Edward R. Maguire

Procedural Justice, Obligation to Obey, and Cooperation with Police in a Sample of Ghanaian Immigrants

Theory and research highlight the importance of procedural justice for inculcating people’s obligation to obey and willingness to cooperate with legal authorities, yet questions remain about the universality of these relationships across cultures and contexts. We examine the influence of procedural justice and other factors on Ghanaian immigrants’ obligation to obey and willingness to cooperate with police. The findings suggest that when police are perceived to behave in a procedurally just manner, people feel an increased obligation to obey their directives and willingness to cooperate with them. Perceived police effectiveness does not influence Ghanaian immigrants’ obligation to obey police, but is the most dominant factor in shaping their willingness to cooperate with police. Respondents’ views of police in Ghana did not influence obligation or cooperation. The implications of the results for theory development, empirical research, and policies intended to improve police–immigrant relations are discussed.

Attitudes among Occupy DC participants about the use of violence against police

ABSTRACT Social movements often embrace nonviolent civil disobedience strategies. At the same time, social movements sometimes attract participants with different temperaments and different views on the morality or utility of using violence against police. Moreover, the use of force or procedurally unjust tactics by police may influence these views, instigating rebellion and support for the use of violence against police by protesters. This paper examines the nature and correlates of attitudes toward using violence against police among Occupy DC participants in Washington, DC. Data are drawn from a survey of 136 Occupy DC participants. We provide descriptive statistics that summarise Occupiers’ attitudes toward the use of violence against police, and test hypotheses about factors that may be associated with these attitudes. Our findings show that a non-trivial subset of participants appears to embrace the use of violence against police, and that these attitudes toward violence are associated with perceptions of the extent to which police treat protesters in a procedurally unjust manner.

Direct and indirect effects of procedural justice on cooperation and compliance: evidence from South Korea

Abstract Procedural justice now plays an important role in the study of policing. While most empirical research on the effects of procedural justice has been carried out in Western countries, there has been little empirical research on its effects in East Asia, where authority dynamics are thought to differ from those in the West. Using a sample of 301 South Korean citizens, this study examines the direct and indirect effects of procedural justice and other factors on cooperation and compliance with police and the law. The results show that procedural justice has a significant, positive direct effect on obligation to obey, but not on cooperation or compliance. Procedural justice has a significant, positive indirect effect on cooperation via obligation to obey, but it does not have a significant indirect effect on compliance. We discuss the implications of these results for procedural justice theory and its applications in different settings, including East Asia.

The effects of community policing on fear of crime and perceived safety: findings from a pilot project in Trinidad and Tobago

ABSTRACT Using findings from a quasi-experiment, this study examines whether the implementation of community policing in Gonzales, a distressed Caribbean community, reduced fear of crime and increased perceptions of safety. We use a pre-post, comparison group design with two groups. Data are based on three waves of citizen surveys carried out in both groups. Our findings reveal that from wave 1 to wave 2, the treatment area experienced an increase in fear relative to the comparison area; the effect size was small and positive, but was not statistically significant. The change in perceived safety from wave 1 to 2 in the treatment area was trivial and non-significant. From wave 2 to 3, the treatment area experienced a significant positive increase in perceptions of safety relative to the comparison area. The treatment area also experienced a small reduction in fear relative to the comparison area, but the effect was not statistically significant. Overall, we conclude that the early stages of implementing community policing in Gonzales may have increased fear but had no effect on perceived safety. Later and more robust implementation was associated with a significant increase in perceived safety and possibly a small reduction in fear.

New frontiers in research on procedural justice and legitimacy in policing

Empirical research on procedural justice and legitimacy in policing has grown dramatically in recent years. With this growth in research has come a parallel growth in attention to these issues among policymakers and practitioners. Police reformers now focus heavily on enhancing the extent to which police behave in a procedurally just manner when interacting with citizens (President’s Task Force, 2015; Tyler, Goff, & MacCoun, 2015). Procedural justice is thought to be one of the most effective ways to enhance police-community relations and to improve the perceived legitimacy of the police. According to social psychologist Tom Tyler and his colleagues, improving perceived legitimacy should produce a number of benefits, including greater cooperation and compliance with the police and other legal authorities (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2006). At the same time, critics have pointed to certain weaknesses in the scholarship on procedural justice and its effects. Some critics, for instance, have noted problems with the conceptualization and measurement of key concepts (e.g., Gau, 2011, 2014; Harkin, 2015; Johnson, Maguire, & Kuhns, 2014; Maguire & Johnson, 2010; Reisig, Bratton, & Gertz, 2007). Some have raised questions about the external validity of key propositions in procedural justice theory, questioning whether they apply in a variety of contexts, particularly outside of the developed nations where most of the research has taken place (Johnson et al., 2014; Kochel, 2012; Pryce, Johnson, & Maguire, 2017; Tankebe, 2009). Others have raised questions about the internal validity of this body of research and the extent of confidence that can be placed on its causal claims (Lowrey, Maguire, & Bennett, 2016; Nagin & Telep, 2017). Still others have raised practical concerns about the extent to which police may treat procedural justice as window dressing to appease critics while continuing to engage in biased or overly forceful policing approaches (Epp, Maynard-Moody, & Haider-Markel, 2014; Vitale, 2015). Taken together, these critiques, which emerge from a variety of perspectives, make it clear that much remains to be learned about procedural justice and legitimacy in policing. For researchers interested in these issues, these critiques represent an important challenge. Taking this challenge seriously will mean continuing to expand this body of research, drawing on more rigorous and diverse methodologies, carrying out research in a greater variety of samples and settings, and focusing on a wider range of substantive research questions. The articles featured in this special issue of Police Practice and Research answer the call, illustrating the increasing diversity of inquiry now taking place in research on procedural justice and legitimacy in policing. Moreover, the lead (or sole) authors of the six original research articles featured in this special issue are all new or emerging scholars who are either currently enrolled in doctoral programs or who are recent graduates. Three of the six articles are based on doctoral dissertations written by the lead authors (including dissertations

The effects of procedural injustice on the use of violence against police by Occupy Wall Street protesters

Abstract While a large, cross-disciplinary literature exists on crowd dynamics and protester behavior, few studies have tested the effects of perceived injustice on protester behavior. Based on data from a survey of Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City, we explore the influence of perceptions of unjust police behavior on the use of violent resistance by protesters. We test the direct effects of two perceptual measures of procedural injustice and four control variables on self-reported use of violence against police. We also test the indirect effects of these variables on protester use of violence through an attitudinal measure of support for the use of violence against police. Findings reveal that the dominant predictor of protester violence against police is the perception that police use force unjustly against protesters. Level of participation in OWS and attitudes toward violence also exert significant effects on self-reported use of violence against police among protesters.

What Factors Influence Whether Homicide Cases Are Solved? Insights From Qualitative Research With Detectives in Great Britain and the United States

A growing body of research examines factors that influence the likelihood of solving homicide cases. Much of this research emanates from North America and is based on quantitative analysis of police data. This article explores the views of homicide detectives, complemented by observations of investigations, in both Great Britain and the United States, regarding factors that affect the chances of solving homicides. Although we find some important differences between nations, the qualitative evidence suggests that the likelihood of solving even the most challenging homicide cases in both nations can be influenced by police agency at the individual and strategic level.