Fear and legitimacy in São Paulo, Brazil: Police–citizen relations in a high violence, high fear city

Abstract

We examine consensual and coercive police-citizen relations in São Paulo, Brazil. According to procedural justice theory, popular legitimacy operates as part of a virtuous circle, whereby normatively appropriate police behavior encourages people to self-regulate, which then reduces the need for coercive forms of social control. But can consensual and coercive police-citizen relations be so easily disentangled in a city in which many people fear crime, where the ability to use force can often be palpable in even mundane police-citizen interactions, where some people fear police but also tolerate extreme police violence, and where the image of the military police as "just another (violent) gang" has significant cultural currency? Legitimacy has two components-assent (ascribed right to power) and consent (conferred right to govern)-and consistent with prior work from the US, UK and Australia, we find that procedural justice is key to the legitimation of the police. Yet, the empirical link between legitimacy and legal compliance is complicated by ambivalent authority relations, rooted in part in heightened cultural expectations about police use of force to exercise power. We finish the paper with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of procedural justice and legitimacy in policing: the effect of social identity and social contexts

“…There is also strong evidence of heterogeneity (Q statistic and I 2 ) in both analyses. Based on the influence diagnostics (Viechtbauer & Cheung, 2010), findings from Jackson et al, (2022a) and Jackson et al, (2022b) are regarded as influential cases in the metaanalysis of the correlation between PJ and Legit, while Bradford, et al, (2014b) is the influential case in that of the correlation between SI and Legit. After the removal of influential cases, the mean effect sizes of both PJ-Legit and SI-Legit correlation were 0.397 (p < 0.0001) and 0.358 (p < 0.0001), respectively, which are slightly lower than the results without the elimination of influential cases yet remain strongly significant.…”

Procedural Justice, Perceived Legitimacy, and Reoffending Behavior: In Police and Court Setting

“…A core concern for the present study was the current measure of obligation to obey, as this measure targeted individuals' perceived duty to obey laws. However, one may challenge whether the items represent a content-free internalized feeling to obey which is at the heart of procedural justice theory's stand on legitimacy (Jackson et al, 2022;Tyler, 1990Tyler, /2006). In addition, our measure of obligation to obey did not include the felt obligation to obey authorities' directives, as has been done in other studies (see, for example, Maguire et al, 2021;white et al, 2016).…”

“…1 Scholars expanded the measurement of legitimacy and also argued that true evaluations of legitimacy may reflect the extent to which authorities share the same moral values and goals as citizens (i.e., moral alignment; for example, Jackson et al, 2012; Tyler & Jackson, 2013). Consequently, a second strand of research typically operationalized legitimacy using two measures: moral alignment and obligation to obey (see, for example, Hamm et al, 2017; Jackson et al, 2012; Jackson et al, 2022).…”

“…According to procedural justice theory, legitimacy serves as a mediator between perceptions of procedural justice and behavior outcomes, such as cooperation with authorities or compliance with laws and rules (Tyler, 1990(Tyler, /2006(Tyler, , 2003. Legitimacy can be generally defined as beliefs that authorities' power to govern is justified and therefore authorities possess the position to enforce laws (Jackson, 2018;Jackson et al, 2022;Oliveira et al, 2021;Pósch et al, 2021;Tyler, 1990Tyler, /2006. Applied to criminal justice settings, legitimacy involves evaluations of individuals whether they accept implicit or explicit claims that criminal justice authorities have power that is appropriate, just and normatively justified and, thus, entitled to determine appropriate behavior (Hamm et al, 2017;Jackson, 2018;Jackson & gau, 2016).…”

Public support for empowering police during the COVID-19 crisis: Evidence from London

“…Before we turn to the two studies, we should say that the survey only included one measure of legitimacy (felt obligation to obey the police). We would ideally have had at our disposal multiple indicators of legitimacy, covering not just the belief that officers generally exercise their powers in normatively appropriate ways, and thus have the right to power, but also the belief that officers have the right to dictate appropriate behaviour, and thus have the authority to govern (Jackson et al 2012(Jackson et al , 2013(Jackson et al , 2022. Given that space was tight in the survey, our interpretation can only focus on the aspect of legitimacy that is about a moral duty to obey police commands.…”