor job” and 4% more a “fairly poor job”. When a similar question was put to a national sample of 3077 Canadians by Ekos Research Associates around the same time as our survey, 62% felt that “the overall performance of the RCMP was good”, given choices of “don’t know”, “bad”, “average” and “good” (Market Facts, August 21, 2001). Summarizing these views, it seems fair to say that many more respondents who had some contact with the RCMP in the past three years had more favourable than unfavourable attitudes toward them. It is worthwhile noting that the preponderance of fairly good rather than bad experiences that respondents had with their police contacts were had under difficult circumstances. Eighty percent said that at the time of their first contact with the RCMP, they were feeling “upset”. In response to a question about what “the RCMP should do to improve their service to the community”, 50% said “keep people informed” and 40% said there should be “faster response by officers”. (Respondents were allowed to select more than one response to this question.)

5. PERCEPTIONS OF CRIME, SAFETY AND SERVICES

Returning to our full sample of people who had or did not have contact with the police in the past three years, Exhibit 2 lists responses to a question about whether “the level of crime increased, decreased or remained the same in the past 5 years” in four different areas. Probably reflecting some ego-centric bias, twice as many respondents perceived increases in crime in the downtown area, in Prince George generally and in British Columbia as perceived increases in their own neighbourhoods. For example, 57% perceived increases in the downtown area compared to 26% who perceived

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EXHIBIT 2 Percent of respondents perceiving changes in levels of crime Area in your own neighborhood in the downtown area in Prince George generally in British Columbia

Decreased Same Increased Don’t know 10.5 2.5 4.3 4.5

49.9 20.2 23.7 19.4

25.6 57.2 56.5 52.9

14.0 20.1 15.5 23.2

N 687 668 672 669

increases in their own neighbourhoods. Two of the four areas were mentioned in the November 1997 survey, and perceived conditions have improved. Forty-one percent of respondents in 1997 thought that crime had increased in their neighbourhood and 78% thought that crime had increased in Prince George in the past two years. In the current survey, 57% thought that crime had increased in Prince George in the past five years. According to local RCMP figures for the City of Prince George, the total number of criminal code offences decreased two percent from 10,271 in 2000 to 10,071 in 2001. Figures from the Ministry of Attorney General of British Columbia indicate that there was also a decrease in crime in the city from 1998 to 1999 and 1999 to 2000. Thirty-seven percent of respondents felt “a lot safer” with “police visibility (i.e., foot, car or bike patrols)”, and another 44% felt “somewhat safer”. Forty-two percent thought that police visibility “deters criminal activity to a great extent”, with another 52% who thought such activity was deterred “to some extent”. In general, 25% of respondents reported that they felt “very safe” in their community, and another 52% said they felt “somewhat safe”. Exhibit 3 lists 21 issues presented to respondents who were asked to indicate how much of a problem each was in their neighbourhoods, with “1 = not a problem at all” and “5 = very much of a problem”. The issue with the highest mean score (3.4) was “speeding, careless driving”. Twenty-four percent identified it as “very much of a problem” and another 27% said it was “somewhat of a problem”. “Youth crime”, “vandalism” and “stolen property” all had the same mean scores of 3.2, with 19% of respondents

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EXHIBIT 3 Perceived problems in respondents’ neighbourhoods Issue Break & enter, home theft Break and enter, business theft Youth crime Vandalism, property damage Speeding, careless driving Impaired, drunk driving Drug, alcohol offences Auto theft Stolen property Credit card fraud Violent crime, bodily injury Murder Prostitution Violence against women Violence against children Shoplifting from stores Illegal possession of guns Obscene phone calls Personal harassment Police too slow to react

Mean

N

3.1 2.7 3.2 3.2 3.4 2.9 3.0 2.7 3.2 2.1 2.4 1.7 1.9 2.5 2.4 2.6 2.1 1.8 1.9 2.4

687 658 686 683 686 677 678 675 677 658 671 669 677 663 660 667 657 665 672 660

saying that “youth crime” and “stolen property” were “very much of a problem”, and 16% saying that about “vandalism”. At the other end of the scale, the issues with the lowest mean scores were “murder” (1.7), “obscene phone calls (1.8), “prostitution” and “personal harassment” (1.9). Although I have not made a careful content analysis of local newspaper stories about prostitution in Prince George, it seems that the issue of prostitution has more salience in the news media than it does in the minds of average residents here. When we asked people if they took any particular measures to protect themselves from victimization, 91% said they kept items in

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POLICING SERVICES AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

EXHIBIT 4 Perceived importance of aspects of RCMP job Job aspect Protecting people Protecting property Maintaining the peace Preventing crimes Educating people about the law Educating people about crime prevention Programs in the schools Dealing with community leaders to prevent crime Traffic, highway enforcement Investigating and apprehending criminals Enforcement of drug laws Being visible and accessible in the community

Mean

N

4.7 4.0 4.4 4.4 3.9 3.9 4.2 4.0 3.7 4.7 4.2 4.5

688 689 687 689 686 687 689 688 687 690 687 688

their cars out of sight, 46% said they had house lights on automatic timers and 37% said they had burglar alarms. In our 1997 survey, only 24% of respondents had burglar alarms. Exhibit 4 lists 12 aspects of the job of the RCMP and people’s views about the importance of each of them, based on a rating scale with “1 = not at all important” and “5 = very important”. The most important functions were “protecting people” and “investigating and apprehending criminals”, each with a mean score of 4.7. The least important function was “traffic and highway enforcement”, with a mean score of 3.7. The latter figure is surprising because, as we just saw in Exhibit 3, “speeding, careless driving” had the highest score of all perceived neighbourhood problems. Apparently, then, respondents assign the least importance to the very aspect of the RCMP job that addresses the biggest perceived neighbourhood problem. Exhibit 5 lists a dozen services that the RCMP provides and the percentages of respondents who were aware of them. As one might have expected, the most widely advertised services were the most well-known. Ninety-seven percent were aware of the Crime Stoppers hot line, and 92% were aware of both the Drug Abuse

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ALEX C. MICHALOS

EXHIBIT 5 Awareness of police services Service

% Aware % Unaware % Unsure

N

Assistance and referrals to victims of crime through its Victims Assistance Program

73

10

17

686

Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) through the schools

92

4

4

688

Bully Resistance & Violence Education (BRAVE) through the schools

46

34

20

688

Safety program on consequences of drinking and driving, through the schools

73

14

13

688

Community Police Access Centres (CPAC) in three locations

92

4

4

687

Team Policing Unit provides bar watch and business patrols in downtown area

64

18

18

688

Free home security assessments by trained volunteers

15

66

19

687

Loss prevention workshops in property crimes to local businesses

28

53

19

686

Lectures to children and women regarding their safety on the street

39

38

23

687

Citizens on Patrol (COP) program for volunteers to patrol neighbourhoods and business areas

42

39

19

686

Block Parent Program to ensure safety of children

86

6

8

684

Crime Stoppers telephone hot line for anonymously reporting crimes

97

1

2

688

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POLICING SERVICES AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE

EXHIBIT 6 Assessments of police performance Statement

Mean

N

The RCMP spend enough time patrolling in my area.

3.0

687

The RCMP make good use of their resources in Prince George.

2.7

682

The RCMP deal with problems in my area in a timely fashion.

2.6

686

The RCMP should spend less time on prevention activities such as speaking at schools.

4.1

690

The RCMP should spend more time enforcing the law.

2.4

687

I can rely on the RCMP to keep the peace in my community.

2.2

692

I can always reach the RCMP when I need them.

2.0

686

The RCMP have a good understanding of the culture of aboriginal Canadians.

2.8

673

Resistance Education Program (DARE) and the Community Police Access Centres (CPAC). Only 15% were aware that the RCMP provides free home security assessments by trained volunteers. Exhibit 6 gives the mean rating scores for 8 statements about the performance of the RCMP based on a five-point Likert scale running from “1 = strongly agree” to “5 = strongly disagree”. Preventive work was most appreciated. Seventy-four percent of respondents “somewhat disagreed” or “strongly disagreed” that “the RCMP should spend less time on prevention activities such as speaking at schools”, giving it a mean score of 4.1. After preventive work, respondents were especially interested in police accessibility and reliability. Seventy-one percent “somewhat agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they could “always reach the RCMP when [they] need them” (mean = 2.0), and 67% also “somewhat agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they could “rely on the RCMP to keep the peace in [their] community” (mean = 2.2).

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6. HEALTH AND QUALITY OF LIFE

On a five-point scale running from “1 = excellent health” to “5 = poor health”, the mean respondent score was 2.2 (N = 687). On average, respondents said that “during the past 30 days”, they had 3.2 days when their physical health was not good, 3.1 days when their mental health was not good, and 2.2 days when poor physical or mental health kept them from doing their “usual activities, such as self-care, work or recreation”. (To better assess the significance of these health scores, see Michalos and Zumbo (2002).) Exhibit 7 gives the mean satisfaction ratings for 19 aspects of life on a seven-point scale running from “1 = very dissatisfied” to “7 = very satisfied”. Highest mean scores were given for “satisfaction with your living partner” (6.2) and “satisfaction with your family relations generally” (5.9). In every one of seven Prince George population surveys taken since June 1994, “satisfaction with your living partner” also had the highest mean score in similar sets of domains. Lowest mean scores were given for “dissatisfaction with provincial government officials” (2.6) and “dissatisfaction with federal government officials” (2.9). The mean score of 3.4 indicated that on average respondents were “a little dissatisfied” with local government officials. These dissatisfaction scores for the three types of government officials were similar to results of surveys taken in Prince George in four surveys since November 1999. “Satisfaction with your life as a whole” and with “your overall quality of life” each had mean scores of 5.7, compared to “satisfaction with your overall standard of living”, which had a mean of 5.4. On a sevenpoint scale running from “1 = very unhappy” to “7 = very happy”, respondents’ mean score was 5.8, which was significantly better than the 5.5 recorded in November 2000.

7. EXPLAINING FIVE MEASURES OF SUBJECTIVE LIFE QUALITY

Exhibit 8 summarizes results of attempts to explain the variation in scores for five different measures of the quality of respondents’ lives as subjectively perceived by the respondents themselves. There is no general agreement among researchers about the single best

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EXHIBIT 7 Satisfaction with various aspects of life, life as a whole and happiness Satisfaction with: Your house, apartment or mobile home Your neighbourhood Your family relations, generally Your living partner Your job Your life as a whole Your friendships Your health Your religion or spiritual fulfilment Your overall standard of living Your financial security Your recreation activities Your self-esteem Your personal safety around your home Federal government officials Provincial government officials Local government officials Policing service for your community Your overall quality of life Happiness with life as a whole

Mean

N

5.6 5.5 5.9 6.2 5.2 5.7 5.8 5.4 5.2 5.4 4.6 5.1 5.5 5.6 2.9 2.6 3.4 4.8 5.7 5.8

684 686 683 577 592 683 680 674 645 684 682 679 676 676 675 679 677 684 687 687

way to measure the quality of people’s lives for all people, everywhere, and in Michalos (2002) I explained why I do not believe such a single best method could ever exist. Nevertheless, there are several plausible candidates for summary measures of what ancient Greeks might have regarded as a good life, subjectively conceived and experienced. In the May 2001 survey, there were four single item measures that have been used by me and others as dependent variables for many years and that can be combined in a simple sum to form an index. The four dependent variables are happiness, satisfaction with life as a whole, satisfaction with the overall quality of life and satisfaction with one’s standard of living. When their

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EXHIBIT 8 Explaining five measures of subjective life quality from 11 domains Dependent variable → Predictors: Satisfaction with your house, apartment your family relations your living partner your job your friendships your health your spiritual fulfilment your financial security your recreation activities your self-esteem local policing services % of variance explained N

happi- life quality standard subjective ness satisfac. of life of living well-being Beta a a 0.21 a 0.13 0.10 a 0.13 a 0.28 a 40 471

Beta a 0.10 0.19 0.19 0.26 0.15 a a a 0.20 a 63 473

Beta 0.09 a 0.10 0.11 0.20 0.14 a 0.13 a 0.23 0.18 62 473

Beta 0.14 a 0.08 a a 0.13 0.12 0.43 0.13 a 0.07 61 472

Beta 0.09 a 0.17 0.11 0.18 0.14 0.07 0.23 a 0.21 0.08 76 473

a: Significance level too low to enter equation.

scores are summed to form an index of perceived subjective wellbeing, the index has a respectable Cronbach internal reliability of α = 0.86. Each of the five substantive columns of Exhibit 8 gives the results of stepwise regressions of each of the five dependent variables on 15 potential explanatory variables or predictors. Because four of the potential predictors failed to have statistically significant associations with any of the dependent variables, they are not listed in the exhibit. The four unlisted variables are satisfaction with one’s neighborhood, government officials (federal, provincial and local combined), feelings of personal safety around one’s home and feelings of safety in one’s community. Although there are 11 variables that have some explanatory or predictive power for one or more of the five dependent variables, there are no cases in which every potential predictor was significantly related to every dependent variable. In fact, collectively at most 9 predictors had a significant

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relation to a dependent variable (subjective well-being) and only 5 had a significant relation to happiness. The column headed “happiness” shows that 40% of the variation in happiness scores was explained by 5 predictors, with satisfaction with one’s own self-esteem having the greatest influence. The beta value of β = 0.28 for this predictor may be interpreted figuratively as telling us that as a respondent’s self-esteem satisfaction score increased a full step, the respondent’s happiness score increased 28% of a step, assuming that the values of all the other predictor variables were held constant. Inspecting the other numbers in the column, one finds that satisfaction with one’s living partner was the second most influential predictor, with β = 0.21. Satisfaction with local policing services had no statistically significant impact on people’s reported happiness. The column headed “life satisfaction” shows that 63% of the variance in life satisfaction scores was explained by 6 predictors, with satisfaction with one’s friendships having the greatest influence, β = 0.26. Self-esteem satisfaction (β = 0.20) was second, but practically indistinguishable from living partner and job satisfaction at β = 0.19 each. Again, local policing services satisfaction had no significant impact. The column headed “quality of life” shows that 62% of the variance in satisfaction with the overall quality of one’s life was explained by 8 predictors, with self-esteem satisfaction leading the list, β = 0.23. This time friendships satisfaction was second (β = 0.20), followed closely behind by satisfaction with local policing services at β = 0.18. It seems remarkable, to me at least, that satisfaction with local policing services would have a greater impact than satisfaction with one’s own health, living partner, job and financial security on respondents’ satisfaction with the overall quality of their lives. My guess is that because the item “satisfaction with local policing services” immediately preceded “satisfaction with your overall quality of life”, the shared variance between the two items is probably burdened to some extent by the effect of this ordering. The column headed “standard of living” shows that 61% of the variation in satisfaction with one’s standard of living was explained by 7 predictors, with financial security satisfaction far and away the most influential variable. That was expected because “standard

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of living” tends to be interpreted in a relatively materialistic way by most people, and one’s finances are directly related to one’s material comforts. Local policing satisfaction was least influential (β = 0.07), which surprised me because I expected respondents to associate police protection with material goods, finances and living standards. Finally, the column headed “subjective well-being” shows that 76% of the variation in respondents’ overall perceived well-being was explained by 9 predictors, with financial security satisfaction (β = 0.23) and self-esteem satisfaction (β = 0.23) leading the pack. At the other end, there is a rather odd cluster of 3 moderately influential predictors, namely, satisfaction with one’s own spiritual fulfilment (β = 0.07), local policing services (β = 0.08) and one’s house (β = 0.09). It is likely that the relatively high percent of variation explained in the dependent variable and the relatively large number of significant predictors are both related to the fact that the index has a greater range of variation to be explained (from 4 to 28 steps versus from 1 to 7 steps for the single item dependent variables) and that the index is conceptually more diffuse or complicated. 8. CONCLUSION

The main aim of this survey was to measure respondents’ assessments of local police services in Prince George, and their relative impact on the quality of respondents’ lives. Generally speaking, the evaluations were quite favourable. For example, in response to the question “what kind of a job do you think the RCMP are doing”, 30% said a “very good job” and 38% said a “fairly good job”, compared to 2% who said they were doing a “very poor job” and 4% more a “fairly poor job”. Compared to the 1997 survey, fewer people thought that crime had increased in the past few years, which is actually consistent with official crime statistics. The biggest perceived problem was with speeding and careless driving, although respondents rated traffic and highway enforcement as the least important of a dozen kinds of police activities. People most appreciated police work aimed at preventing crimes. Of the things people did to protect themselves from becoming a victim, keeping items in their cars out

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of sight headed the list. As in previous surveys in this community, highest levels of satisfaction were expressed for living partners and family relations generally. Estimating the relative impact of three police/crime related variables (satisfaction with feelings of personal safety around one’s home and in one’s community, and with local policing services) on the quality of life measured in five different ways in the context of 12 other variables, it was found that only the last variable (satisfaction with policing services) had a statistically significant association to the quality of life measured in three of the five ways. Forty percent of the variation in happiness scores and 63% of the variation in life satisfaction scores could be explained by five and six predictors, respectively, without any significant association with satisfaction with policing services. Sixty-two percent of the variation in satisfaction with respondents’ overall quality of life scores could be explained by eight predictors, with satisfaction with policing services as the third most influential predictor behind satisfaction with respondents’ self-esteem and friendships. Sixty-one percent of the variation in satisfaction with respondents’ standard of living scores was explained by seven predictors, with satisfaction with policing services being least influential. Finally, 76% of the variation in an index of subjective well-being (summing the scores of the other four global indicators) was explained by nine predictors, with satisfaction with policing services being second least influential. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people for their help in designing, administrating and interpreting the survey: RCMP Superintendent Steven F. Leach, Inspector Dahl Chambers, Staff/Sgt. Reg Kilden and Julie Orlando. REFERENCES Michalos, A. C.: 1996, ‘Aspects of the quality of life in Prince George: A case study in Canada’, South Asian Journal of Psychology 1, pp. 45–70. Michalos, A. C.: 2002, ‘Social indicators research and health-related quality of life research’, tbp.

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Michalos, A. C. and B. D. Zumbo: 1999, ‘Public services and the quality of life’, Social Indicators Research 48, pp. 125–156. Michalos, A. C. and B. D. Zumbo: 2000, ‘Criminal victimization and the quality of life’, Social Indicators Research 50, pp. 245–295. Michalos, A. C. and B. D. Zumbo: 2002, ‘Healthy days, health satisfaction and satisfaction with the overall quality of life’, Social Indicators Research, tbp.

Institute for Social Research and Evaluation University of Northern British Columbia Prince George, B.C. V2N 4Z9 E-mail: [email protected]