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Introduction
One of the core components of positive social control is the perception of citizens regarding the legitimacy, efficacy and fairness of the mechanisms of justice. Police are the front-line agents of formal social control, and as such enjoy some of the credit and most of the blame for the public's view of the quality of life in urban communities. A measurable indicator of the public's perception of the state of their community is public confidence in the police. Ample research links this perception with social conditions and experiences of various kinds, in particular neighborhood incivilities. Defined by Pamela Wilcox-Roundtree and Kenneth C. Land, neighborhood incivilities are an index that consists of the average of various signs of disorders or problems as viewed by individual respondents within a community, which may include factors such as graffiti, loud music, substandard housing, a visible drug presence, litter in the street, inadequate lighting, and abandoned buildings.1 Scholars have researched the extent to which interactions with the police impact expressed levels of satisfaction with the broader justice system which includes the courts and corrections systems at local, state, and federal levels,2 and the role that neighborhood level incivilities play in the quality of situational interactions between the police and the public, which have been linked to public confidence in the system,1 a key element long identified by researchers as vital to the efficacy of social justice mechanisms.4
Integrally related to these social processes are the relative levels of socio-economic status, inequality, and social stratification manifested in any community, as research has demonstrated that residents of neighborhoods with high levels of disadvantage have poorer attitudes towards the criminal justice system,5 with race being a strong predictor of attitudes towards police.6 These findings assume greater significance when considered in light of current law enforcement policies targeting high crime areas with maximum amounts of police attention and force. Therefore, it is of considerable value to understand more fully how citizen impressions of the mechanisms and processes of justice are shaped by interactions with the police in these social settings.
Past research examining the influence of encounter satisfaction has focused largely on perceptions of the police, while few have considered the impact of various demographic factors as well as signs of neighborhood...