This paper extends Tyler's procedural justice model of public compliance with the law. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we present a new conceptualisation of legitimacy based not just on the recognition of power but also the justification of power. We find that people accept the police's right to dictate appropriate behaviour, not only when they feel a duty to obey officers, but also when they believe that the institution acts according to a shared moral purpose with citizens. Highlighting a number of different routes by which institutions can influence citizen behaviour, our broader normative model provides a better framework for explaining why people are willing to comply with the law.Key words: Public confidence; public contact with the police; trust; legitimacy; compliance; policing by consent Word count: 9,874 with references and appendix; 9,992 with abstract, references and appendix. Reiner (2000: 55) has called the mystical sense of an identification between the police and the British people. It depends on the myth that police and people share a single set of coherent and consistent norms and values, and that the police have a unique function in using force if necessary to impose them. ' (Smith, 2007a: 280) Legitimacy is the right to rule and the recognition by the ruled of that right (Sternberger, 1968; Beetham, 1991; Coicaud, 2002;Tyler, 2006a; Bottoms and Tankebe, in press). Social institutions need legitimacy if they are to develop, operate, and reproduce themselves effectively (Easton, 1965). This is as true for the police as it is for other institutions of government. But peculiar to the police function is the statesponsored use of violence and force, the resolution of conflict, and the enforcement of legally-prescribed conduct and rule-following (Banton, 1964; Bittner, 1970;Reiner, 2010). Police legitimacy and public consent are necessary conditions of the justifiable use of state power: those who are subject to policing must see the police as right and proper (Tyler, 2006b(Tyler, , 2011a Schulolfer et al., in press). People's motivations to comply with the law lie at the heart of crime-control policy. Many criminal policies are premised on the idea that compliance is secured by the presence of formal policing and severe sanctions for wrong-doers (Tyler, 2007;Nagin, 1998;Kahan, 1999). Social control mechanisms and credible risks of sanction hope to persuade rational-choice individuals that -while otherwise desirable -a criminal act is not worth the risk (Tyler et al., in press). If offenders are responsive primarily to the risk of punishment, then agents of criminal justice must send out signals of strength, effectiveness, force, detection and justice (Hough et al., 2010). 'Legitimacy depends on whatBut people's compliance may stem at least as much, if not more, from personal commitment to law-abiding behaviour (Tyler, 2006b;Robinson and Darley, 2004). Based upon the idea that people comply with the law because they believe it is the rig...
The traditional goal of legal authorities has been to obtain widespread public compliance with the law. Empirical research findings have shown that legitimacy-typically operationalized as the perceived obligation to obey and trust and confidence in the relevant institutions-plays an important role in achieving such compliance. But over time the goals of legal authorities have broadened in 2 ways. First, they increasingly include the desire to motivate willing cooperation, with legal authorities and members of the public working together to produce social order. Second, conceptions of the goals of the legal system have broadened to include the importance of promoting public engagement in communities in efforts to build social, political and economic vitality. Drawing on these broader goals-and building upon recent conceptual advances in the meaning of legitimacy-we report findings from a major new national survey of U.S. citizens. We examine the role that legitimacy plays in achieving each of these goals of law and in defining the policies and practices of the police and courts which influence legitimacy. Importantly, we also consider whether a focus on achieving this broader set of goals leads to a need to reexamine the traditional theoretical conception of legitimacy. Our findings support the utility of a multidimensional conception of legitimacy that differentiates between consent to authority and normative justifiability of power.
This document is the author's final manuscript accepted version of the journal article, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer review process. Some differences between this version and the published version may remain. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. AbstractThis paper examines vulnerability and risk perception in the fear of crime. Past studies have often treated gender and age as proxies for vulnerability, and on the few occasions that vulnerability has been operationalised, there has been little agreement on the mechanisms that underpin perceived susceptibility. To develop a more theoretically-driven approach, the current study examines whether markers of vulnerability are associated with higher levels of fear through mediating assessments of likelihood, control and consequence. Females are found to worry more frequently than males partly because (a) they feel less able to physically defend themselves, (b) they have lower perceived self-efficacy, (c) they have higher perceived negative impact, and (d) they see the likelihood of victimisation as higher for themselves and for their social group. Younger people are also found to worry more frequently than older people, but differential vulnerability does not explain this association. Finally structural equation modelling shows that the effects on worry of physical defence capabilities, selfefficacy and perceived consequence are mostly mediated through judgements of absolute and relative risk. Conclusions focus on the implications of this finding for debates about the rationality of the fear of crime.
This paper extends Tyler's procedural justice model of public compliance with the law. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales, we present a new conceptualisation of legitimacy based not just on the recognition of power but also the justification of power. We find that people accept the police's right to dictate appropriate behaviour, not only when they feel a duty to obey officers, but also when they believe that the institution acts according to a shared moral purpose with citizens. Highlighting a number of different routes by which institutions can influence citizen behaviour, our broader normative model provides a better framework for explaining why people are willing to comply with the law.Key words: Public confidence; public contact with the police; trust; legitimacy; compliance; policing by consent Word count: 9,874 with references and appendix; 9,992 with abstract, references and appendix. Reiner (2000: 55) has called the mystical sense of an identification between the police and the British people. It depends on the myth that police and people share a single set of coherent and consistent norms and values, and that the police have a unique function in using force if necessary to impose them. ' (Smith, 2007a: 280) Legitimacy is the right to rule and the recognition by the ruled of that right (Sternberger, 1968; Beetham, 1991; Coicaud, 2002;Tyler, 2006a; Bottoms and Tankebe, in press). Social institutions need legitimacy if they are to develop, operate, and reproduce themselves effectively (Easton, 1965). This is as true for the police as it is for other institutions of government. But peculiar to the police function is the statesponsored use of violence and force, the resolution of conflict, and the enforcement of legally-prescribed conduct and rule-following (Banton, 1964; Bittner, 1970;Reiner, 2010). Police legitimacy and public consent are necessary conditions of the justifiable use of state power: those who are subject to policing must see the police as right and proper (Tyler, 2006b(Tyler, , 2011a Schulolfer et al., in press). People's motivations to comply with the law lie at the heart of crime-control policy. Many criminal policies are premised on the idea that compliance is secured by the presence of formal policing and severe sanctions for wrong-doers (Tyler, 2007;Nagin, 1998;Kahan, 1999). Social control mechanisms and credible risks of sanction hope to persuade rational-choice individuals that -while otherwise desirable -a criminal act is not worth the risk (Tyler et al., in press). If offenders are responsive primarily to the risk of punishment, then agents of criminal justice must send out signals of strength, effectiveness, force, detection and justice (Hough et al., 2010). 'Legitimacy depends on whatBut people's compliance may stem at least as much, if not more, from personal commitment to law-abiding behaviour (Tyler, 2006b;Robinson and Darley, 2004). Based upon the idea that people comply with the law because they believe it is the rig...
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