DOI: 10.12924/johs2020.16020066 |Publication Date: 9 December 2020

Growing Up in Post-Conflict Kosovo: Youth’s Insecurities and Their Attitudes Towards Police

Fabienne Lieveke Rie Coenders
Ruhr University Bochum
Abstract: This study aims to identify insecurities among youth in Kosovo, constituting the largest age group. Some of the identified insecurities and respective resolutions are related to the role of and attitudes toward police in Kosovo, who are the main formal security provider in Kosovo. This is addressed in the first part of the article. The second part addresses these attitudes toward police, analysing youth perspectives on performance, procedural justice and distributive justice. Primary data from semi-structured focus group discussions with Kosovar youth are used for the analyses. Five key types of insecurities were identified: (1) job-related (unemployment), (2) drug-related, (3) school-related, (4) physical and (5) inequality-related. Results also show that attitudes toward police are predominantly poor and seem to stem mainly from a performance perspective, followed by a procedural justice perspective.

Keywords: attitudes toward police; Kosovo; post-conflict; youth; identifying insecurities; police performance; distributive justice; procedural justice

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