Jacinta M. Gau

Procedural Justice and Order Maintenance Policing: A Study of Inner‐City Young Men’s Perceptions of Police Legitimacy

There is tension between the core tenets of procedural justice and those of order maintenance policing. Research has shown that citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice influence their beliefs about police legitimacy, yet at the same time, some order maintenance policing efforts stress frequent stops of vehicles and persons for suspected disorderly behavior. These types of programs can threaten citizens’ perceptions of police legitimacy because the targeted offenses are minor and are often not well‐defined. Citizens stopped for low‐level offenses may view such stops as a form of harassment, as they may not believe they were doing anything to warrant police scrutiny. This paper examines young men’s self‐described experiences with this style of proactive policing. Study findings highlight that order maintenance policing strategies have negative implications for police legitimacy and crime control efforts via their potential to damage citizens’ views of procedural justice.

Officer Race Versus Macro-Level Context A Test of Competing Hypotheses About Black Citizens’ Experiences With and Perceptions of Black Police Officers

It has been proposed that hiring more Black police officers is an effective way to alleviate long-standing tensions between police and African Americans because Black officers will connect with Black citizens and treat them well. This hypothesis, however, fails to account for the macro-level context of the troubled locations in which African Americans disproportionately reside and wherein police–minority citizen problems are deep seated. The present study examines two competing hypotheses concerning the influence ofofficer race relative to that of ecological context in shaping African Americans’ experiences with and perceptions of local police. These hypotheses are testedusing in-depth interview data with Black residents of a majority-Black, high-crime, economically troubled city. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

Procedural Injustice, Lost Legitimacy, and Self-Help Young Males’ Adaptations to Perceived Unfairness in Urban Policing Tactics

Legitimacy acts as the dividing line between a police force that merely possesses legal authority to enforce the law and one that enjoys both legal and moral authority. Research has shown that people who see the police as procedurally just are more likely to also view them as legitimate. Most of this research has been quantitative and has focused on the statistical link between procedural justice and police legitimacy. The present study offers a qualitative examination of in-depth interviews with young men residing in disadvantaged, urban neighborhoods to uncover the specific actions that police take that are seen as unjust and that erode legitimacy. In addition, evidence is revealed that compromised legitimacy can encourage young males to engage in certain self-protective behaviors that can, in turn, increase their risk of becoming the targets of police scrutiny. Implications of this finding for research and police policy are made.

''One Question Before You Get Gone. . .'': Consent Search Requests as a Threat to Perceived Stop Legitimacy

The use of consent searches in the war on drugs has brought this type of search to the forefront of the racial profiling debate. Studies using official traffic-stop data have attempted to determine whether minority drivers are more likely than White drivers to be asked for consent to search. This analytic strategy, though informative, does not account for the perceptual nature of racial profiling and the damage that might be done to drivers’ attitudes toward police if they react negatively to being asked for consent. The present study, using the theories of procedural justice and expectancy disconfirmation, analyzes the impact of officers’ requests for consent to search on drivers’ perceptions about the legitimacy of the stops themselves. Interaction effects are also modeled by breaking the sample down by race. Results suggest that consent search requests significantly damage perceived stop legitimacy only among White drivers; the effect is marginally significant among Black drivers and nonsignificant for Hispanics. This finding is interpreted within the bounds of expectancy theory, whereby minority drivers’ expectations for the way officers will treat them are lower from the outset than Whites’ are, so Whites, then, are particularly affronted by search requests. This suggests that perceived racial profiling is a complex, nuanced phenomenon and that race is more symbolic than predictive of stopped drivers’ attitudes toward police.

A jury of whose peers? The impact of selection procedures on racial composition and the prevalence of majority-white juries

Abstract Racially mixed criminal juries deliberate better and are viewed by the public as more legitimate than all-white and mostly-white juries. The constitution forbids racial discrimination in jury selection, and courts favor racially heterogeneous jury venires. Despite this, racial minorities continue to be under-represented on criminal juries. Limited information exists about the specific sources of these disparities and the frequency of all-white and mostly-white juries. This study compares the racial diversity of venires to that of panels, and both to the general population, to identify the steps in the jury-selection process that appear to be most strongly implicated in the loss of minorities. Additionally, the present analyses examine the for-cause and peremptory-challenge removals of jurors of different races. Finally, this study investigates the prevalence of all-white and mostly-white juries. The results have implications for enhancing the representation of minorities on both venires and panels.

Female Offenders’ Perceptions of Police Procedural Justice and Their Obligation to Obey the Law

Although the process-based model of criminal justice has received substantial empirical attention, few previous studies have examined individuals embedded in a criminal lifestyle and at the most risk for future offending, and few have focused exclusively on female offenders. Employing structural equation modeling, the present study tests the process-based model of self-regulation among a sample of 694 incarcerated females. Specifically examined is the effect of perceptions of voice in respondents’ most recent encounter with police on their perceptions of police procedural justice and the impact of respondents’ procedural justice perceptions on their perceived obligation to obey the law. Results reveal support for the process-based model among serious female offenders, though the impact may be attenuated by increased experience with the criminal justice system. Policy implications are discussed.

Special Issue on Race and Juvenile Justice Official journal of the American Society of Criminology, Division on People of Color and Crime

Race and Justice: An International Journal is a quarterly forum for quality scholarship on race, ethnicity, and justice. Of particular interest to the journal are policy-oriented papers that examine how race and ethnicity intersect with justicesystem outcomes across the globe, and research that tests or expands theoretical perspectives exploring the intersection of race and ethnicity, class, gender, and justice. The journal is open to scholarship from all disciplinary origins and methodological approaches (qualitative and/or quantitative). The Race and Justice editors, associate editors, and editorial board strive to provide fair, useful reviews, prompt decisions, and timely publication.