How the Sarah Everard Case has Changed Public Perceptions of Police Officers

Summer Herbert; Maria Ioannou; Calli Tzani; Rachel Fletcher; Thomas James Vaughan Williams

doi:10.1177/10778012251366237

How the Sarah Everard Case has Changed Public Perceptions of Police Officers

Summer Herbert, Maria Ioannou, Calli Tzani, Rachel Fletcher, Thomas James Vaughan Williams

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

News can have profound effects on public perceptions of the police. The public's views of the police following the widespread case of Sarah Everard have yet to be examined, despite it's link to violence against women and girls. This research explored the impact of this case on public perceptions of the police in the period afterwards. An analysis of 107 social media posts uncovered seven themes showing this case caused extreme fear and anxiety. While some viewed the incident as a “bad apple,” most tweets showed distrust toward the police force as a whole, raising repercussions for police–public relationships and reporting decisions.

Original language	English
Number of pages	18
Journal	Violence Against Women
Early online date	11 Aug 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012251366237
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 11 Aug 2025

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abstract = "News can have profound effects on public perceptions of the police. The public's views of the police following the widespread case of Sarah Everard have yet to be examined, despite it's link to violence against women and girls. This research explored the impact of this case on public perceptions of the police in the period afterwards. An analysis of 107 social media posts uncovered seven themes showing this case caused extreme fear and anxiety. While some viewed the incident as a “bad apple,” most tweets showed distrust toward the police force as a whole, raising repercussions for police–public relationships and reporting decisions.",

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N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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How the Sarah Everard Case has Changed Public Perceptions of Police Officers

Abstract

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