The code of the street and cooperation with the police: Do codes of violence, procedural injustice, and police ineffectiveness discourage reporting violent victimization to the police?

Purpose: Few quantitative studies have tested Anderson's (1999) suggestion that reliance on codes of violence and mistrust in the police reduce the likelihood of cooperating with the police after being victimized. We examine whether perceived codes of violence, perceived police effectiveness, and perceived procedural injustice influence the decision to report crime to the police. We also examine whether these relationships interact with individual or situational characteristics. Methods: This study applies binary logistic regression to a sample of 687 victims of violence from the Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey. Results: The results indicated that procedural injustice had significant effects on crime reporting, though this relationship was conditioned by victim injury. Codes of violence and police effectiveness were related to crime reporting, but only among Black crime victims. Conclusions: Taken together, the results underscore the importance of police-community relations, as poor perceptions of the police and reliance on oneself for protection and justice reduce cooperation with the police, especially among minorities.