The study sought to assess attitudes of Chicanos toward the police and compare them with attitudes of white and black respondents in the National Opinion Reasearch center (NORDC) study. The study also tested Richard L. Block's major hypotheses, from a 1971 study, concerning fear of crime, fear of the police, support for increased police power, and support for civil liberties in a Chicano community. The study setting was a Chicano barrio in a southern California community of approximately 150,000 inhabitants. A random sample of households yielded 170 completed interviews, which were conducted by bilingual-bicultural interviewers. The hypothesis that fear of crime is associated with greater support for the police was only moderately supported in the NORC survey of white and black respondents, but it was strongly supported in the Chicano sample. The hypothesis that persons who feared the police most were most likely to support the protection of civil liberties found considerable support in the NORC study among white respondents but not among black respondents; 70 percent of Chicanos who feared the police most supported the protection of civil liberties. Among the three racial-ethnic groups, increases in the crime rate generally led to greater support for increasing police power and limiting civil liberties, while fear of the police seemed to lessen support for police power and to increase support for civil guarantees. Despite these similarities, the groups differed in their support and fear of the police and in fear of crime and advocacy of civil liberties. Data tables, footnotes, and 23 references are included.