Public perceptions about police misconduct in Croatia

The police in countries in transition have undergone a process of transformation from a communist militia to a democratic police. The Croatian police, one of the youngest police agencies in Europe, have been shifting toward democratic policing in the course of the last decade. This paper focuses on public opinion about the Croatian police and their misconduct. A sample of college students from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, surveyed in 2001, was asked to evaluate a series of hypothetical cases describing various forms of police misconduct. The respondents perceived that police officers would evaluate these cases of misconduct as less serious than they would and that police officers would be less likely to report them than they would. Furthermore, the students also expected the police to mete out no discipline to the police officers who engaged in the behaviors described in the majority of the cases.