Procedural Justice and Legitimacy SPIAA 2014, Tampa, Florida

1. Procedural Justice and LegitimacySPIAA 2014, Tampa, Florida

2. Roadmap • Public’s role in policing • Gaining compliance • Legitimacy • What is and what it may get you • Procedural justice • Elements • Research on procedural justice

3. The public and the police • The focus is on how the public impacts on the effectiveness of the police in their efforts to combat crime and maintain social order.

4. Public’s Role in Policing • Mobilization • Information • Prevention • Compliance- • A-Obey the law generally and • B-Obey police during a police – citizen encounter. • Most of these above are largely voluntary in nature.

5. 2 ways to gain Compliance • Threat based • “I comply because the police are good at job/effective and will catch me if I do not” • not most effective • have to be every where all the time. • Voluntary compliance. • “I comply not due to fear but because I feel I ought to do so” • Can concentrate resources on problem areas/people.

6. Can support/compliance be created? • The value of voluntary cooperation and support from the public raises the question of how such cooperation and support can be created and maintained.

7. French and Raven (1959) • Coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, and referent • Legitimate power • is the person’s perceptions whether a superior has the right to prescribe and control their behavior.

8. Police Legitimacy • The ability to create and maintain a climate of public opinion in which community residents generally view the police as legitimate authorities.

9. Sources of legitimacy • Instrumental and Normative sources of legitimacy

10. Instrumental source of legitimacy • Instrumental perspective of legitimacy suggests that police develop and maintain legitimacy through their effectiveness in controlling crime and disorder in the community. • At the individual level- compliance via creation of a credible risk that people will be caught and punished for wrongdoing • At the community level- public cooperation in fighting crime is motivated by evidence that the police are performing effectively in their efforts to control crime and urban disorder

11. Normative source of legitimacy • Normative-the legitimacy of police is linked to public judgments about the fairness of the processes through which the police make decisions and exercise authority. • At the community level the police are viewed as fair. • At the individual level- I was treated fairly in my interaction.

12. The value of police legitimacy? • When people feel that an authority is legitimate, they authorize that authority to determine what their behavior will be within a given set of situations.

13. How do the police shape public views of their legitimacy? • One idea is that legitimacy of authorities and institutions is rooted in public views about the appropriateness of the manner in which the police exercise their authority. • Evaluation based on use of fair procedures when engaging in police activities. • These are distinct from judgments based upon effectiveness /outcomes. • HOW THEY ARE TREATED

14. A legitimacy-based strategy of policing • A legitimacy-based strategy of policing increases cooperation with the law by drawing on people’s feelings of responsibility and obligation. • Building legitimacy is the goal.

15. Cost effective • If this works it is cheaper and more efficient than maintaining a credible system of deterrence or police performance upon crime. • Could also be the next area to be mined once instrumental models of crime control have been put in place.

16. Its about the process! • In dealing with authority people value just, decent treatment, transparency, and fair decision making over instrumental concerns and outcomes. • Fair treatment promotes feelings of procedural justice and promotes motive based trust. • These in turn increase the legitimacy of the authority concerned.

17. The Legitimacy gets you • Decision acceptance. • Readiness to comply with instructions/orders. • Compliance with the law.

18. Theory of procedural justice • If PJ works, it suggests that cooperation and compliance will be secured by PROCESS based styles of policing which will encourage the public to see cooperating with the police and obeying the law as the right things to do.

19. Decision acceptance Procedural fairness Legitimacy Cooperation Compliance with law

20. Many factors • Clearly there are many factors involved in compliance with the law/police other than legitimacy of authority. • Risk of detection • Personal morality • Psychological factors • Not saying these do not matter or impact but only saying that perhaps legitimacy does too.

21. Compliance model Police Effectiveness Perceived risk of sanction Compliance with law LEGITIMACY Procedural Justice Personal Morality

22. What is procedural justice? • Coined by Thibaut and Walker (1975) to refer to people's perceptions of the treatment they receive during the processes involved in decision-making. • The subjective experience of the process.

23. What is procedural justice? • Participation. • Explain their situation and views • Feel input solicited and considered. • “Shut your …” • Neutrality. • Unbiased and based on objective things not personal views. • Treated with dignity and respect by legal authorities. • Treated with politeness, took them seriously. • Social status and self worth • “Hey Buddy…” • Trust the motives of decision maker. • Sincere and benevolent concern

24. Legit? Phili Stop 9/27/13 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4exZ-jXgWE • Participation. • Neutrality. • Treated with dignity and respect by legal authorities. • Trust the motives of decision maker. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njb6X-nmW2M

25. Sheriff Susan Rahr • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQyNtyA34Bo • Sheriff Susan E. Rahr, King County (WA) Sheriff's Office • http://www.nij.gov/multimedia/presenter/presenter-tyler/data/resources/presenter-tyler-transcript.htm • An NIJ Research for the Real World SeminarTom Tyler, Ph.D.

26. L.E.E.D • Specific things to do not do -“Don’t be a jerk” • Listen • Explain • Shows you listened-creates the next • Equity • Dignity

27. Lack of procedural justice • ‘If the police can behave however they please, and ignore the rules, so can I.’

28. The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing Sunshine and Tyler 2003

29. Two major questions • Does legitimacy influence public support of the police? • What determines legitimacy?

30. Findings-Police legitimacy • Public evaluations of police legitimacy impact people’s • compliance with law, • their willingness to cooperate with and assist the police, • and whether the public will empower the police. • Legitimacy was the dominant predictor of orientation toward the police.

31. Findings-what determines legitimacy • Procedural justice --the primary antecedent of legitimacy.

32. Not simply instrumental effectiveness • People appear not to just judge police on instrumental terms. • This suggests not just focusing on instrumental effectiveness but also on the value of focusing on an understanding of the determinants of legitimacy.

33. ETHNIC GROUP DIFFERENCES • Regardless of ethnicity, people cooperate with the police when they view the police as legitimate • Looks to be important to members of three major ethnic groups • Whites, African Americans, Hispanics.

34. Profiling and Police legitimacy Tyler and Wakslak (2004)

35. Subjective experience of being Profiled • Not the objective experience-perception. • What impacts the attributions people make? • Experience fairness and or • Generally fair police dealings with the community • Are they are less likely to infer profiling occurs?

36. General findings • Procedural fairness significantly affected the inferences people made about their interactions with the police. • Quality of decision making • Quality of treatment • Inferences about trustworthiness. • People less likely to infer they were profiled when they are treated with politeness and respect

37. The process matters •  The actions of individual police can, therefore, have a direct and fundamental impact by either enhancing or lowering people's judgments of police legitimacy 

38. Mazerolle, Antrobus, Bennett and Tyler (2013) • Goal: • To test the influence of an experimental manipulation on both specific and generalized views of police legitimacy and how these views influence people’s satisfaction and willingness to cooperate with police.

39. Police Citizen encounters • Global attitudes toward police formed often before contact • Vicarous experience perspective • Learn from stories of friends, family and media

40. Method idea • Compare and contrast two distinct types of police citizen encounters and how they differentially influence citizen’s perceptions of police during the encounter as well as their more general orientation to police. • Randomized field trial • Traffic stops

41. Assumptions • Variations in respondent’s preexisting views of the police will be distributed equally among the experimental and control group. • Experimental condition (PJ) will shape not only citizen views about the police during the encounter but also their general views of the police. • These specific and general view of police will shape views of police legitimacy.

42. Methodology? • Random allocation of 60 planed road blocks (RBT) to standard (control) or experimental (script operationalizing procedural justice). • 300-400 cars per operation • Sealed survey for those pulled over.

43. Control • Random pull over • BAC used • 20 seconds

44. Experimental • Incorporate PJ elements • Participation, dignity and respect, neutrality, trustworthy motives into a script • Still had to take the BAC but could voice concerns • Thank them for time. • 10 officers were standard or experimental per RBT operation

45. Findings • Key finding of the analysis shows that perceptions of procedural justice in the specific context not only influence specific attitudes about police, but also more general beliefs about the police: • Citizens who perceived the RBT traffic encounter to be procedurally just had more positive specific as well as generalized views of police. • It shows that specific views of police, derived from a very short encounter with police, can shape generalized views of police.

46. Findings • Overall, the findings show that the more “procedurally just” the police strive to make even a short encounter, the more likely citizens are to perceive the police as legitimate.

47. Findings • Satisfaction was directly related to perceptions of procedural justice, whereas cooperation was only indirectly related through legitimacy. • This finding suggests that, at least in the Australian context, performance-based, instrumental factors influence citizen satisfaction with police. • However, satisfaction with the way police do their job was not found to impact the willingness to cooperate, suggesting that the legitimacy of the police is the guiding factor for willingness to cooperate.

48. Questions?

49. FBI Research