Procedural Justice, Compliance and The ‘Upstanding Citizen’: A Study of Community Protection Notices

Abstract

This article explores procedural justice and motivational postures theories through the lens of Community Protection Notices (CPN), civil measures used to tackle anti-social behaviour in England and Wales. Through a qualitative study of CPN recipients, this article adds to our understanding of the social identity aspect of procedural justice theory by examining the impact on self-identified ‘upstanding citizens’ issued with a CPN for behaviours that they disputed on moral grounds. In order to renegotiate this anti-social label, participants explored other social categories to create distance between themselves and the authorities and challenged their role as representatives of the ‘law-abiding majority’. Ultimately, participants felt ‘compelled’ to comply with the requirements of their CPN, which in turn damaged perceptions of legitimacy.

Understanding how Community Protection Notices are used to manage anti-social behaviour attributed to people experiencing street homelessness

“…Overall, our growing body of work investigating CPNs is building a picture of how the legislation and policies operate in practice (Heap et al, 2022;Black and Heap, 2022;Heap et al, 2023). Many of the findings, including these, highlight how the powers have been stretched to operate at the limits of their flexibility or utilised in innovative ways that are not in the spirit of the original legislation or guidance.…”

“…In addition, it was clear that a lack of transparency in the issuing process diminished the legitimacy of the CPN in the eyes of the recipient, rejecting the anti-social label and drawing on their identity as an 'upstanding citizen', especially those who felt compelled into compliance. Resultantly, these individuals distanced themselves from the issuing authority, which weakened trust and delegitimised the authority as a moral representative (Black and Heap, 2022). We have also reported how practitioners utilise CPNs to regulate ASB and have continued to find divergent practices, which we suggest compromises the procedural justice and distributive fairness of the issuing process (Heap et al, 2023).…”

Procedural justice and process-based models: Understanding how practitioners utilise Community Protection Notices to regulate anti-social behaviour

“…(Area A, Police Officer 1) Practitioners clearly believed CPWs were effective at securing compliance. However, our previous work uncovered how CPW/CPN recipients felt compelled to comply, which reflects an instrumental rather than normative compliance (Black and Heap, 2022). The nature of this type of compliance undermines legitimacy and damages trust in the authorising bodies reaching fair outcomes.…”

“…However, from the limited research that has considered ASB interventions from a procedural justice perspective, we know that 'practices frequently fail to conform to the characteristics of procedural justice in ways that might enhance capacities and capabilities within communities, families and individuals for self-regulation' (Crawford et al, 2017: 24). Previous work by the authors suggests that CPNs, with their lower behavioural threshold, target behaviours with greater moral ambiguity and therefore have greater potential to coerce compliance behaviour, damaging legitimacy in the process (Black and Heap, 2022). It is therefore important for ASB policy to embrace the principles of procedural justice because 'securing compliance with the law by deploying normative strategies such as those derived from procedural justice theory is less costly, less intrusive and more effective than instrumental or coercive ones based on deterrence' (Hough, 2021: 7).…”

“…Thus, little is known about how practitioners use this tool on a daily basis. Our previous research with people who had received a CPN highlighted a lack of procedural justice in the issuing process, which subsequently reduced their perceptions of legitimacy and fairness (Black and Heap, 2022;Heap et al, 2022). Focusing on practitioners, this article begins to tackle the gap in research by examining the extent to which procedural justice principles are demonstrated in the issuing practices for CPNs.…”