The (ir)relevance of procedural justice in the pathways to crime.

Abstract

Process-based approaches to compliance argue that normative considerations, such as procedural justice and legitimacy, have the potential to reduce offending. This perspective was formalized with Tyler's (1990, 2003) Model of Procedural Justice and subsequently was evaluated among adult and adolescent offenders alike. However, extant evaluations do not consider whether and how individual offending histories affect the relevance of the concepts of procedural justice and legitimacy on offending behavior. This void is problematic given the growing concern that judgments of procedural justice and perceived legitimacy may not always be relevant with respect to compliance (Tyler & Jackson, 2013). This research integrates a developmental perspective with the procedural justice model to evaluate the effects of procedural justice and legitimacy on offending among early-onset and adolescent-onset offenders. Using a sample of convicted adolescent offenders, evidence suggests that the relevance of the procedural justice model varies across age of onset. The normative considerations of procedural justice and legitimacy are unrelated to recidivism among early-onset offenders, yet they affect subsequent offending among adolescent-onset offenders, although not always in the direction specified by theory.

Traffic violations and cooperative intentions among drivers: the role of corruption and fairness

“…However, the most striking of our findings was that an interaction between personal experiences of corruption and perceptions of police fairness increased the likelihood of self-reported law-breaking on the roads among the drivers surveyed. To our knowledge, Augustyn's (2015) study in the United States is the only correlational study to have reported counterintuitive results involving perceived police fairness: she analysed data from 1,354 adolescent offenders and found that judgments of procedural justice increased the frequency of offending among adolescent-onset offenders (p. 394). Augustyn (2015) conjectured that: Perhaps […] positive evaluations of procedural justice with the police and courts indicate a lack of trepidation or fear of subsequent interactions with legal authorities.…”

Race and Justice System Attitude Formation During the Transition to Adulthood

“…Considering that justice system attitudes have direct consequences for crime commission during both adolescence and adulthood [1,10,24,43,60], it is essential to understand whether justice system attitudes remain stable from adolescence through early adulthood. Further, considering the salience of race/ethnicity to justice system exposure, it is likely that legal socialization experiences vary by race/ethnicity.…”

Updating Perceptions of (In)Justice

“…Importantly, the results confirm that judgments of procedural justice are not static; rather, they are malleable as are many other attitudes and perceptions during adolescence and young adulthood. Even among this group of serious adolescent offenders with largely negative views regarding the criminal justice system and an increased proclivity to engage in crime (Mulvey 2004), judgments of procedural justice can and do change and if this change is positive, then compliance with the law is more likely (Augustyn 2015; Fagan and Piquero 2007; Penner et al 2014).…”