Abstract

This article explores the development of citizens’ trust in the police in the Netherlands and the relevance of police-citizen contact for trust in the police drawing data from the Dutch Integral Safety Monitor (IVm). This is a huge but underutilized dataset. The findings show that the police in the Netherlands are highly trusted by Dutch citizens. However, their experience with police-citizen contact play an important role in citizens’ trust. The findings of this research indicate not only the relevance of the perspective of procedural justice, but an instrumental and ‘proximity’ perspective as well. The article ends with an assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the data in the IVm.