Restoring public trust in fragile-state policing: the roles of police professionalism, accountability, and citizen satisfaction in Mogadishu, Somalia

Public trust in the police is a vital element of law enforcement legitimacy, effective policing, and social stability, particularly in fragile and post-conflict contexts such as Mogadishu, Somalia. In Somalia, despite the police’s significant role in maintaining public order, there is low trust in the police. This study examined the joint influence of perceived police professionalism and perceived police accountability on public trust in police services through the underlying mechanism of citizen satisfaction with police services. We collected cross-sectional survey data from 531 participants who were residents of Mogadishu, Somalia. To test the proposed model, we used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings revealed that both perceived police professionalism and accountability exerted significant positive effects on public trust in police services. In addition, the results showed that both perceptions of professionalism and accountability significantly enhanced citizen satisfaction with the police services. Furthermore, the results showed that citizen satisfaction with police services partially mediates the relationship between independent and dependent variables. We integrated perceived police professionalism, accountability, citizen satisfaction with police, and trust in police into a single unified conceptual model. Therefore, this study advances the scholarship on policing and criminology by extending police legitimacy research to fragile post-conflict settings. The findings of this study highlight the importance of strengthening police professional conduct and accountability mechanisms to improve citizen satisfaction and rebuild public trust in policing institutions in Somalia and comparable contexts.