Ben Bradford

Contact and confidence: revisiting the impact of public encounters with the police

Public confidence in policing has become an important issue in the UK. The police rely on legitimacy and public support, and initiatives to improve levels of confidence are currently underway. The point of contact between citizens and officers is vital in any such endeavour. But how are encounters judged and how important for public confidence are assessments of the quality of contacts? We draw upon data from the 2005/2006 Metropolitan Police Public Attitudes Survey to answer these questions. We test Skogans (2006) finding that personal contact has a largely negative impact on confidence; we demonstrate that unsatisfactory contacts are indeed associated with less favourable opinions about police effectiveness, fairness and engagement with the community. Yet consistent with the procedural justice model we also show that positively received contacts can improve perceptions of fairness and community engagement. Moreover, seeing regular police patrols and feeling informed about police activities are associated with higher opinions of effectiveness and community engagement. We conclude with some more positive thoughts on the ability of the police to improve the quality of contacts and, perhaps, public confidence.

Just Authority? Trust in the Police in England and Wales

What does it mean to trust the police? What makes the police legitimate in the eyes of the policed? What builds trust, legitimacy and cooperation, and what undermines the bond between police and the public? These questions are central to current debates concerning the relationship between the British police and the public it serves. Yet, in the context of British policing they are seldom asked explicitly, still less examined in depth. Drawing on psychological and sociological explanatory paradigms, Just Authority presents a cutting-edge empirical study into public trust, police legitimacy, and people’s readiness to cooperate with officers. It represents, first, the most detailed test to date of Tom Tyler’s procedural justice model attempted outside the United States. Second, it uncovers the social ecology of trust and legitimacy. Third, it describes the relationships between trust, legitimacy and cooperation. This book contains many important lessons for practitioners, policy-makers and academics. As elsewhere the dominant vision of policing in Great Britain continues to stress instrumental effectiveness: the ‘fight against crime’ will be won by pro-active and even aggressive policing. In line with work from the United States and elsewhere, Just Authority casts significant doubt on such claims. When people find policing to be unfair, disrespectful and careless of human dignity, not only is trust lost, legitimacy is also damaged and cooperation is withdrawn as a result. Absent such public support, the job of the police is made harder and the avowed objectives of less crime and disorder placed ever further from reach.

Developing European indicators of trust in justice

A social indicators approach to trust in justice recognizes that the police and criminal courts need public support and institutional legitimacy if they are to operate effectively and fairly. In order to generate public cooperation and compliance, these institutions must demonstrate to citizens that they are trustworthy and that they possess the authority to govern. In this paper we first outline the conceptual roadmap for a current comparative analysis of trust in justice. We then describe the methodological development process of a 45-item module in Round 5 of the European Social Survey, which fields the core survey indicators. After presenting the findings from a quantitative pilot of the indicators, we consider the policy implications of a procedural justice model of criminal justice.

Overcoming cop culture? Organizational justice and police officers’ attitudes toward the public

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test theories of organizational justice in the context of a police agency.Design/methodology/approach – Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to analyze data from a survey of officers in a police force in England.Findings – The SEM showed that organizational justice was associated with positive attitudes towards serving members of the public. This relationship was mediated by commitment to elements of community policing and, for community police officers, by general satisfaction with the organization.Practical implications – The findings suggest that police managers committed to implementing process‐based policing policies may need to ensure their organizations also implement internal policies and practices that are procedurally fair.Originality/value – This study is one of the first to apply the well established literature on organizational justice to the context of policing, and the first to examine the impact of organizational justice on alignment with c...

Why do ‘the law’ comply? Procedural justice, group identification and officer motivation in police organizations

How can police officers be encouraged to commit to changing organizational and personal practice? In this paper we test organizational justice theories that suggest that fair processes and procedures enhance rule compliance and commitment to the organization and its goals. We pay particular attention to (a) tensions between the role of group identity in organizational justice models and classic concerns about ‘cop culture’; and (b) the danger of over-identification with the organization and the counterproductive types of compliance this may engender. Results suggest that organizational justice enhances identification with the police organization, encourages officers to take on new roles, increases positive views of community policing, and is associated with greater self-reported compliance. Identification with the organization has generally positive implications; however, there is some danger that process fairness may encourage unthinking compliance with orders and instructions.

Can police enhance public confidence by improving quality of service? Results from two surveys in England and Wales

Public opinions of the police have been a fixture at the top of the policy agenda in England and Wales in recent years, with successive governments stating they wish to see improvements in ‘trust and confidence’. But significant doubts remain as to how this might be done, and even if it is possible for police to enhance public confidence in any straightforward way. Indeed, it often seems that it is much easier for police to damage public opinion than to improve it. This paper reports findings from two surveys on contact between the public and the police conducted in England and Wales. First, panel data are used to examine the issue of ‘asymmetry’ in the relationship between satisfaction with police contacts and wider public confidence in the police. Negative pre-existing opinions of the police are found to be predictive of negatively received contact, while positive views do not predict well-received contact. Yet, single contacts, both negative and positive, are predictive of subsequent confidence in the police. Second, British Crime Survey data are used to investigate what ‘drives’ satisfaction among crime victims. Personal treatment appears to be valued over criminal justice outcomes, providing support for process-based policing models. It appears that fears about an absolute asymmetry in the effect of contact on confidence may be overstated, and that improving the way officers handle encounters might lead to enhanced trust and confidence.

Monopolizing Force? Police Legitimacy and Public Attitudes toward the Acceptability of Violence

Why do people believe that violence is acceptable? In this paper we study people’s normative beliefs about the acceptability of violence to achieve social control (as a substitute for the police, for self-protection and the resolution of disputes) and social change (through violent protests and acts to achieve political goals). Addressing attitudes towards violence among young men from various ethnic minority communities in London, we find that procedural justice is strongly correlated with police legitimacy, and that positive judgments about police legitimacy predicts more negative views about the use of violence. We conclude with the idea that police legitimacy has an additional, hitherto unrecognized, empirical property – by constituting the belief that the police monopolise rightful force in society, legitimacy can create a ‘crowding out’ effect on positive views of private violence. [131 words]

Voice, neutrality and respect: Use of Victim Support services, procedural fairness and confidence in the criminal justice system

Public confidence in the criminal justice system (CJS) is a topic of perennial concern across the United Kingdom, particularly in light of the relatively low levels of confidence reported in the British Crime Survey (BCS) and elsewhere. Recent work on policing has stressed that the experience of procedural fairness is an important influence on ‘user-satisfaction’, trust and legitimacy. Yet it is unclear whether this emphasis on fairness applies to the CJS as a whole, which many might see as primarily there to manage — and punish — offenders as efficiently as possible. This article reports on analysis of the BCS that suggests contact with Victim Support is linked to more favourable views of the fairness of the CJS and to higher levels of confidence in its effectiveness. By providing victims with voice and a sense that someone is listening to and taking their concerns seriously, contact with VS seems to be linked to more favourable overall assessments of the CJS. A space is therefore opened up for approaches to enhancing public confidence that do not rely on ever more punitive policies, or on the arguably Sisyphean task of convincing the public that extant policies are punitive enough.

Obeying the rules of the road: Procedural justice, social identity and normative compliance

Why do people comply with traffic laws and regulations? Road traffic policing tends to be premised on the idea that people comply when they are presented with a credible risk of sanction in the event of non-compliance. Such an instrumental model of compliance contrasts with the normative account offered by procedural justice theory, in which compliance is encouraged by legitimate legal authorities. Comparing these two accounts, we find evidence that both instrumental and normative factors explain variance in motorists’ self-reported propensity to offend. Extending the standard procedural justice account, we also find that it is social identity—not legitimacy—that forms the “bridge” linking procedural fairness and compliance, at least according to a definition of legitimacy that combines felt obligation and moral endorsement. Fair treatment at the hands of police officers seems to enhance identification with the social group the police represent, and in turn, identification seems to motivate adherence to rules (laws) governing social behavior. These findings have implications not only for understandings of legal compliance but also for our understanding of why procedural justice motivates compliance and the role of procedural justice in promoting social cohesion.

Community Norms, Procedural Justice, and the Public’s Perceptions of Police Legitimacy:

A significant body of research has demonstrated the importance of procedurally fair policing in fostering citizens’ feelings of obligation to obey the police. A handful of recent studies have begun to explore the role of community processes within this relationship. They show perceptions of police use of procedural justice, and their consequences can vary according to community context. The present study utilizes data collected within a randomized controlled trial of procedural justice in policing, the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET). We find perceived community norms about obeying the police are strongly associated with individuals’ own feelings of obligation to obey police. Moreover, this relationship holds net of individual assessments of police. Second, procedurally just policing appears to have a greater effect on the obligation to obey police for those who believe others in their community feel less obligated to obey the police. Results demonstrate that one’s ties to the community can therefore moderate the associations between procedural justice and the obligation to obey police. The findings are interpreted within a social-psychological framework.