Variable links within perceived police legitimacy?: Fairness and effectiveness across races and places

Taylor, Ralph B.; Wyant, Brian R.; Lockwood, Brian

doi:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.08.004

Cited by 46 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Legitimacy is cultivated by the police in a number of ways, including demonstrating their effectiveness (Kochel et al 2013;Tankebe 2009Tankebe , 2013Taylor et al 2015), distributing resources in a fair and equitable way (e.g., Epp et al 2014;Tankebe 2013), respecting the bounds of their lawful authority (Huq et al 2017), and treating the citizens they come in contact with in a fair and just manner (e.g., Lind and Tyler 1988;Tyler 2006Tyler , 2017. In Western countries, including America, legitimacy is commonly considered to be generated by police engaging in procedurally just practices (Hinds and Murphy 2007;Mazerolle et al 2013;Tyler, 2006Tyler, , 2017.…”

Section: The Process-based Model Of Policing and Its Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Direct and Indirect Effects of Legitimacy on Public Empowerment of Police: A Study of Public Support for Police Militarization in America

Moule¹,

Burruss²,

Parry³

et al. 2019

Law Soc Rev

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The process‐based model dominates contemporary American research on police‐community relations and perceptions of police. A sizable literature has examined the linkages between procedural justice, legitimacy, compliance with the law, and cooperation with police. Less examined is the relationship between legitimacy and public empowerment of police. This study examines this relationship, focusing on police militarization. We first examine the direct effect of legitimacy on public willingness to allow police to become more militarized. Drawing from cognitive psychology and rational choice theories, we then consider indirect paths between legitimacy and empowerment, concentrating on two anticipated consequences of militarization—an increase in police effectiveness and possible harm to civil liberties. Using a national sample of over 700 American adults, and structural equation modeling, results indicate legitimacy has both direct and indirect effects on police empowerment, in part by shaping assessments of the possible consequences of empowerment. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.

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Section: The Process-based Model Of Policing and Its Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the Direct and Indirect Effects of Legitimacy on Public Empowerment of Police: A Study of Public Support for Police Militarization in America

Moule¹,

Burruss²,

Parry³

et al. 2019

Law Soc Rev

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show abstract

“…Two reasons should be emphasized, among others, for such a problematic distinction between acceptable and unacceptable use of force, or between use of force and violence. To begin with, internal perspectives on police violence will at some point collide with external ones due to different positions, power dynamics, and claims on the effects and solutions needed to address police violence (Bradford, Jackson, & Hough, 2014;Lawrence, 2000;Taylor, Wyant, & Lockwood, 2015). For example, whilst a police officer may claim to have legitimately fired a shot in the direction of an evaded inmate after trying to stop him or her by other means (e.g., asking to stop), the civil society may claim that shooting a run-away from behind is illegitimate because it is a violation of human rights and, if other means did not work, police officers should have let the evaded inmate get away.…”

Section: Macro-level Of Analysis: Contesting State Powers and Definitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Police officers’ perspectives on state (police) violence: A sociomoral and psychological-driven study on disengagement

Soares

Barbosa

Matos

2018

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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This paper comprises a theoretical and empirical incursion into the phenomenon of state violence, namely police violence. Although extensively explored in different perspectives within and outside academia, police violence is complex and has not been sufficiently problematized yet. In our understanding, this phenomenon requires a dialectical and dynamic discussion wherein both the development of state powers (macro-perspective) and how these powers affect the subjectification of those who act on their behalf (micro-perspective) are articulated into a critical analysis. In more concrete terms, the present study contributes to such analysis by shedding light on the main processes of moral disengagement (cf. Bandura, 1990, 1999, 2004) disclosed in the internal perspectives of six Portuguese police officers about common daily work-related situations. To legitimize the resort to police violence, police officers rely heavily on different mechanisms of moral disengagement. For instance, sanitizing language (anchored in a police technical jargon) is typically used as a linguistic mechanism to disguise violent actions; advantageous comparisons with other law enforcement agencies or with the recipient’s conduct are typically employed; non-lethal violence is usually minimized and portrayed as innocuous; and the recipient of violence is usually dehumanised and seen as responsible for the acts of violence. The findings are discussed based on the moral disengagement theory (Bandura, 1990, 1999, 2004); on the denial approach (Cohen, 2001, 2003); and on the impact of organizational, legal and socio-cultural dimensions of police organization (e.g., Fassin, 2011; Huggins, Haritos-Fatouros, & Zimbardo, 2002).

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“…Across the United States, in cities large and small and whether there is a large or small minority population, there is a dramatic deficit between the trust or confidence White and Black civilians, respectively, have in their local law enforcement. Taylor, Wyant, and Lockwood (2015) found that "Whites and nonwhites perceive that they are policed differently, even in places where minorities are few in number (p. 235). " Miller (2018), in a study of aggregated trust in and satisfaction with police, found that cities with higher minority populationsby percenthad lower police trust/satisfaction scores (p. 3).…”

Section: Figure 2 the Benefits Of Civilian Trust/confidence In Localmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They posit that those who are in the majority are most likely to view law enforcement as meting out procedural justice (because it works out for them and their same-race peers) and in the same breath express confidence in local law enforcement, not because that confidence is driven by procedural justice per se but because that perception of procedural justice is driven by their standing as a member of the favored and protected and more "fairly" treated sub-group. Taylor, Wyant, and Lockwood (2015) Stokes, et al (2007) found that race is a key predictor of citizen confidence in local law enforcement even after removing neighborhood context variables from the models; those neighborhood context variables often confound with race.…”

Section: Figure 2 the Benefits Of Civilian Trust/confidence In Localmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confidence in Law Enforcement When African-Americans are Underrepresented on the Force: An Exploratory Study

MacLean

2019

SSRN Journal

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This dissertation explores the prediction that when African-Americans are underrepresented among sworn officers in a community's local law enforcement agencies compared to the African-American proportions in that community's overall population, African-American civilians' confidence in their local law enforcement agencies may suffer, leading to impaired respect for law, reduced civilian cooperation with law enforcement, and civilian impressions of weakened procedural justice and fairness. With low civilian confidence, the argument goes, one could expect an enhanced sense of disenfranchisement among the underrepresented sub-populations. The purpose of this study is to consider the impact of underrepresentation of African-Americans among sworn officers serving a local community, explore the key correlates of civilian confidence viewed through the lens of African-American perceptions and attitudes, and confront the superordinate roles that procedural justice and police effectiveness play in forming African-American civilian attitudes of confidence, trust, and satisfaction in local law enforcement. To quantify representativeness, this study expresses relative racial compositions of the police and the policed as a Racial Mirror Index ("RMI"). If the percent of a community's police, who are African-American, exactly matches the percent of the policed in that community, who are African-American, the RMI-AA ("Racial Mirror Index-African-American") would equal 100. RMI-AAs over 100 indicate African-Americans are overrepresented on the local law enforcement agency compared to the African-American share of the general population; RMI-AAs under 100 indicate African-Americans are underrepresented among sworn officers on the force. Despite expectations, as this study makes clear, RMI-AA is not a significant predictor of African-American civilian confidence, trust, and satisfaction in local law enforcement. Instead, African-American attitudes about local law enforcement are overwhelmingly driven by African-American perceptions of procedural justice and police effectiveness. African-American confidence, trust, and satisfaction in law enforcement remains far lower than for Whites regardless of RMI-AA and the degree of underrepresentation on the force. Thus, law enforcement agencies cannot hire their way out of this confidence gap through minority recruitment. Instead, improving African-American confidence in local law enforcement will require the agencies to engage with the far more substantive work of ensuring their officers deliver both procedural justice and effective policing.

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Variable links within perceived police legitimacy?: Fairness and effectiveness across races and places

Cited by 46 publications

References 47 publications

Assessing the Direct and Indirect Effects of Legitimacy on Public Empowerment of Police: A Study of Public Support for Police Militarization in America

Assessing the Direct and Indirect Effects of Legitimacy on Public Empowerment of Police: A Study of Public Support for Police Militarization in America

Police officers’ perspectives on state (police) violence: A sociomoral and psychological-driven study on disengagement

Confidence in Law Enforcement When African-Americans are Underrepresented on the Force: An Exploratory Study

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