Evaluating the shared and unique predictors of legal cynicism and police legitimacy from adolescence into early adulthood

Abstract

In different theoretical traditions, negative social conditions, attachments, and interactions shape the way individuals view the law and its agents. Although most researchers acknowledge the conceptual distinction between different legal attitudes such as legal cynicism and police legitimacy, it remains unclear to what extent these attitudes stem from the same social sources. In the current study, therefore, we evaluate the social and individual factors that influence trajectories of legal cynicism and police legitimacy using a diverse community sample of youths in Zurich, Switzerland. Latent growth curve models were employed to examine patterns of change in legal cynicism and police legitimacy between 13 and 20 years of age. The findings show that legal cynicism and police legitimacy both decline into early adulthood and exhibit high rank-stability over time. Furthermore, we find that legal cynicism is closely related to individual characteristics that reflect one's inability to recognize or abide by their internal rules. By contrast, police legitimacy is shaped by socialization influences, particularly teacher bonds andThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Youth Perceptions of Law Enforcement and Worry About Crime from 1976 to 2016

“…In particular, researchers are also increasingly focusing on youth because perceptions developed during childhood and adolescence may set the tone for how youth view and interact with law enforcement into adulthood (Augustyn, 2016; Cavanagh & Cauffman, 2019; Granot & Tyler, 2019; D. B. Jackson et al, 2019; McLean et al, 2019; Nivette et al, 2020; Tyler & Trinkner, 2018).…”

Low Self-control and Legal Cynicism among At-Risk Youth: An Investigation into Direct and Vicarious Police Contact

“…This perspective suggests that regardless of an individual’s past social experiences, including contact with the police, low self-control will be directly associated with legal cynicism. With one exception (Fagan and Tyler 2005), prior literature has provided support for this perspective, as low self-control is often found to be directly associated with greater legal cynicism (Gifford and Reisig 2019; Kaiser and Reisig 2019; Nivette et al 2015, 2020; Reisig et al 2011). Indeed, persons with low self-control are often not inclined to respect authority figures (McLean, Wolfe, and Pratt 2019).…”

“…For instance, Nivette and associates (2015:273) note that the extant literature generally posits that legal cynicism is “not associated with particular individual characteristics, but with continual exposure to injustice, segregation, and insecurity.” Consequently, there has been relatively little research on the role of low self-control in the development of cynical attitudes toward the law and legal authorities. Nonetheless, recent scholarship has begun to draw greater attention to the role of traits like low self-control in the development of such attitudes (Fagan and Tyler 2005; Gifford and Reisig 2019; Kaiser and Reisig 2019; Nivette et al 2015, 2020; Reisig et al 2011). Furthermore, Mazerolle et al (2019:3) recently noted that the intersection between “self-control and legitimacy-based perspectives remain a topic of great research interest.” Overall, there are several factors that might account for the association between self-control and legal cynicism that has emerged in the recent literature.…”

“…While previous scholarship has documented a link between key personality characteristics such as low self-control and the development of legal cynicism (Fagan and Tyler 2005; Gifford and Reisig 2019; Kaiser and Reisig 2019; Nivette et al 2015; Nivette, Eisner, and Ribeaud 2020; Reisig et al 2011), there are a number of key theoretical and methodological shortcomings that characterize this body of literature. First, few studies have examined whether self-control is associated with legal cynicism during mid-adolescence, which is a crucial time period during which legal attitudes are still impressionable (Trinkner and Cohn 2014; Trinkner and Tyler 2016), and the odds of criminal justice contact are elevated (Hirschi and Gottfredson 1983; Steffensmeier and Ulmer 2002).…”

“…Given the psychological stress that can stem from police contact under certain adverse circumstances (Del Toro et al 2019; Geller et al 2014; Jackson et al 2019; Sundaresh et al 2020), it remains possible that self-control may not consistently predict legal cynicism across groups with differential exposure to police stops. Finally, research accounting for prior police contact generally employs broad, global measures (Nivette et al 2015, 2020) without considering highly relevant features of a given police encounter (e.g., procedural justice perceptions, police intrusiveness, and so on; Geller and Fagan 2019; Tyler et al 2014). Addressing this oversight has important implications for this body of literature, as social psychological research finds that situation-specific attitudes are better predictors of future behavior than global measures (Ajzen and Fishbein 1977; Thomas 2018).…”