Procedural injustice, police legitimacy, and officer gender: A vignette‐based test of the invariance thesis

Abstract

Role congruity theory suggests that gender-based stereotypes can result in female police officers paying a higher price (i.e., viewed as less legitimate) relative to male officers for mistreating people. The invariance thesis posits that the effect of (un)fair treatment by legal authorities on legal attitudes and beliefs is stable across situations, time, and space.This study tested the invariance thesis by assessing whether the effect of procedural injustice on police legitimacy differed across officer gender. A factorial vignette survey that consisted of two types of citizen-initiated police encounters was administered to a university-based sample (N = 525).The results showed that the effect of procedural injustice had a powerful and significant influence on participants' legitimacy perceptions. These effects were consistent regardless of whether the treatment was doled out by a male or a female police officer. The findings provide support for the invariance thesis.

Is it un‐American to view the police as illegitimate? The role of national identity in the legal socialization process

“…Generally speaking, survey respondents that believe the police fairly distribute outcomes, b = .117, p < .001, and are more effective, b = .206, p < .001, tended to believe the police are more legitimate. Consistent with Wolfe and colleagues' ( 2016) findings (see also, Brown & Reisig, 2019), the standardized partial regression coefficients reveal that global procedural justice (β = .390) had a stronger relationship with police legitimacy than global distributive justice (β = .138) or police effectiveness (β = .223). Consistent with prior research, older individuals, b = .005, p < .001, and White respondents, b = .072, p = .012, tended to have more favorable police legitimacy evaluations than their counterparts.…”

“…While all three factors have been shown to be associated with people's legitimacy evaluations in a wide range of contexts, procedural justice clearly has the strongest effect (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003;Tyler, 2006;see McLean, 2020). What is more, the effect of procedural justice perceptions on legitimacy evaluations tends to be of similar magnitude across individual differences (Brown & Reisig, 2019;Zahnow et al, 2019;see also, Aiello, 2020;Murphy, 2017).…”

“…If we are to understand specific events such as why people protest the police or, more generally, why people differ in their views of the police, we must examine the legal socialization process and the development of legitimacy perceptions. The experience or perception of procedural justice has been shown to be the most important predictor of police legitimacy perceptions (Brown & Reisig, 2019;Huq et al, 2017;Tankebe et al, 2016;. Evaluations of parent and teacher legitimacy also shape adolescents' evaluations of police legitimacy (Cavanagh & Cauffman, 2015;Fine et al, 2017;Trinkner & Cohn, 2014).…”

The Effects of Justice Judgments on Police Legitimacy Across Urban Neighborhoods: A Test of the Invariance Thesis

“…An emerging line of research within the broader procedural justice literature tests the contention that “the effect of fair legal processes transcends situations, time, and space” (Brown & Reisig, 2019, p. 706). Here, interest lies in whether the social-psychological benefits of procedural justice—enhanced police legitimacy—are equivalent across individual, cultural, and ecological factors.…”

Willingness to Pay for Police Reform

“… 3. The vignette approach has been invoked frequently in research on public opinions of the police. Recent examples include Barkworth and Murphy (2015), Reisig et al (2017), and Brown and Reisig (2019). Insofar as our study does not examine opinions/perceptions of police, we do not review such studies in this limited space. …”