Reassessing the Relationship Between Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy

Objective: A large body of cross-sectional research has identified a positive relationship between perceptions of police procedural justice and legitimacy. Following Tyler's theoretical framework, studies have often interpreted the observed relationship as evidence of an unequivocal causal conn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Law and human behavior 2020-10, Vol.44 (5), p.377-393
Main Authors: Pina-Sánchez, Jose, Brunton-Smith, Ian
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Civil Rights - psychology
Confounding Factors, Epidemiologic
Criminals - psychology
Cross-Sectional Studies
Fairness
Female
Human
Humans
Internal Validity
Juvenile Delinquency
Law Enforcement
Legal Evidence
Longitudinal Studies
Male
Models, Theoretical
Police
Police Personnel
Procedural Justice
Reproducibility of Results
Social Justice - psychology
Trust - psychology
United States
Young Adult
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Summary:Objective: A large body of cross-sectional research has identified a positive relationship between perceptions of police procedural justice and legitimacy. Following Tyler's theoretical framework, studies have often interpreted the observed relationship as evidence of an unequivocal causal connection from procedural justice to legitimacy. Here we reexamined the validity of this conclusion by considering the temporal order of that association and the potential biasing effect of time-invariant third common causes. Hypotheses: (a) Past perceptions of police procedural justice would predict future perceptions of legitimacy; (b) Past perceptions of police legitimacy would predict future perceptions of procedural justice; and (c) Perceptions of police procedural justice and legitimacy would be associated as a result of 3rd common causes. Method: We fitted random intercepts cross-lagged panel models to 7 waves of a longitudinal sample of 1,354 young offenders (M = 16 years) from the "Pathways to Desistance" study. This allowed us to explore the directional paths between perceptions of police procedural justice and legitimacy, while controlling for time-invariant participant heterogeneity. Results: We did not find evidence of the assumed temporal association; lagged within-participant perceptions of procedural justice rarely predicted within-participant perceptions of legitimacy. We did not find evidence of a reciprocal relationship either. Instead, we detected substantial time-invariant participant heterogeneity, and evidence of legitimacy perceptions being self-reproduced. Conclusions: Our findings challenge the internal validity of the commonly reported positive associations between procedural justice and legitimacy reported in studies using cross-sectional data. Most of such association is explained away after considering time-invariant participant heterogeneity and previous perceptions of legitimacy. Public Significance Statement Young offenders' perceptions of police fairness did not predict their future perceptions of police legitimacy. Instead, changes in perceptions of police legitimacy seem to be mainly self-reproduced, determined by the individuals' own previous perceptions of police legitimacy. By all means police officers should not abandon principles of fairness in their interactions with young offenders given the many other positive effects they have on cooperation and compliance with the law. What remains unclear is the effectiveness of police fair
ISSN:0147-7307
1573-661X
DOI:10.1037/lhb0000424