Arrestees’ Perceptions of the Police: Exploring Procedural Justice, Legitimacy, and Willingness to Cooperate With Police Across Offender Types

Only a handful of studies have sought to explore the robustness of the relationship between procedural justice, police legitimacy, and willingness to cooperate with police among adults who have recently been arrested. The findings from those studies have raised questions about the durability of the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Criminal justice and behavior 2016-03, Vol.43 (3), p.343-364
Main Authors: White, Michael D., Mulvey, Philip, Dario, Lisa M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Criminal justice
Legitimacy
Offenders
Perceptions
Police
Procedural justice
Robustness
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Only a handful of studies have sought to explore the robustness of the relationship between procedural justice, police legitimacy, and willingness to cooperate with police among adults who have recently been arrested. The findings from those studies have raised questions about the durability of the framework for offenders, as well as whether there may be variation in perceptions of police across offender types. The current study explores these issues using data from interviews with a large, criminally diverse sample of recently booked arrestees in Maricopa County, AZ, from 2010 to 2012 (N = 2,262). Findings indicate that procedural justice is strongly associated with views of police legitimacy, and perceptions of police legitimacy do not vary by offender type. Procedural justice and legitimacy perceptions are powerful predictors of willingness to cooperate with the police. Results provide strong support for the extension of the normative, process-based framework to the arrestee population.
ISSN:0093-8548
1552-3594
DOI:10.1177/0093854815602501