The Impact of Procedurally-Just Policing on Citizen Perceptions of Police During Traffic Stops: The Adana Randomized Controlled Trial (original) (raw)
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Police-citizen encounters constitute the most basic aspect of policing, and the nature of these contacts has a subsequent influence on the perceptions of police legitimacy. The relevant literature on police legitimacy and procedural justice suggests that when police actions during police-citizen interactions are perceived as procedurally just, citizens view the police as legitimate and more likely to consent to their decisions (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan, 2008). Therefore, procedurally just policing could help police departments to foster voluntary deference, and that may impact citizen satisfaction at the same time. There is increasing scholarly interest in the topic of appropriate police conduct, procedural justice, legitimacy and police-citizen encounters. However, until very recently, there have been limited numbers of well-designed empirical research studies on these topics. From this perspective, this dissertation attempted to assess whether incorporating procedural justice principles into Turkish National Police stops would affect citizens’ views of the police, and a rigorous randomized controlled trial was conducted in Turkey for this purpose. A total of 702 drivers who were stopped by the Adana Police Department for speeding violations were randomly assigned to either the control or the treatment group. Subjects in the experimental group received the procedural justice policing intervention during these traffic stops, while subjects in the control group experienced business-as-usual traffic stops. The results of this study suggest that the perceptions of police in relation to the traffic stop encounters were influenced by the way in which police interacted with the citizens. Drivers who experienced the procedurally just traffic encounters reported improved perceptions of the police in relation to the encounters than citizens who experience routine traffic enforcement procedures. Furthermore, the drivers who took part in the experimental condition reported higher levels of satisfaction with their police treatment. However, the results indicated that a single procedurally just encounter does not have a striking impact on driver’s general views of the police. The findings of this research could be used to improve the interaction between police and citizens in Turkey. Additionally, the study may also generate new ideas for practitioners on how to behave towards drivers during traffic stops.
Policing and Society, 2013
This paper reports findings from the world's first randomized experimental field trial of procedural justice policing. We tested whether or not procedural justice could be used by police agencies during short, routine traffic stops to increase public trust and confidence in police. Using survey data from 2,762 Australian drivers who had been exposed to either a procedural justice script (experimental condition) or a standard police procedure (control condition), it was found that trust and confidence in police was higher in the experimental condition. This was even the case after respondents' demographic background and general perceptions of police were taken into account.
Shaping Citizen Perceptions of Police Legitimacy: A Randomized Field Trial of Procedural Justice
Criminology, 2013
Exploring the relationship between procedural justice and citizen perceptions of police is a well-trodden pathway. Studies show that when citizens perceive the police acting in a procedurally just manner-by treating people with dignity and respect, and by being fair and neutral in their actions-they view the police as legitimate and are more likely to comply with directives and cooperate with police. Our article examines both the direct and the indirect outcomes of procedural justice policing, tested under randomized field trial conditions. We assess whether police Additional supporting information can be found in the listing for this article in the Wiley Online Library at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ crim.2013.51.issue-1/issuetoc. * The research reported in this article was funded, in its entirety, by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS). The authors thank the team of researchers from the University of Queensland (Institute for Social Science Research) and Griffith University who participated in a variety of ways to bring this trial to fruition. The partnership between the research team
Justice Quarterly, 2018
Police legitimacy is generally regarded as a view among community members that police departments play an appropriate role in implementing rules governing public conduct. Placing body worn cameras (BWCs) on police officers has been suggested as a potentially important response to police legitimacy crises. We use a rigorous controlled quasi-experimental evaluation to test the impact of BWCs on citizen perceptions of procedural justice and police legitimacy during traffic stops in Turkey. Relative to stops by officers without BWCs, we find that motorists stopped by officers with BWCs reported improved perceptions of procedural justice in the encounter and perceptions of legitimacy of traffic officers and the police more generally. Supplementary analyses suggest that the perceived improvements in police legitimacy were entirely driven by perceived enhancements in procedural justice during the traffic stop encounter. These findings suggest that body camera technology help ensure procedurally just encounters and improve public perceptions of police legitimacy.
Public Satisfaction With Police: Using Procedural Justice to Improve Police Legitimacy
Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2007
Policing research and theory emphasises the importance of supportive relationships between police and the communities they serve in increasing police effectiveness in reducing crime and disorder. A key reason people support police is that they view police as legitimate. The existing research literature, primarily from the United States, indicates that the most important factor in public assessments of police legitimacy is procedural justice. The present study is the first in an Australian jurisdiction to examine the effect of procedural justice and police legitimacy on public satisfaction with police. Using responses to a large postal survey (n = 2611), findings show that people who believe police use procedural justice when they exercise their authority are more likely to view police as legitimate, and in turn are more satisfied with police services. This study differs to US-based research in the greater importance of people's evaluations of instrumental factors in judgments of...
Objectives: This study tests the generality of Tyler’s process-based model of policing by examining whether the effect of procedural justice and competing variables (i.e., distributive justice and police effectiveness) on police legitimacy evaluations operate in the same manner across individual and situational differences. Methods: Data from a random sample of mail survey respondents are used to test the ‘‘invariance thesis’’ (N = 1681). Multiplicative interaction effects between the key antecedents of legitimacy (measured separately for obligation to obey and trust in the police) and various demographic categories, prior experiences, and perceived neighborhood conditions are estimated in a series of multivariate regression equations. Results: The effect of procedural justice on police legitimacy is largely invariant. However, regression and marginal results show that procedural justice has a larger effect on trust in law enforcement among people with prior victimization experience compared to their counterparts. Additionally, the distributive justice effect on trust in the police is more pronounced for people who have greater fear of crime and perceive higher levels of disorder in their neighborhood. Conclusion: The results suggest that Tyler’s process-based model is a ‘‘general’’ theory of individual police legitimacy evaluations. The police can enhance their legitimacy by ensuring procedural fairness during citizen interactions. The role of procedural justice also appears to be particularly important when the police interact with crime victims.
Assessing Police Performance in Citizen Encounters: Police Legitimacy and Management Accountability
When people have contacts with the police, the fairness with which police are perceived to act affects citizens’ trust and confidence in the police and their sense that the police deserve to be obeyed – that is, the procedural justice that citizens subjectively experience affects the legitimacy of the police. Translating this body of research into police practice is not straightforward, however. The procedural justice with which officers act is typically not measured in police agencies, nor is it an outcome for which police managers are held accountable. Conducting research in the Schenectady and Syracuse Police Departments, we addressed these questions: • Does performance on these outcomes – procedural justice and citizen satisfaction – improve when information on these outcomes is incorporated into departments’ systems of performance measurement and accountability? • What do police managers do with this information, and how (if at all) are field supervisors and patrol officers affected by it? • Are survey-based measures of citizens’ subjective experiences valid measures of police performance, that is, do they reflect the procedural justice with which police act? The findings from Schenectady rest on a broader foundation of data, so we begin with them and then consider the respects in which those findings are corroborated by the those from Syracuse. In Schenectady, we observed in officers’ behavior moderate levels of procedural justice and low levels of procedural injustice. Officers’ patterns of procedural justice and procedural injustice are shaped in important ways by elements of the situations in which officers become involved and the behavior of citizens with whom officers interact. Procedural justice was greater in incidents that involved violent crime or interpersonal conflict, greater when the citizen was Black, lower when the citizen was a suspect or third party rather than a victim or complainant, and lower when the citizen resisted the officer’s authority. Procedural injustice was greater when the citizen was male, a suspect, intoxicated, resisted police authority, or disrespected police; injustice was lower when the citizen was Black. However, citizens’ subjective experiences are rather weakly related to the forms of officers’ overt behavior that comprise procedural justice. Officers’ procedural justice and injustice together explained about 10 percent of the variation in citizens’ subjective experience in Schenectady. Procedural injustice had the greater effect on subjective experience, by far, such that we found asymmetry in the effects of justice and injustice that parallel previous findings based only on survey data. However, the Schenectady data suggest that this asymmetry stems not from the relatively strong effects of negative experiences but rather from citizens’ tendency to overestimate the procedural justice with which police act in their encounters. Citizens tend to be fairly positive in their ratings of police performance, even when the procedural justice that we observed was fairly low, a pattern that may reflect the impact of citizens’ more general attitudes toward the police on their perceptions of police actions in individual encounters with police. Citizens’ judgments about procedural justice are also affected by whether (if not so much how) officers exercise forms of police authority: conducting searches or using physical force. Searches of citizens have strong effects on their assessments of procedural justice, unless citizens accede to them, while the use of physical force has a notable effect as well. We did not make a distinction between legal and illegal searches, nor did we make a distinction between reasonable and unreasonable force, but extant evidence suggests that citizens’ judgments about the propriety of police action turns on their perceptions of procedural justice and not on the legality of officers’ behavior, per se. Neither indicator of police performance – a survey-based indicator or an observation-based indicator – revealed consistent changes that ensued from the survey-based measurement of performance. Overall, the month-to-month changes in measures of citizens’ subjective experience were by and large within a range of sampling fluctuation, and with no change that could be attributed to the introduction of performance measures to monthly Compstat meetings. Given the weak connections between what officers do (and do not do) and what citizens later think about it, we might well see little or no change in survey-based measures of performance with good faith – even herculean – efforts by platoon commanders to manage their officers’ behavior in police-citizen encounters. But neither did we see consistent changes in the observation-based measures of officers’ procedural justice. Platoon commanders and first-line supervisors approached the management of this police outcome in different ways, which we characterized as forming a continuum. Some gave regular attention during line-ups to the quality of police-citizen interaction, and in that context shared survey results that had been delivered at the monthly Compstat meeting. They explained both what procedural justice means and why it is important. On one platoon, this appeared to affect officers’ performance. On others, however, commanders and supervisors either attended to the issue only intermittently, alluding to what it means for officers’ conduct but not its rationale, or were skeptical or even dismissive of the importance of “customer service.” This continuum reflects a process of “sensemaking” on the parts of Schenectady’s lieutenants and sergeants – that is, the interpretation of what customer service or procedural justice represents and the appropriate emphasis to be placed on the quality of police-citizen interactions in the context of the demands of street-level police work. Based on their interpretations, some were receptive to the administration’s emphasis on “customer service,” finding it quite appropriate, while others were more guarded in their willingness to embrace the ideas, or flatly opposed to it. This same process of sensemaking played out among patrol officers. In Syracuse we found patterns very similar to those in Schenectady on every score that we were able to measure. Citizens’ subjective experiences were of a generally comparable nature, and they tended to bear the same relationships to other factors, including legitimacy, even though legitimacy was somewhat higher in Syracuse than Schenectady. We also found similar patterns of variation in the management of procedural justice, and similarly mixed receptivity to a customer service emphasis among patrol officers and supervisors.
Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2017
Objectives This paper examines the effects of a procedural justice policing intervention on citizens' feelings of obligation to obey police. It examines whether the efficacy of procedural justice on citizens' obligation to obey police may be contingent on citizens' level of trust in police during a police-citizen encounter. Methods This research draws on survey data from the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET). QCET was a randomized controlled field trial implemented by the Queensland Police Service. The trial exposed citizens to either a procedural justice experience (experimental condition) or standard police practice (control condition) during a random roadside stop. Survey responses were received from 1107 drivers in the experimental condition and 1655 drivers in the control condition. Results Compared to the control condition, the procedural justice condition yielded higher levels of trust in the police officer conducting the roadside stop. No differences in obligation to obey police were observed between the two conditions. Importantly, citizens' level of trust in the officer moderated the effect of the intervention on obligation to obey police. Specifically, the procedural justice condition had a negative effect on obligation to obey for those reporting low trust in police. For those high in trust, the procedural justice intervention had a slight but insignificant positive effect on obligation to obey. Conclusions The findings suggest that procedural justice effects can vary between individuals; specifically, the findings reveal that procedural justice interventions can sometimes be counter-productive, depending on the level of trust a citizen exhibits toward police during an encounter. Police agencies should therefore be aware of potential counter-productive effects when implementing procedural justice in the field.
Procedural justice and police legitimacy: a systematic review of the research evidence
Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2013
Objectives We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize the published and unpublished empirical evidence on the impact of police-led interventions that use procedurally just dialogue focused on improving citizen perceptions of police legitimacy. Methods The systematic search included any public police intervention where there was a statement that the intervention involved police dialogue with citizens that either was aimed explicitly at improving police legitimacy, or used at least one core ingredient of procedural justice dialogue: police encouraging citizen participation, remaining neutral in their decision making, conveying trustworthy motives, or demonstrating dignity and respect throughout interactions. The studies included in our meta-analyses also had to include at least one direct outcome that measured legitimacy or procedural justice, or one outcome that is common in the legitimacy extant literature: citizen compliance, cooperation, confidence or satisfaction with police. We conducted separate meta-analyses, using random effects models, for each outcome. Results For every single one of our outcome measures, the effect of legitimacy policing was in a positive direction, and, for all but the legitimacy outcome, statistically significant. Notwithstanding the variability in the mode in which legitimacy policing is delivered (i.e., the study intervention) and the complexities around measurement of legitimacy outcomes, our review shows that the dialogue component of front-line police-led interventions is an important vehicle for promoting citizen