This study explores two issues about police legitimacy. The first issue is the relative importance of police legitimacy in shaping public support of the police and policing activities, compared to the importance of instrumental judgments about (1) the risk that people will be caught and sanctioned for wrongdoing, (2) the performance of the police in fighting crime, and/or (3) the fairness of the distribution of police services. Three aspects of public support for the police are examined: public compliance with the law, public cooperation with the police, and public willingness to support policies that empower the police. The second issue is which judgments about police activity determine people’s views about the legitimacy of the police. This study compares the influence of people’s judgments about the procedural justice of the manner in which the police exercise their authority to the influence of three instrumental judgments: risk, performance, and distributive fairness. Findings of two surveys of New Yorkers show that, first, legitimacy has a strong influence on the public’s reactions to the police, and second, the key antecedent of legitimacy is the fairness of the procedures used by the police. This model applies to both white and minority group residents.

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The Role of Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Shaping Public Support for Policing

Trust in the Law: Encouraging Public Cooperation with the Police and Courts

This article makes three points. First, the police need public support and cooperation to be effective in their order-maintenance role, and they particularly benefit when they have the voluntary support and cooperation of most members of the public, most of the time. Second, such voluntary support and cooperation is linked to judgments about the legitimacy of the police. A central reason people cooperate with the police is that they view them as legitimate legal authorities, entitled to be obeyed. Third, a key antecedent of public judgments about the legitimacy of the police and of policing activities involves public assessments of the manner in which the police exercise their authority. Such procedural-justice judgments are central to public evaluations of the police and influence such evaluations separately from assessments of police effectiveness in fighting crime. These findings suggest the importance of enhancing public views about the legitimacy of the police and suggest process-based strategies for...

/pdf/enhancing-police-legitimacy-kcud8eorjx.pdf

Enhancing Police Legitimacy

Legal authorities gain when they receive deference and cooperation from the public. Considerable evidence suggests that the key factor shaping public behavior is the fairness of the processes legal authorities use when dealing with members of the public. This reaction occurs both during personal experiences with legal authorities and when community residents are making general evaluations of the law and of legal authorities. The strength and breadth of this influence suggests the value of an approach to regulation based upon sensitivity to public concerns about fairness in the exercise of legal authority. Such an approach leads to a number of suggestions about valuable police practices, as well as helping explain why improvements in the objective performance of the police and courts have not led to higher levels of public trust and confidence in those institutions.

Procedural Justice, Legitimacy, and the Effective Rule of Law

A review of recent research demonstrates that people are more willing to accept decisions when they feel that those decisions are made through decision-making procedures they view as fair. Studies of procedural justice judgements further suggest that people evaluate fairness primarily through criteria that can be provided to all the parties to a conflict: whether there are opportunities to participate; whether the authorities are neutral; the degree to which people trust the motives of the authorities; and whether people are treated with dignity and respect during the process. These findings are optimistic and suggest that authorities have considerable ability to bridge differences and interests and values through the use of fair decision-making procedures. The limits to the effectiveness of such procedural approaches are also outlined. Une recension des recherches recentes montre que les gens sont prets a accepter des decisions quand ils sentent que ces decisions sont prises a la suite d'une procedure de...

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/002075900399411

Social Justice: Outcome and Procedure

This book presents a substantial new statement on the character of social life in confinement Drawing upon extensive fieldwork in two contrasting English maximum security prisons, the authors systematically compare their institutional order, including the differing control strategies deployed in each, as seen by both custodians and captives, controllers and controlled The authors discuss the implications of their research for the tradition of sociological concern within the'prison community' They re-examine the resources of that rich but latterly somewhat dormant field in the light of some of the main currents in contemporary social theory, and thereby provide a new perspective on the 'problem of order' in maximum custody This book will have significant policy implications, and it will be required reading for scholars and students in criminology and criminal justice, as well as for administrators and reformers in penal system

Prisons and the problem of order

Approaching the Research

Changing Prison Life?@@@The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society@@@Reconstructing a Women's Prison: The Holloway Redevelopment Project, 1968-88@@@Prison and the Problem of Order: Prison and the Problem of Order

This chapter serves as a starting point with which to begin to make socially scientific sense of social problems. It begins with an overview of how social problems have been studied, understood, and framed. It proceeds by exploring the ways in which different disciplines have contributed to our knowledge and understanding of the origins and effects of social problems. Drawing upon various biological, psychological, and sociological insights, attention is then paid to issues of causation. Included in this discussion is a commentary on the self, agency, and other internal factors play in the creation and maintenance of social problems, as well as those to originating in external determinants such as culture, socio-economic, and environmental conditions. There is a strong argument embedded in the social problems discourse that social problems threaten the very fabric and norms of society. The concern with the next section is therefore with issues revolving around censoriousness, values, and morality. Given the seemingly intractability of social problems, the chapter then turns its attention to how social problems might best be tackled and ameliorated by legislation and policy-making. By way of summary, the final section takes stock by drawing together each of these separate themes. Eight points that have emerged from the discussion are singled out for special consideration. 

Will Hay

Papers

Prisons and the problem of order

Approaching the Research

Changing Prison Life?@@@The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society@@@Reconstructing a Women's Prison: The Holloway Redevelopment Project, 1968-88@@@Prison and the Problem of Order: Prison and the Problem of Order

Understanding and Making Sense of Social Problems