Jackson, Jonathan;
Bradford, Ben;
Chan, Angus;
Lee, Youngsub;
(2025)
When trust turns digital: why relational cues matter in online crime-reporting portals.
Journal of Experimental Criminology
10.1007/s11292-025-09713-5.
(In press).
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Abstract
Objectives: To test whether trust in the police (a) improves the online crime-reporting experience and (b) increases support for digital reporting. To examine whether a procedurally just follow-up email and primed motivations enhance or amplify these effects. // Methods: In a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment, 638 UK participants reported a hypothetical crime online. Experimental conditions: trust prime, reporting motivation, follow-up communication and crime type. Outcomes: user experience (fair and efficient) and support for online reporting. // Results: Most participants felt the experience was fair and efficient. Support for online reporting was generally high. The trust prime improved both user experience and support. A procedurally-just follow-up email increased support but did not interact with trust. Motivation and crime type had no measurable effects. // Conclusions: Systems that engage trust help users interpret impersonal processes as procedurally fair and efficient. Lacking such cues, online reporting risks being a hollow transaction—undermining police legitimacy.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | When trust turns digital: why relational cues matter in online crime-reporting portals |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11292-025-09713-5 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-025-09713-5 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Procedural justice; Trust in police; Digital policing; Online crime reporting; Police legitimacy; Human–technology interaction |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Security and Crime Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10217176 |
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