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17 J. Experimental Criminology 1 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/jexpcrm17 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Experimental Criminology (2021) 17:1-13 https://doi.org/10.1007/si1292-019-09408-8 An experimental study of responses to armed police Check for in Great Britain Julia A. Yesberg' - Ben Bradford' - Paul Dawson2 Published online: 9 January 2020 © The Author(s) 2020 Abstract Objectives This study tested whether the presence of a firearm changed the way people reacted to police among a British sample. Method In an online study, participants were shown images of armed and unarmed police and rated them on a number of variables. Some participants were primed to think about terrorism, and some participants were exposed to more armed police than others. Results Participants had more negative responses to police when they were armed. We found no effect of the terrorism prime on people's reactions to images of armed police and no effect of exposure. Yet, unexpectedly, we found a negative effect of the terrorism prime on trust and legitimacy. Conclusions In a country where police have never before been routinely armed, this research raises important questions about how armed police can retain the public's support when they may no longer be considered 'prototypical representatives' of the British people. Keywords Armed police - British policing - Firearms - Perceptions ofpolice -Socialidentity - Terrorism salience Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-019- 09408-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. 2 Julia A. Yesberg J.Yesberg@ucl.ac.uk Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, University College London, 35 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9EZ, UK 2 Mayor's Office for Policing And Crime, London, UK '_ Springer