Background justice: the political context of adolescent legal socialization

Abstract

Individual perceptions of police have significant consequences for crime prevention, criminal investigations, and public safety. Police rely on citizens to report crime and cooperate with investigations. Additionally, research suggests improvements in perceptions of police can increase legal conformity and cooperation (Tyler 2017). A primary framework for researching perceptions of police is that of procedural justice and police legitimacy, which explores the ways in which officer behavior affects citizen perceptions of their conduct and even more global beliefs concerning whether police deserve the power they wield and whether they do so appropriately.From a theoretical perspective, this project begins with an analysis of normative political legitimacy as one of the oldest problems of political theoryhow to justify political power and legal authority over free and equal citizens. There are both normative and policy related reasons to study police legitimacy across political contexts. It is democratic intuitions and practices that legitimate police power, and through these legitimation processes the government claims a monopoly on justifiable violence against citizens. The police are arguably the government institution that relies most upon this claim to legitimate coercion. Moreover, the police enforce laws that are the products of the political system that justifies their power, and thus the legitimacy of police is intimately bound with the legitimacy of those broader institutions. We might ask whether it is even possible for the police to be normatively legitimate if they are charged with the enforcement of an illegitimate legal regime. While police should certainly treat people with dignity and respect, that is, in a procedurally just manner, there arises a concern that procedurally just policing may be capable of obscuring deeper, systemic injustice.