Does procedural justice matter to youth? Comparing adults' and youths' willingness to collaborate with police

Abstract

Public cooperation with police is essential for the effective management of crime and disorder. Understanding factors that shape young people's willingness to cooperate and collaborate with the police is important because young people are more likely than adults to come into contact with police. Research with adults suggests that police use of procedural justice is important for encouraging adults' cooperation with police. This study examines the importance of procedural justice for fostering youth collaboration with police. Using survey data collected from 513 adolescents and 2611 adults, results indicate that procedural justice is in fact more important to youth than it is to adults. A theoretical explanation is offered for why this may be the case and the implications for determining how the police can foster better relationships with young people will be discussed.

The influence of the elements of procedural justice and speed camera enforcement on young novice driver self-reported speeding

“…Oliveira and Murphy (2015) found that social identity was more important than ethnic status in predicting attitudes towards police. Research, with participants still studying at school, identified that procedural justice was important for young people in terms of the impact on cooperation with police (Murphy, 2015) and for their perceptions of police legitimacy (Akinlabi, 2015, online first).…”

Legitimacy on Licence: Why and How it Matters

“…The number of people subject 54 C 2016 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd The Howard Journal Vol 56 No 1. March 2017ISSN 2059-1098 FIGURE 1 Number of People on Licence and Number of People Recalled to Prison, England and Wales, 2002-2015(Source: Ministry of Justice 2016a to post-custodial supervision in England and Wales rose dramatically following the enactment of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which increased the amount of time people were required to spend subject to a period of supervision, turning release from custody into an automatic process at the halfway point of all determinate sentences of twelve months or more (see Figure 1). Today, the National Probation Service and Community Rehabilitation Companies face significant challenges due to the requirement of working with large numbers of involuntary clients.…”

“…Some of the main factors identified include: distributive justice, which concerns the perceived fairness of the distribution of benefits or burdens that power holders allocate to their subjects (Brockner and Wiesenfeld 1996;Siegrist, Connor and Keller 2011); trust or trustworthiness (Mazerolle et al 2013;Sunshine and Tyler 2003); and effectiveness, which concerns the extent to which people perceive a power holder to be achieving their intended goals (Kochel, Parks and Mastrofski 2011;Tankebe 2009). The central finding from the vast majority of studies is that legitimacy is shaped primarily by perceptions of procedural justice (Ferdik, Wolfe and Blasco 2014;Hough et al 2010;Murphy 2015;Reisig, Tankebe and Mesko 2014;Tyler and Fagan 2008). This concept (also referred to as 'procedural fairness', see Sunshine and Tyler (2003)) typically refers to the extent to which power holders treat their subjects with dignity and respect, as well as the quality of power holders' decision making.…”

Young people's perception of lawyers in Hong Kong: A comparison between offenders, youth-at-risk and students

“…Legitimacy refers to the entitlement that the authority possesses whereby people feel that it ought to be obeyed and deferred to (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). More importantly, youths are less likely to have a favorable impression of law enforcement and therefore are less likely to cooperate with the police (Murphy, 2013). Given that youths tend to be more delinquent than adults, and more likely to be brought into the criminal process, trying to understand what might work in changing youth views of legitimacy and turning them to a life of compliance is imperative.…”