Rod K. Brunson

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.

We Trust You, But Not That Much: Examining Police–Black Clergy Partnerships to Reduce Youth Violence

This paper examines activist black clergy involvement in local youth violence reduction initiatives and efforts to improve police-minority community relations in Boston, Massachusetts. In-depth interviews were conducted with activist black clergy, community organizers, and Boston Police Department (BPD) managers. Study findings highlight how the work of a specific group of black ministers supports that of BPD and vice versa. The research suggests that police-black clergy partnerships can improve police legitimacy in minority communities and enhance informal social control elements of youth violence prevention strategies.

Using Movies to Illustrate Ethical Dilemmas in Undergraduate Criminal Justice Classes

Ethics education in criminal justice programs has increased in popularity, but instructors sometimes struggle to teach ethics in such a way that students retain what they have learned and apply ethical principles in the criminal justice field upon graduation. The current research highlights that there are several benefits of presenting ethical dilemmas to students through popular movies such as Mississippi Burning and Road to Perdition. Compared to the control group (Section A) that was taught in a traditional lecture format, students who were required to identify ethical dilemmas in movies (Section B) were more likely to understand the complexities of such situations, to rate unethical behavior properly, and to see how ethical principles could be applied to their everyday lives.

''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.

The Doors of the Church are Now Open: Black Clergy, Collective Efficacy, and Neighborhood Violence

Prior research has documented the historical significance of the black church beyond serving parishioners’ religious and spiritual needs. Specifically, several black churches are involved in community organizing, social service activities, and political action. Scholars, however, have paid less attention to its role as a potent social institution in community crime control and prevention efforts. We conducted face–to–face interviews with 30 members of Bostons Ten Point Coalition of activist black clergy to document the motivations for and mechanisms through which ministers became involved in efforts to reduce street violence, the varied methods through which ministers develop strategic coalitions and manage violence reduction initiatives, and the ways ministers address the complex challenges involved in doing this work. Study findings suggest that black churches can serve as sources of collective efficacy that can help mobilize other churches, community organizations, police departments, and neighborhood residents in a coordinated effort to address urban youth violence.

Police legitimacy and disrupting overt drug markets

Purpose Overt drug markets are particularly difficult to address using traditional law enforcement tactics alone; disrupting these markets often requires substantial community cooperation. Enhancing police-community relations has been offered as a promising strategy for closing overt markets, demonstrating sustained success in several settings. The purpose of this paper is to examine theoretical mechanisms hypothesized to create immediate and sustained disruption in overt drug markets, focusing on the role of strengthened police/community relations, and greater police legitimacy. Design/methodology/approach The manuscript describes a series of focus groups with community residents across three sites over 15-months after a drug market intervention. A repeated cross-sectional design enabled in-depth analysis of study participants’ views regarding mechanisms of change over time. Findings Study participants remained ambivalent about police legitimacy; they expressed appreciation regarding local policing efforts to improve neighborhood conditions, but maintained many negative feelings about the overall policing profession. Further, residents worried that the increased police presence might lead to greater harassment. Regardless of their misgivings, however, the findings reveal increases in police cooperation and improvements in some previously identified components of police legitimacy. Practical implications There is partial support for several underlying mechanisms of change over time. Study participants perceived a more focused police response, resulting in disruptions of the market and sustained improvements in neighborhood conditions. Originality/value This reflects original work not published elsewhere. It contributes to a growing body of literature on the role of police legitimacy in problem-solving interventions.

The Revolution Might Not Be Televised (But It Will Be Lived Streamed): Future Directions for Research on Police–Minority Relations

Fiery nationwide protests in response to a recent string of dubious police killings of unarmed Black men have sparked a renewed social movement, drawing increased attention to fragile police–minority relations and allegations of racial bias in the criminal justice system. A wealth of research exists concerning African American youths’ accounts of poor treatment at the hands of police. To a lesser extent, prior scholarship reveals the importance of looking beyond citizens’ direct police experiences to family, peer, and mainstream media accounts of negative police encounters. Scholarly examinations of social media regarding how individuals make sense of their own and others’ experiences with, and attitudes toward police are limited, however. This is surprising given that social media has become especially important for youths and represents a new mechanism for the American public to learn about unsettling police behaviors. Moreover, social media represents a largely untapped, but potentially rich data source for researchers and policy makers. Special consideration is given to the role that the Black Lives Matter movement plays for obtaining improved understandings of police–minority relations and informing criminal justice.

Body Worn Cameras, Procedural Justice, and Police Legitimacy: A Controlled Experimental Evaluation of Traffic Stops

Abstract 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.