Policing in the United States has a racist history, with negative implications for its legitimacy among African Americans today. Legitimacy is important for policing's effective operations. Community policing may improve policing's legitimacy but is difficult to implement with fidelity and does not address history. An apology for policing's racist history may work as a legitimizing supplement to community policing. On the other hand, an apology may be interpreted as words without changes in practices. Using a survey vignette experiment on Amazon's Mechanical Turk to sample African Americans, this research tests the legitimizing effect of a supplemental apology for historical police racism during a community policing policy announcement. Statistical findings suggest that supplementing the communication with an apology imparted little to no additional legitimacy on policing among respondents. Qualitative data suggested a rationale: Apologies need not indicate future equitable behavior or policy implementation, with implementation itself seeming crucial for police legitimacy improvements.

美国的警务有着种族主义的历史，对其今天在非裔美国人中的合法性产生了负面影响。合法性对于警察的有效运作很重要。社区警务可能会提高警务的合法性，但很难忠实地执行，并且不涉及历史。为警务的种族主义历史道歉可能会作为社区警务合法化的补充。另一方面，道歉可以解释为没有改变做法的话语。这项研究使用亚马逊的机械土耳其人的调查小插曲实验对非裔美国人进行抽样，测试在社区警务政策公告期间对历史警察种族主义进行补充道歉的合法化效果。统计结果表明，以道歉来补充沟通几乎不会给受访者带来更多的警务合法性。定性数据提出了一个基本原理：道歉不需要表明未来的公平行为或政策实施，实施本身似乎对提高警察合法性至关重要。