OFFICERS AS MIRRORS: Policing, Procedural Justice and the (Re)Production of Social Identity

Encounters with the criminal justice system shape people's perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities, and the dominant explanatory framework for this relationship revolves around the idea that procedurally just practice increases people's positive connections to justice institutio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British journal of criminology 2014-07, Vol.54 (4), p.527-550
Main Authors: Bradford, Ben, Murphy, Kristina, Jackson, Jonathan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Australia
Australians
Criminal justice
Criminology
Ethnic groups
Ethnic identity
Fairness
Group identity
Identity theory
Justice
Law enforcement
Legitimacy
POLICE
Police services
Policing
Procedural justice
Social identity
Social psychology
Social reproduction
Surveys
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:Encounters with the criminal justice system shape people's perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities, and the dominant explanatory framework for this relationship revolves around the idea that procedurally just practice increases people's positive connections to justice institutions. But there have been few assessments of the idea—central to procedural justice theory—that social identity acts as an important social-psychological bridge in this process. Our contribution in this paper is to examine the empirical links between procedural justice, social identity and legitimacy in the context of policing in Australia. A representative two-wave panel survey of Australians suggests that social identity does mediate the association between procedural justice and perceptions of legitimacy. It seems that when people feel fairly treated by police, their sense of identification with the superordinate group the police represent is enhanced, strengthening police legitimacy as a result. By contrast, unfair treatment signals to people that they do not belong, undermining both identification and police legitimacy.
ISSN:0007-0955
1464-3529
DOI:10.1093/bjc/azu021