Acts that Legitimate: Widening the Array of Predicate Policing Practices

Aziz Z. Huq, Jonathan Jackson, Rick Trinkner
2016 Social Science Research Network  
Procedural justice theory predicts a relationship between police behavior, individuals' normative evaluation of police, and decisions to comply with laws. Yet, prior studies of procedural justice have rather narrowly defined the potentially relevant predicates of police behavior. This study expands the scope of procedural justice theory by considering a broad array of policing components, including unobserved actions such as electronic surveillance, respecting the limits of one's legal
more » ... , and the unequal or equal distribution of policing resources between different groups. Analyzing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we (a) present a comprehensive investigation of the heterogeneous elements of policing related to legitimacy judgments and (b) contribute to debate about the nature of legitimacy.
doi:10.2139/ssrn.2740631 fatcat:ugxelp4bfbcmdnmpwunwytua74