Encounters with the criminal justice system shape people's perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities, and the dominant explanatory framework for this relationship revolves around the idea ...that procedurally just practice increases people's positive connections to justice institutions. But there have been few assessments of the idea—central to procedural justice theory—that social identity acts as an important social-psychological bridge in this process. Our contribution in this paper is to examine the empirical links between procedural justice, social identity and legitimacy in the context of policing in Australia. A representative two-wave panel survey of Australians suggests that social identity does mediate the association between procedural justice and perceptions of legitimacy. It seems that when people feel fairly treated by police, their sense of identification with the superordinate group the police represent is enhanced, strengthening police legitimacy as a result. By contrast, unfair treatment signals to people that they do not belong, undermining both identification and police legitimacy.
Abstract
Some immigrants can be reluctant to cooperate with the police due to experiences of social exclusion and discrimination. Procedural justice scholars argue that people cooperate with police ...when they feel the police are just and fair because such treatment motivates identification with social categories that police represent. In this paper, we consider whether immigrants in Australia respond favourably to procedurally just treatment from police because it enhances their identification with both Australia and the police. Using survey data from 903 Vietnamese, Middle Eastern and British immigrants, we demonstrate an association between police procedural justice and both modes of identification. We also find that both identities mediate the relationship between procedural justice and cooperation. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Past research has shown that procedural justice enhances an authority's legitimacy and encourages people to cooperate with them. However, this past research has examined legitimacy by focusing solely ...on the perceived legitimacy of authorities and has ignored how people may perceive the legitimacy of the laws and rules authorities enforce. This distinction has relevance to the policing of ethnic minority groups who may come from different cultures or countries where distrust in the law and legal institutions is prevalent. Using survey data collected from a random sample of 1,203 Australians, this paper explores how procedural justice and both institutional and legal hgitimacy impact on people's willingness to cooperate with police. The findings will be explained using Braithwaite's (2003; 2010) social distancing framework.
The public rely on the police to enforce the law, and the police rely on the public to report crime and assist them with their enquiries. Police action or inaction can also impact on public ...willingness to informally intervene in community problems. In this paper we examine the formal-informal control nexus in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a survey sample of 1,595 Australians during COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, we examine the relationship between police effectiveness, collective efficacy, and public willingness to intervene when others violate lockdown restrictions. We find that perceptions of police effectiveness in handling the COVID-19 crisis has a positive impact on the public’s willingness to intervene when others violate lockdown restrictions.
Over the past few decades, Australia has become less dominated by White-European cultural groups and is increasingly characterized by racial and cultural diversity. This diversity brings many ...benefits, but it also poses challenges for governance. Authorities such as the police are faced with greater diversity in cultural norms, values, identities, and attitudes toward police and the law. This increase in diversity may therefore have implications for the ability of police to foster trust, obtain compliance, and encourage cooperation among certain groups. Procedural justice has been regarded as central to improving public trust and confidence in authorities. This paper will use survey data to examine the role that procedural justice policing can play in promoting trust and cooperation among ethnic minority groups living in Australia.
Why an institution's rules and regulations are obeyed or disobeyed is an important question for regulatory agencies. This paper discusses the findings of an empirical study that shows that the use of ...threat and legal coercion as a regulatory tool-in addition to being more expensive to implement-can sometimes be ineffective in gaining compliance. Using survey data collected from 2,292 taxpayers accused of tax avoidance, it will be demonstrated that variables such as trust need to be considered when managing noncompliance. If regulators are seen to be acting fairly, people will trust the motives of that authority, and will defer to their decisions voluntarily. This paper therefore argues that to shape desired behavior, regulators will need to move beyond motivation linked purely to deterrence. Strategies directed at reducing levels of distrust between the two sides may prove particularly effective in gaining voluntary compliance with an organization's rules and regulations.
It is often assumed that immigrants in countries such as the United Kingdom will report lower levels of trust in the police. Immigrant communities are thought 'difficult to police', and minority ...groups frequently experience problematic relationships with police. Yet, there has been little empirical investigation of this issue in the United Kingdom. In this paper, data from the Crime Survey of England and Wales are used to explore the relationship between immigration and trust in the police. Results suggest that trust is higher among immigrants than among the UK-born population, although there is important variation by time since arrival and experience of policing. Trust in the police is also higher in neighbourhoods that have more immigrants. The paper concludes with some reflection on the nature of trust in the police.
Effectively engaging the Muslim community is a challenge for police given many Muslims feel unfairly targeted by counterterrorism policies and laws because of their faith. This article explores how ...such perceptions influence the willingness of Muslims to voluntarily cooperate in counterterrorism efforts, drawing on data collected from Muslims living in Australia. We test whether procedural justice policing can help buffer this perception of being targeted as a security threat and whether it can enhance Muslims' willingness to cooperate with police. Efforts by the Australian Federal Police to engage Muslim communities in Australia are also examined. The implications of the results for community-based approaches to counterterrorism are discussed.
Engaging Muslims in counter-terrorism (CT) has proved challenging for police worldwide. Some research has focussed on the utility of police being procedurally just in their CT strategies to enhance ...their legitimacy and subsequent cooperation from Muslims. Despite the efficacy of procedural justice, however, some have argued that procedural justice scholarship is too narrowly focussed on how police treat citizens. Citizens’ concerns about police acting within the limits of appropriate power (i.e., “bounded-authority” concerns), as well as representativeness in policing (i.e., “representative bureaucracy”), can also influence citizens’ judgments of police legitimacy. This study explores how, when, and why procedural justice, bounded authority, and representation concerns shape Muslims’ perceptions of police CT measures and police legitimacy. Using focus group data from 104 Australian-Muslims, results revealed that CT measures that include Muslims as partners in terrorism prevention and those that draw on principles of procedural justice were perceived most favourably, and were seen to promote police legitimacy. Measures that were condemned were perceived as bounded-authority violations and damaged police legitimacy. Implications for theory and police practice are discussed.
Police rely on citizens to report crime and victimization. Yet for many people low levels of trust in police and concerns about unjust police treatment impact their willingness to engage proactively ...with police. For some, defying police authority is common. This can be particularly so for ethnic, racial, and religious minority groups. The personal and vicarious experiences these groups have with police play an important role in the legal socialization process, shaping how they perceive and behave toward police. As a religious minority group Muslims have experienced intense scrutiny from police. As such, the current study examines how and why Muslims defy police authority. Using survey data from 398 Australian Muslims, this study tests whether Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice and bounded‐authority violations (i.e., the belief that police overstep the boundaries of acceptable authority) have differential effects on two types of defiance: resistance and disengagement. Findings show that Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice are most important for understanding resistance, while disengagement is dominated by concerns about perceived boundary violations. Further, procedural justice moderates the association between bounded‐authority concerns and resistance, but not disengagement. The implications of these findings for the legal socialization process, theory, and police practice are discussed.
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