An Analysis of Public Trust and Confidence Shown towards the Royal Malaysian Police in the Social Media

Public confidence is a concept that underpins the entire system of policing. The police force is constantly at risk of losing public confidence, due to a range of factors including falling levels of police visibility. Recent studies indicate increased interest in sentiment analysis research, especially in social media. Sentiment analysis research is a useful tool for analysing the public’s perception of police misconduct as expressed in social media. Therefore, this study will be an attempt to improve the methods used by police organisations to improve public confidence in the police. The following were achieved in this study: a) an assessment of the issue of police as topic in social media postings; b) techniques to classify the dataset on the issue of police through sentiment analysis; c) application of a model ‘Trust and confidence in the police’ adapted from Jackson and Bradford’s (2010) [1] and The Metropolitan Police Survey (MPS) ‘confidence in policing model’ adapted from Metropolitan Police Survey (2013) [2] using the three key elements that will eventually be applied to the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) to improve public confidence in the police. This research concludes with a discussion of the implications of the model and how it can be used as a strategic guide for improvement. The findings can serve as guidelines for the Royal Malaysian Police to improve the organisational system and increase the level of public confidence in the police force.