Is it un‐American to view the police as illegitimate? The role of national identity in the legal socialization process

During the emergence of the legal socialization field, the obligation to obey the law was central in theoretical and empirical approaches. Scholars in the last 50 years often noted that the obligation to obey the law (OOL) is vital for compliance, yet studies rarely empirically examined factors that promote the OOL. This study used data from 1000 adults stratified sampled to be nationally representative of the United States to examine how personal characteristics (i.e., impulsivity and morality), perceptions of the nonlegal social context (i.e., social bonds, teacher legitimacy, and parent legitimacy), and perceptions of the legal system context (i.e., deterrence and police procedural justice, distributive justice, bias, and legitimacy) are associated with the OOL. The results indicated that impulsivity, teacher legitimacy, deterrence, and perceptions of police legitimacy and bias were associated with the OOL. Implications for the next 50 years of legal socialization research are discussed.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal socialization: Understanding the obligation to obey the law

Fine

Rooij

2021

“…Trinkner and Cohn (2014) provided additional support for the importance of procedural justice in research that found a significant relationship between perceptions of interactions with authorities and legal socialization. Thus, there is growing evidence that interactions with authority figures help shape attitudes about laws and the legal system and compliance with the law (Cardwell et al, 2021;Fine & van Rooij, 2021;Granot et al, 2021;Piccirillo et al, 2021;Murphy, 2021;Wolfe & McLean, 2021).…”

Section: Legal Socialization Of Young Peoplementioning

confidence: 99%

Procedural justice and legal socialization among juvenile offenders: The role of defense attorneys

Shook

Goodkind

Kolivoski

et al. 2021

Research is increasingly focusing on how young people interpret their experiences with the legal system and whether and how this shapes attitudes and beliefs about the system. This study adds to the extant literature by examining the relationship between perceptions of procedural justice and attitudes toward the law and legal system for a sample of youth (N = 227) in residential placements. Specifically, it focuses on how youths' perceptions of their defense attorneys shape their attitudes toward the legal system. Results demonstrate that youth who feel they were treated more fairly by their defense attorneys viewed the police and courts as more legitimate. White youth viewed the police as more legitimate than did youth of color and girls viewed courts as less legitimate than did boys. Attitudes toward the legal system were also related to other contextual characteristics.

“…Schools, for example, encourage attachment to the state through mechanisms such as pledging allegiance to the flag, singing patriotic songs and in other similar ways. Such attachment then shapes the perceived legitimacy of the state (Wolfe & McLean, 2021). At the same time, civics education classes and activities like model government exercises lead students to develop their own reasons for supporting values such as tolerance and deliberation.…”

Section: Civic Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, schools emphasized civic education, much of it about the structure of American government and the responsibilities of citizenship. Wolfe and McLean (2021) provide an example of these distinct paths to legitimacy in their discussion of adult views about police legitimacy. On the one hand, such legitimacy reflects what people learn about the police based upon their experience.…”

Section: Legal Socialization Amid Political Turmoilmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal socialization: Back to the future

Tyler

2021

The articles in this volume highlight resurgence of interest in the topic of legal socialization. Legal and moral socialization was central to the writing of classic social theorists around the beginning of the 20th century, and was an important research topic in the 1970s. It has been less widely studied in recent decades. Renewed attention to legal socialization today is a result of both developments in psychology and of emerging societal issues. In particular, a renewed societal focus on how to create a viable and sustainable social order has again drawn attention to legal socialization. In response, as this volume illustrates, psychologists have increased and broadened their efforts to understand legal socialization. They have addressed the issue using new theoretical models, have considered a broader set of sources of socialization, and have paid heightened attention to the experience of traditionally marginalized members of society.In their introduction to this special issue Trinkner and Reisig (2021) note the seminal work of pioneers like Tapp (1971) and Tapp and Levine (1974). That work inspired the tremendous surge in legal/political socialization research that occurred during the 1960-70s. Their efforts arose in tandem with an outpouring of research on the general political socialization process, including classic research by Easton and Dennis (1969), Greenstein (1965), Hess and Torney (1967) and Hyman (1959.This work on legal socialization in the 1960-80s was followed by a striking hiatus in the study of legal socialization toward the end of the 20th century. However, according to a Google Ngram search, the field of legal socialization has rapidly grown since 2001 and today, as is reflected in this special issue, is represented by impressive research efforts involving a variety of aspects of the field. Interestingly, this rise is not accompanied by a similar increase in political socialization