Policing research and theory emphasises the importance of supportive relationships between police and the communities they serve in increasing police effectiveness in reducing crime and disorder. A key reason people support police is that they view police as legitimate. The existing research literature, primarily from the United States, indicates that the most important factor in public assessments of police legitimacy is procedural justice. The present study is the first in an Australian jurisdiction to examine the effect of procedural justice and police legitimacy on public satisfaction with police. Using responses to a large postal survey (n = 2611), findings show that people who believe police use procedural justice when they exercise their authority are more likely to view police as legitimate, and in turn are more satisfied with police services. This study differs to US-based research in the greater importance of people's evaluations of instrumental factors in judgments of police legitimacy. The findings are important as they confirm that people's assessments of fair and effective policing in Australia will be enhanced by policing strategies that emphasise the use of procedural justice in encounters with the public.

Encounters with the criminal justice system shape people's perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities, and the dominant explanatory framework for this relationship revolves around the idea that procedurally just practice increases people's positive connections to justice institutions. But there have been few assessments of the idea-central to procedural justice theory-that social identity acts as an important social-psychological bridge in this process. Our contribution in this paper is to examine the empirical links between procedural justice, social identity and legitimacy in the context of policing in Australia. A representative two-wave panel survey of Australians suggests that social identity does mediate the association between procedural justice and perceptions of legitimacy. It seems that when people feel fairly treated by police, their sense of identification with the superordinate group the police represent is enhanced, strengthening police legitimacy as a result. By contrast, unfair treatment signals to people that they do not belong, undermining both identification and police legitimacy.

Procedural justice generally enhances an authority's legitimacy and encourages people to comply with an authority's decisions and rules. We argue, however, that previous research on procedural justice and legitimacy has examined legitimacy in a limited way by focusing solely on the perceived legitimacy of authorities and ignoring how people may perceive the legitimacy of the laws and rules they enforce. In addition, no research to date has examined how such perceptions of legitimacy may moderate the effect of procedural justice on compliance behavior. Using survey data collected across three different regulatory contexts -taxation (Study 1), social security (Study 2), and law enforcement (Study 3) -the findings suggest that one's perceptions of the legitimacy of the law moderates the effect of procedural justice on compliance behaviors; procedural justice is more important for shaping compliance behaviors when people question the legitimacy of the laws than when they accept them as legitimate. An explanation of these findings using a social distancing framework is offered, along with a discussion of the implications the findings have on enforcement.

Why an institution’s rules and regulations are obeyed or disobeyed is an important question for regulatory agencies. This paper discusses the findings of an empirical study that shows that the use of threat and legal coercion as a regulatory tool—in addition to being more expensive to implement—can sometimes be ineffective in gaining compliance. Using survey data collected from 2,292 taxpayers accused of tax avoidance, it will be demonstrated that variables such as trust need to be considered when managing noncompliance. If regulators are seen to be acting fairly, people will trust the motives of that authority, and will defer to their decisions voluntarily. This paper therefore argues that to shape desired behavior, regulators will need to move beyond motivation linked purely to deterrence. Strategies directed at reducing levels of distrust between the two sides may prove particularly effective in gaining voluntary compliance with an organization’s rules and regulations.

In recent years, a significant number of middle‐income taxpayers have been making use of aggressive tax planning strategies to reduce tax. In many cases, it is unclear whether these are designed and used by taxpayers to minimize tax legally or to avoid tax illegally. Those that are designed to exploit loopholes in tax law need to be dealt with in a way that restores faith and equity to the system. But how can tax authorities best manage taxpayers who may have inadvertently become involved in such illegal tax planning practices? Using longitudinal survey data, it will be shown that attempts to coerce and threaten taxpayers into compliance can undermine the legitimacy of the Tax Office's authority, which in turn can affect taxpayers' subsequent compliance behaviour. Responsive regulation, which is based on principles of procedural justice, will be discussed as an alternative enforcement strategy.

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Public cooperation with police is essential for the control of crime and disorder. Hence, understanding factors that shape public cooperation with the police is important. However, Australian and international studies show that police find it difficult to elicit cooperation from ethnic communities, this made difficult by the fact that ethnic groups display low levels of trust and confidence in the police. This study examines the role that procedural justice plays in fostering minority group perceptions of police legitimacy and their willingness to cooperate with police. Using survey data collected from 1204 Australian citizens, this study tests whether procedurally fair policing can enhance perceptions of police legitimacy and nurture cooperation among ethnic minorities in Australia. Findings reveal that procedural justice predicts views of police legitimacy more so than instrumental factors for both minority and majority group members. The results also suggest that ethnicity moderates the effect of procedural justice on cooperation; specifically, procedural justice is shown to be less effective for nurturing cooperation among ethnic minorities than majority group members. A group identity perspective is used to explain these findings. The findings also have implications for how the police can foster better relationships with ethnically diverse communities.