Procedural Justice and Cooperation Research Paper

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Recent discussions of the relationship between legal authorities and the people within their communities emphasize the benefits to legal authorities of gaining voluntary deference and willing cooperation from the people with whom they deal. A key element in gaining such cooperation is being viewed as legitimate. Legitimacy is based primarily upon the fairness of the manner in which legal authorities exercise their authority, i.e., procedural justice. If legal authorities exercise their authority fairly, they build legitimacy and increase both willing deference to rules and the decisions of the police and courts, as well as the motivation to help with the task of maintaining social order in the community.

Procedural Justice And Cooperation

In the United States the dominant model for the exercise of legal authority is deterrence. Its goal is to encourage public compliance with the law. The mechanism for achieving this goal is through the threat or use of punishment for rule breaking. The traditional objective of the law and of the actions of legal authorities is to gain first public compliance with the law, and second acceptance of the particular decisions made by legal authorities such as judges and police officers. In both cases, public compliance cannot be taken for granted.

The problems involved in obtaining compliance in everyday life are exhibited inter alia in traffic laws, drug laws, illegal immigration, and the payment of taxes. While most people comply with the law most of the time, legal authorities are confronted with sufficient noncompliance to challenge the resources normally devoted to social control. In situations such as the illegal use of drugs and the downloading of music and illegal copying of movies, levels of noncompliance are so high as to make effective regulation very difficult.

Similar problems arise with the decisions of legal authorities. Studies of personal encounters with the police demonstrate that people often resist and even defy legal and judicial orders (Mastrofski et al. 1996). Compliance can never be assumed. The ability to manage encounters with members of the public without provoking conflict and resistance is a core competency issue for police officers. As Mastrofski et al. (1996, p. 272) note: “Although deference to police authority is the norm, disobedience occurs with sufficient frequency that skill in handling the rebellious, the disgruntled, and the hard to manage – or those potentially so – has become the street officer’s performance litmus test.” Based upon observational data, these authors estimate that the general noncompliance rate is around 22 %.

The willingness of litigants to accept the decisions made by judges is also a long-standing issue in the courts. A major motivation for the alternative dispute resolution movement, which uses non-adjudicative forums such as mediation instead of traditional adjudication, is to find a way to increase the willingness of the involved parties to accept the decisions made by third-party authorities. Alternative procedures do so by replacing judges with mediators and adjudication with a more informal and cooperative problem-solving procedure. Within all types of adjudicative settings, judges have struggled to find ways to make decisions that are acceptable to the parties who bring cases into court.

In recent decades the exercise of legal authority to obtain compliance has become primarily associated with the use of threat and punishment aimed at deterring people from engaging in criminal behavior (Nagin 1998). Irrespective of the type of case involved, the traditional means of obtaining compliance is via attempts to deter rule breaking by threatening to punish wrongdoing. The argument driving this perspective is threefold: that fear of possible future punishment leads to compliance with the law, that risk calculations are partly shaped by both the anticipated likelihood of punishment and by judgments about its severity, and that the focus is (and should be) on the power of legal authorities and institutions to shape behavior by threatening to deliver (or by actually delivering) negative sanctions for rule breaking. Within legal circles, this way of viewing the relationship between legal authorities and citizens is referred to as the “deterrence” or “social control” model. It is this model of human behavior that – for better or worse – currently dominates law and public policy.

In this research paper we argue that a deterrence model of legal authority is not only expensive and minimally effective; it also undermines forms of social capital that promote long-term public commitment to the law and, crucially, the public cooperation on which legal authorities fundamentally rely. The exercise of authority via the application of fair process strengthens the social bonds between individuals and authorities. Procedural justice promotes normative modes of compliance and cooperation that are both more stable and more sustainable in the long run. Using the example of the UK, we show how specific policing contexts can modulate – but not fundamentally alter – these associations. We consider moral alignment with the London Metropolitan Police – one of a broader range of motivations to cooperate with legal authorities that are based not on material interests but on social values and normative commitment.

Deterrence-Based Legal Policy

There are two aspects of deterrence policy. First is the idea that people’s law-related behavior is shaped by their expectations about the likely punishment that will result from rule breaking. According to this perspective, people are influenced by their estimates of the likelihood of punishment, the severity and certainty of punishment, or both. Second, deterrence models suggest that if people are caught and punished, the probability of punishment shapes the likelihood of post-punishment wrongdoing.

Judges, for example, attempt to influence people’s acceptance of their decisions by threatening fines or jail time for failure to comply. Similarly, police officers carry guns and clubs, and they are empowered to threaten citizens with physical injury and incapacitation, among other penalties. The goal is to establish legal authority. As Reiss (1971, p. 46) points out: “The uniform, badge, truncheon, and arms all may play a role in asserting authority” in the effort to “gain control of the situation.” The police thereby seek to gain control over the individual’s behavior “by manipulating an individual’s calculus regarding whether ‘crime pays’ in any particular instance” (Meares 2000, p. 396).

More generally, agents of the legal system who are charged with producing compliant behavior concern themselves with shaping environmental contingencies in such a way that citizens will be faced with the prospect of heavy losses (e.g., fines, arrest, incarceration) that are intended to outweigh the anticipated gains of engaging in criminal behavior. The deterrence model dictates that the responsibility of lawmakers is to decide which acts should be prevented and then to specify sufficiently strict penalties, generally fines or prison term, so that the prohibited behavior is rarely enacted.

At the heart of an institutional model of compliance is rational choice theory, which is derived from neoclassical economics (Blumstein et al. 1978). It is assumed that people calculate expected utilities by multiplying the probability of an outcome (e.g., getting caught for armed robbery or drunk driving) by its valence (very, very bad), and then balance the result against the benefits of crime (Paternoster 2006). Rational self-interest is the motivational engine of the deterrence/social control model. If laws and sanctions are well calibrated, people will arrive at the desired conclusion that they should follow the law. It follows that to regulate behavior, decision-makers should adjust criminal sanctions to the needed level, so that the expected losses associated with law-breaking will minimize the likelihood that people will break the law.

This model has several problems. First, it is a costly and minimally effective system of social control. The high cost of the system stems from the need to create and maintain a credible threat of punishment. People will only change their behavior when they feel that there is a reasonable risk of being caught and punished for wrongdoing. And, of course, they will try to hide their illegal behavior, so a system of surveillance will be needed to identify wrongdoing. Such surveillance is often not possible.

Second, even when surveillance is possible, the magnitude of influence found is at best weak. There is some evidence that variations in the perceived certainty of punishment do affect some people’s compliance with the law – at least to some degree, in some circumstances, at some points in time (Paternoster 2006). People’s behavior is sometimes – though certainly not always – shaped by their estimate of the likelihood that, if they disobey the law, they will be caught and punished (see Nagin and Paternoster 1991; Paternoster 2006). But, overall, the body of evidence is mixed. According to Piquero et al. (2011, p. 1; see also Paternoster 2006): “.. .some studies finding that punishment weakens compliance, some finding that sanctions have no effect on compliance, and some finding that the effect of sanctions depends on moderating factors.”

Crucially, when perceptions of the likelihood of being caught and punished do influence people’s behavior, the effect seems to be relatively small. Consequently, social control strategies that are based exclusively on a deterrence model of human behavior have had at best limited success. An example is the analysis by MacCoun (1993), which shows that variations in the certainty and severity of punishment for drug use account for approximately 5 % of the variance in drug use behavior. This is a finding consistent with the suggestion of Paternoster (1987, p. 191) that “perceived certainty [of punishment] plays virtually no role in explaining deviant/criminal conduct.”

In summary, deterrence is a high-cost strategy that at best yields identifiable but weak, results. A system for detecting wrongdoing must be created and maintained, but this is itself unlikely to be effective unless vast sums are spent on it. Further, it is not realistic to substitute draconian punishments for a yet more costly system that creates credible risks of being detected while engaging in wrongdoing. For this reason, as Meares (2000, p. 401) notes, the effectiveness of “instrumental means of producing compliance always depend[s] on resource limits.” The relevant questions are the following: how much in terms of financial and other benefits and burdens authorities are willing to expend in order to control crime? And how much power to intrude into their lives are citizens willing to grant to the authorities?

Deterrence And Social Capital

In addition to being costly and minimally effective, the deterrence model is problematic from a social capital perspective. Social scientists have coined the term “social capital” to refer to the reservoir of psychological (positive values, attitudes, identities) and sociological (dense social networks) factors that predispose communities to be able to work collectively to address community issues more effectively. In this vein, this research paper focuses on the psychological predispositions that promote compliance and facilitate cooperation, i.e., the values, attitudes, and identities that lead people in communities to more willingly work with others to address the needs of their community (Tyler 2011).

From a social capital perspective, the deterrence model is problematic because threat and punishment do not build positive values, attitudes, and identities. The central negative consequence of deterrence approaches is that they define people’s relationship to law and legal authorities as one of risk and punishment. This dampens peoples’ focus upon other aspects of their connection to society – such as shared values and concerns – and encourages people to act in ways that are linked to personal gains and losses.

A further negative consequence of deterrence approaches is that, because people associate law and legal authorities with punishment, the instrumental relationship between the public and the legal system is antagonistic. People become more likely to resist, more likely to avoid legal authorities, and less likely to cooperate with them. Social psychologists have long pointed out that punishments and rewards do not create positive psychological dispositions.

Strategies based upon external contingencies rely upon the continuing ability to deliver credible threats, to enforce rules with punishments, and – when incentives are promised – to deliver those incentives (Tyler 2011). As a consequence, when authorities manage people by surveillance, there is no basis for building a sense of trust. For example, employees who have been given the opportunity to follow rules for internal reasons demonstrate to workplace authorities when they do so that they can be trusted. Subsequently, authorities are more comfortable allowing those individuals to work without supervision. However, when authorities are constantly present, they have no basis for trust and can suspect that the moment they leave, people will stop following the rules. Hence, their very behavior of surveillance creates the conditions requiring future surveillance.

Recent research findings have moved beyond the statement that the deterrence model does not build supportive attitudes and values. Scholars have argued that the policies and practices associated with this model may actually undermine existing social capital. Crucially, the use of surveillance systems has deleterious effects on the social climate of groups. The use of surveillance implies distrust, which decreases people’s ability to feel positively about themselves, their groups, and the system itself (Kramer and Tyler 1996). Furthermore, people may experience intrusions into their lives as procedurally unfair, leading to anger and other negative emotions often associated with perceptions of injustice (e.g., Gurr 1970).

Whether surveillance works or not, it is often demotivating. Surveillance introduces new costs in terms of distrust and perhaps even paranoia in subsequent social interaction. Such costs are borne by groups, organizations, and societies to which people belong, as they lose the gains that occur when people are willing to cooperate with each other. Research suggests that the increasing use of deterrence strategies and social control has exerted precisely this type of negative influence on the US social climate.

These issues can be illustrated by decisions about child custody and child support (Bryan 2006). Judges can issue orders concerning custody and child support payment and can back them up in a variety of ways. However, to maximize the favorability of the climate within which children are raised, it is important to make decisions that will be willingly followed by both fathers and mothers. Further, to the degree to which it is possible, it is important to create positive post-separation dynamics in which both parents take responsibility for supporting their children financially and emotionally (Bryan 2006). Hence, family law cases involving child custody and child support have been a particular focus of efforts to find ways to create acceptable decisions. And those efforts point to the potentially destructive role played by adversarial dynamics, which can lead to a negative relationship among parents who need to cooperate to raise their children.

Deterrence has also created an adversarial relationship between legal authorities and members of the communities they serve. This is especially so with respect to racial and ethnic minority group members (Tyler and Huo 2002). An adversarial relationship leads the public to grow less compliant with the law and less willing to help the police to fight crime (Sunshine and Tyler 2003). Those people who feel under surveillance by the police or who have been stopped while driving or walking to be questioned and potentially arrested have more negative feelings about the police and the law (Tyler and Fagan 2008; Bradford et al. 2009).

An analysis of people’s connection to law in terms of general principles of human motivation further suggests that if people comply with the law only in response to coercive power, they will be less likely to obey the law in the future because acting in response to external pressures diminishes internal motivations to engage in a behavior (Tyler and Blader 2000). This follows from the well-known distinction in social psychology between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Research on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation shows that when people are motivated solely by the prospect of obtaining external rewards and punishments (i.e., extrinsic motivation), they become less likely to perform the desired behavior in the absence of such environmental reinforcements (e.g., Deci 1975). On the other hand, if people are motivated by intrinsic reasons for behaving in a certain way, then their compliance becomes much more reliable and less context dependent.

Studies of regulatory authorities demonstrate that seeking to regulate behavior through the use of threat serves to undermine people’s commitment to rules and authorities. From a motivational perspective, instrumental approaches are not self-sustaining and require the maintenance of institutions and authorities that can keep the probability of detection for wrongdoing at a sufficiently high level to constantly motivate the public through external means (i.e., the threat of punishment). Over time it becomes more and more important to have such external constraints in place, for whatever intrinsic motivation people originally had is gradually “crowded out” by external concerns.

And while the focus of the rest of this research paper is on legitimacy, the normative commitment to cooperate and the psychological aspects of social capital, it is equally important to recognize that deterrence approaches undermine the sociological elements of social capital by damaging communities. Because of the widespread belief that crime is deterred by the threat and/or the experience of punishment, a massive number of American citizens have been convicted and sentenced to serve time in American prisons. Today the USA is a world leader in the proportion of citizens it holds in prison. The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, 756 per 100,000 national population in 2007, much higher than those in equivalent countries such as England and Wales (153 per 100,000), France (96 per 100,000), and Germany (89 per 100,000) (Walmsley 2008). This imprisonment has a strong impact upon American communities, especially urban communities and especially among members of racial and ethnic minority groups that are overrepresented in the prison system. Families and the communities in which they live are undermined as social units by the loss of large numbers of young and predominantly male members of these communities.

Focusing Upon Voluntary Cooperation

Discussions of all types of social institutions have focused upon trying to understand how institutions can best encourage citizens to act prosocially, and these discussions are also relevant to public cooperation with the police and courts. The focus of study has broadened to include not just compliance – motivated by concerns about costs and gains – but willing deference to the law and the decisions of legal authorities and the general willingness to cooperate with legal authorities. The legal system benefits when people voluntarily defer to regulations and continue to defer over time. In the context of personal experiences with police officers or judges, the legal system is more effective if people voluntarily accept the decisions made by legal authorities. Absent such acceptance, legal authorities must engage in a continuing effort to create a credible threat of punishment to assure long-term rulefollowing/decision acceptance. These types of voluntary activity are not effectively motivated by the risk of punishment. Threats can sometimes compel obedience. But they do not motivate voluntary deference.

The Importance Of Legitimacy

How can legal authorities generate voluntary deference? Studies show that people cooperate when they believe that agents of the law are rightful holders of authority and when they imbue the legal system with the corresponding duty to obey (Tyler 2006a, b). Feelings of identification with the police and courts – and a willingness to defer to their instructions – generate the belief that authorities have the right to dictate appropriate behavior and that authorities are justified in expecting feelings of obligation and responsibility from citizens. Importantly, legitimacy activates self-regulatory mechanisms: people defer to, and cooperate with, legitimate authorities because they feel it is right to do so (Tyler 2006a, b).

The legitimacy of the law and of legal authorities resides most fundamentally in the recognition that the criminal justice system has the right to exist and dictate behavior, and use its authority to determine the law, use force, and punish those who act illegally in justifiable ways. While definitions of legitimacy vary widely, a key feature of many is that it confers the right to command and to dictate behavior and that it promotes the corresponding duty to obey (Weber 1968; Tyler 2006a). Modern discussions of legitimacy are usually traced to the writings of Weber (1968) on authority and the social dynamics of authority. Weber, like Machiavelli and others before him, argued that successful leaders and institutions use more than brute force to execute their will. They strive to win the consent of the governed so that their commands will be voluntarily obeyed (Tyler 2006a).

Kelman and Hamilton (1989) refer to legitimacy as “authorization” to reflect the idea that a person authorizes an authority to determine appropriate behavior within some situation, and then feels obligated to follow the directives or rules that authority establishes. As they indicate, the authorization of actions by authorities “seem [s] to carry automatic justification for them. Behaviorally, authorization obviates the necessity of making judgments or choices. Not only do normal moral principles become inoperative, but – particularly when the actions are explicitly ordered – a different type of morality, linked to the duty to obey superior orders, tends to take over” (Kelman and Hamilton 1989, p. 16).

Legitimacy, according to this general view, is a quality that is possessed by an authority, law, or institution that leads others to feel obligated to accept its directives. It is “a quality attributed to a regime by a population” (Merelman 1966, p. 548). When people ascribe legitimacy to the system that governs them, they become willing subjects whose behavior is strongly influenced by official (and unofficial) doctrine. They also internalize a set of moral values that is consonant with the aims of the system. And – for better or for worse – they take on the ideological task of justifying the system and its particulars.

As Kelman (1969) puts it: “It is essential to the effective functioning of the nation-state that the basic tenets of its ideology be widely accepted within the population…. This means that the average citizen is prepared to meet the expectations of the citizen role and to comply with the demands that the state makes upon him, even when this requires considerable personal sacrifice” (p. 278). Widespread voluntary cooperation with the state and the social system allows authorities to concentrate their resources most effectively on pursuing the long-term goals of society. The authorities do not need to provide incentives or sanctions to all citizens to get them to support every rule or policy they enact.

Perceptions of legitimacy are based on feelings of obligation that are disconnected from substance and material interest. Legitimacy is linked not to the authorities’ possession of instruments of reward or coercion but to properties of the authority that lead people to feel it is entitled to make decisions and be obeyed. People will abide by the law and follow police directives even if they disagree with specific guidelines and instructions. In an increasingly pluralistic and diverse society, it is important that legal authorities enjoy a sort of social influence that transcends particular moral values. Remaining salient in situations where authorities and subordinates disagree, legitimacy is an important source of governance, especially in complex societies. For example, the moral beliefs of antiabortion activists directly conflict with the views of the Supreme Court. But the legitimacy of a Supreme Court ruling on abortion is still conceded. Because legitimacy is based upon the fairness of the procedures used by authorities to govern, rather than upon the substance of their decisions, legitimacy allows authorities to make decisions that are widely accepted even by those who disagree with them.

Procedural Justice

Why do people confer legitimacy to legal authorities? Research shows the importance of procedural justice. The most immediate context of procedural justice is the direct experience that citizens have with police and court officials. The primary factor shaping decision acceptance (when legal authorities make decisions concerning the individual in question) is the procedural justice of the process through which a decision was reached (Tyler 2006a, b). This factor is approximately seven times as important as either the favorability or the fairness of the outcome. Similar findings emerge when we consider why people have positive or negative views about the authorities involved. Again procedural justice is the key antecedent. In particular, procedural justice shapes views about the overall legitimacy of the law and the legal system. Research indicates that people’s view that the legal system is legitimate increases following a negative outcome, as long as people experience the procedures used by authorities as being fair (Tyler and Fagan 2008).

In studies of the general population, people are also found to regard the police as legitimate if they believe that the police exercise their authority through fair and impartial means (Sunshine and Tyler 2003; Jackson et al. 2012a, b). Importantly, available evidence suggests that the perceived procedural fairness of the police (the belief that the police would treat me with respect and dignity if I were to come into contact with officers, e.g., and the belief that the police generally treat people with respect and dignity) procedural justice judgments are more central to judgments of legitimacy than are such factors as the perceived effectiveness of the police in combating crime. To the extent that people perceive law enforcement officials as legitimate, they are significantly more willing to comply with the law in general (Sunshine and Tyler 2003; Tyler 2006a).

The procedural basis of legitimacy is especially strong with respect to public opinion concerning political and legal institutions. Studies of the presidency, the legislature,, and the Supreme Court all suggest that when citizens are evaluating government institutions, they focus primarily on the fairness of the procedures by which the institutions make policies and implement its decisions. Research on work organizations also shows that perceived legitimacy has a strong procedural basis (Tyler and Blader 2000).

Procedural justice also plays a critical role in securing compliance over time (Paternoster et al. 1997). It is by now clear that people’s reactions to law and legal authorities are heavily influenced by their assessments of the fairness of legal procedures. The most reliable way of attaining legitimacy and maintaining support for legal institutions and authorities is by establishing and protecting procedural safeguards. Indeed, the need for procedural safeguards is one of the strongest arguments for the constitutional separation of executive, representative, and judicial branches of government. To the extent that procedures for insuring genuine fairness are compromised, the system will begin to lose legitimacy and – over time – fail to inspire the kind of cooperation and deference that is often taken for granted during periods of stability.

What is particularly striking about procedural justice judgments is that they shape the reactions even of those who are on the losing side of cases. If a person who does not receive an outcome that they think favorable or fair feels that the decision was arrived at in a fair way, they are more likely to accept it. Longitudinal studies show that people continue to adhere to fairly arrived at decisions over time, suggesting that their acceptance of those decisions is genuine and not simply the result of fear or coercion (Tyler et al. 2007). Further, people who experience procedural justice in court rate the courts and court personnel more favorably, indicating higher levels of trust and confidence in the courts and the court system.

What Makes A Procedure Fair?

As understood in US communities, procedural justice is defined in terms of four issues. First, people want to have an opportunity to explain their situation or tell their side of the story in a conflict (voice). Second, people react to evidence that the authorities with whom they are dealing are neutral. Third, people are sensitive to whether they are treated with dignity and politeness and to whether their rights as citizens are respected. Finally, people focus on cues that communicate information about the intentions and character of the legal authorities with whom they are dealing (“their trustworthiness”).

Legitimacy and trust matter because they motivate voluntary deference both with the decision of legal authorities and with the law in everyday life. When people feel responsibility to defer to legal authorities, they do so because it is the right thing to do, not out of fear of punishment or expectation of reward. Hence, legitimacy is a key to self-regulation.

Cooperation

Beyond deference, legal authorities are increasingly focusing upon the benefits of active public cooperation with the police, the courts, and the law. The legal system – and particularly the police – needs voluntary help from the public (Tyler and Fagan 2008). Studies of crime and policing make clear that the police benefit when members of the community voluntarily work with them to manage social order in their community. First, the police need community members who are familiar with the neighborhood and its residents to report crime and criminals to the police. Second, the police need community residents to join them in town meetings and neighborhood watch organizations to identify and deal with community problems.

The shift from compliance to cooperation requires us to expand the scope of our instrumental model – a model that can potentially involve both costs and benefits. While the legal system is based upon highlighting the cost of rule breaking, law and legal authorities also offer benefits that can strengthen social capital. For example, Tyler and Huo (2002) found that the primary reason for people having contact with the police and courts is having gone to them for help. Legal authorities can create benefits by their performance in resolving disputes and maintaining social order. Unlike the relationship of the police to regulation, in which they are primarily the dispensers of punishment, when we consider cooperation, we can also see the police as a group able to provide people with desirable outcomes, by helping them to solve problems and address problems in their communities. The police can provide desirable rewards such as high performance in solving crime, maintaining order, or addressing public problems. Members of the public can – and should – have an active interest in police success that does not rest on sanctions directed at them.

An extension of the traditional view of legitimacy is to also consider moral alignment – the belief that the police share the moral values of individuals, i.e., they believe that justice institutions have a just and moral purpose (which creates a normative justifiability of police power and authority). When people feel aligned with the moral values of an authority in a group setting, they will act in ways that support the group that the authority represents. Institutions can encourage cooperation by activating the ethical motivations that lead people to adhere to group rules and to act on behalf of the group (Tyler 2006a, b; Tyler and Huo 2002).

The powerful influence of procedural justice, legitimacy, and moral alignment on public cooperation with legal authorities is just one example of a broader set of motivations based on social connections rather than material interests (Tyler 2011). Studies demonstrate the importance of five types of normative commitment to cooperate with legal, managerial, and political authorities. These are attitudes, values, identity, procedural justice, and motive-based trust.

Individuals also cooperate with organizations when those organizations serve the social function of providing individuals with a favorable identity and a positive sense of self (Blader and Tyler 2009). Pride and respect within the group are important. If people feel pride in the group and believe that they are accorded respect, then their motives will be transformed from the personal to the group level. If individuals identify with the group that the police represent (i.e., the society and nation), then they merge their sense of self with the group. Defining themselves in terms of their group membership, they will be more willing to act cooperatively on behalf of that group. The goals of the police become one’s own goals.

The effect of these two values – legitimacy and moral alignment – on willingness to cooperate with police and criminal courts has been demonstrated in recent UK-based work (Jackson et al. 2012a, b). First, legitimacy was an important predictor of cooperation with the London Metropolitan Police. People who voluntarily deferred to the police, who felt obligated to obey the decisions and directives of officers and who felt the police had a right to determine appropriate behavior, also reported being willing to call the police, to come forward as witnesses, and to identify suspects in court. The correlation between legitimacy and cooperation was particularly strong among a specific subset of the sample (young male from particular ethnic minorities) who tend to have a more fractious, situated, and confrontational relationship to the police.

But the same study also identified a second factor linked to cooperation. People who felt aligned with the moral values of the police (cf. Sunshine and Tyler 2003; Jackson and Sunshine 2007) also reported being motivated to aid the police and courts. In turn, procedural justice was a strong predictor of moral alignment. Participants in the London study valued fairness, decency, and transparency (in interpersonal treatment and decision-making) over instrumental concerns (cf. Tyler and Huo 2002; Gau and Brunson 2010). Social psychological research shows that people want to feel valued members of social groups and they derive self-relevant information through the quality of their interactions with group representatives. Fair, decent, and respectful treatment fosters motive-based trust and identification with the group (Tyler and Blader 2000), as well as a sense of shared moral values.

In Jackson et al. (2012a), moral alignment was also related to a particular collection of relational concerns and social characteristics of the neighborhood in which individuals lived. The level of collective efficacy in a neighborhood – the sense of trust and shared values, and the willingness of residents to act upon those values on behalf of the common good – and disorder in that community (i.e., signs of the lack of community oversight and the inability of officials to maintain low-level social order) explained a good deal of variation in moral alignment with the police (cf. Jackson and Sunshine 2007; Jackson and Bradford 2009). By contrast, neighborhood levels of crime and fear of crime were not related to moral alignment with the police. When subtle, informal social controls are strong, community members believe the police are aligned with their values. Conversely, poor social conditions may encourage the feeling that the police are not representing and defending group norms, values, and identities.

Overall, these findings support the idea that moral alignment with the police is not an instrumental motivation – based on material interests and personal concerns about crime and risk – but a normative motivation rooted in social connections and identification. Moral alignment seems to strengthen the motivation to cooperate because (a) the goals accord with one’s moral values, (b) the interests of the group become more of one’s own interests, and (c) two people value the social connection they have with the police and the group the police represents. This seems to be an additive effect, on top of the effect of legitimacy on cooperation.

Widening The Definition Of Legitimacy?

Is legitimacy both obligation and moral alignment (Jackson et al. 2012a, b)? Individuals may confer the right of the police to dictate appropriate behavior when they believe that the police are legitimate in the authority they possess and legitimate in the moral values they defend and represent. People may obey the police, even if they disagree with the specific context of the instructions, because of the authority the police possess and because of a shared moral purpose. This is the idea floated recently in Europe (Jackson et al. 2011; Hough et al. 2013).

Including moral alignment in the definition of legitimacy certainly makes sense in England and Wales, given the specific symbolism and the legitimizing foundation of the British police. The cultural symbolism of the police is rooted in the foundational myths of the London Metropolitan Police and the “bobby on the beat.” When considering the history of British policing, it is commonplace to refer to Robert Peel’s principles of policing operation for the Metropolitan Police. While doubts exist as to the primary source of these principles, which Lentz and Chaires (2007) suggest may be somewhat the “invention” of twentieth-century textbooks, their theme and spirit remain important. Phrases like “the police are the public and the public are the police” and “the ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions” (e.g., Reith 1952, p. 154) speak to a close social connection between what were then “subjects of the crown” and the police.

In the eyes of many citizens, the continued justification of the existence and moral authority of a police force in England and Wales may rest on the idea that the police reflects and defends a common sense of shared values. People look to the police to defend and typify moral values; they assess its right to determine appropriate behavior partly on the basis of shared values. It follows that the legitimacy of the police rests in part on a moral link between people and police – a link that may remain strong despite the decline in public trust in the police over the past few decades.

Defining legitimacy as duty to obey and moral alignment also accords with the work of David Beetham (1991). Beetham insists that legitimacy is not simply a property of an authority or something which exists only in the subjective experiences of citizens. It is also constituted by normative assessments of authorities and the actions of those they govern. When citizens grant legitimacy to the police, they do so on the basis that the relationship between individual and authority is founded on common shared values. When individuals act in ways congruent with recognition of this commonality, their behavior serves to confirm and reproduce the legitimate role of the authority. Beetham outlines three dimensions of legitimacy, each of which must be fulfilled for an authority to be considered legitimate. First is conformity to a set of rules. Second is the justifiability of these rules in terms of shared beliefs. Third is the expressed consent of those governed or otherwise affected by the authority. In the case of the psychological state of legitimacy, these will be beliefs about the lawfulness and legality of an authority, a sense of shared moral values, and a positive duty to obey.

Whether moral alignment is important in other countries, and whether it can be reasonably thought of as legitimacy, remains an open and empirical question (although see Hough et al. 2013). In many societies the police may be seen less as a connected to shared moral values and more an agent of last resort. Such an institution requires from citizens obligations and feelings of responsibility, but does not draw its authority from any kind of value congruence.

And the difficulty with viewing moral alignment as an aspect of legitimacy may arise particularly in diverse multicultural societies. If the people within a political entity do not share a common set of moral values, then it will be harder for government authorities such as the police or the courts to represent shared values, and harder for them to invoke values as a source of authority. It is also harder for legal authorities to enforce laws that do not reflect moral values, shared or not. When the police are trying to enforce laws against using drugs or illegally downloading music and films, they will have difficulty drawing upon shared value structure because many people do not view such behaviors as immoral. As with parking violations or speeding, many people do not view breaking such laws as wrong, and adopt a more instrumental “try to catch me” attitude toward their behavior.

It is for future empirical research to assess, but it may be that people’s sense of “moral alignment” is based primarily on procedural justice, namely, the values that police express by the actions and decision-making of officers. Extant research shows extremely strong associations between trust in police fairness and moral alignment (Jackson et al. 2012a, b), suggesting that procedural justice is a central way in which authorities demonstrate their moral values. If this is so, then legitimacy may still not have to depend too strongly on consensual views among different communities. Procedural justice sits above diverse value positions; two parties in an interaction (indeed, in an argument) do not have to agree with each other on the specific issue at hand to treat each other with respect and dignity, allow each other a voice, and develop a sense of mutual trust. Fair treatment and fair decision-making may demonstrate to citizens that police officers respect their views and values and are thus working to a broad set of appropriate moral standards that recognize the worth of citizens and which give then officers a rightful claim to power and authority.

Final Words: Social Capital, Regulation, And Citizenship

As the results of the UK study indicate, when the police can draw upon shared values, moral alignment provides an important additional normative force beyond legitimacy that aids their efforts. The British example underlines the extent to which the primary aim of policing – the reproduction of normative social order – can be secured via coproduction involving police and community. When police behave in a procedurally fair manner, people are encouraged to feel ready and able to cooperate with officers. They are more likely to feel it is right and proper to support the police, and they are more willing to engage with them to address the problems they face in their communities. They do so not when they are incentivized by aggressive policing, nor necessarily when they see the possibility of a direct material return, but when such cooperation becomes valid in itself, because it seen as an effort to work toward a common goal.

Furthermore, individual and collective propensity to cooperate with the police can itself be a form of social capital. Despite the growth in forms of private policing, in the UK as elsewhere (Jones and Newburn 2002), for most of the population, the police are the only option. Those who feel unable or unwilling to draw on the services of the police at times of need – perhaps because they have experienced police unfairness in the past – are denied a core element of the assistance the state can provide to them. Attempting to deal personally with problems that might indicate a need for the police may incur significant economic, social, and personal costs.

It may also cause problems in the community when people take the law into their own hands (Huq et al. 2011). Police acts that are unfair damage citizen’s sense of alignment with police and trigger withdrawal from an important form of social support, a form of capital all citizens should feel able to draw upon when needed. When this happens, police are less likely to be able to solve problems in the communities in which they live in an effective and equitable manner. This may serve to initiate a downward spiral of failure, as social cohesion is undermined, disorder is felt to increase, and police legitimacy is further undermined.

Across the social sciences, there has been a widespread recognition that it is important to understand how to motivate cooperation on the part of people within group settings. This is the case irrespective of whether those settings are small groups, organizations, or communities (Tyler 2011). Studies in management show that work organizations benefit when their members actively work for company success. Within law, research shows that crime and problems of community disorder are difficult to solve without the active involvement of community residents. Political scientists recognize the importance of public involvement in building both viable communities and strong societies. And those in public policy have identified the value of cooperation in the process of policy making – for example, in stakeholder policy making groups. Hence it is important to ask whether the actions of legal authorities can aid in the production of social capital that might more generally engage cooperation.

Recent discussions of legal authority focus on a broader conception of the relationship between community residents and legal authorities. This broader framework suggests a new and broader conception of citizenship. Rather than concerning simply deferring to authorities, citizenship is increasingly seen as connected to the willing and active cooperation with authorities in creating and maintaining order in the community. For example, Tyler and Fagan (2008) identify two distinct forms of cooperation that benefit the police. The first is cooperation in solving particular crimes, for instance, by reporting crime in the community. The second is cooperation in co-policing the community, by working with the police in discussions about community issues and problems and through general willingness to work with the police, for example, by joining neighborhood watch and helping to patrol areas in one’s neighborhood. Tyler et al. (2010) make a similar distinction in their study of anti-terror policing in the Muslim American community. They note that the same two types of cooperation are valued by legal authorities: reporting potentially dangerous actions and generally working with the police to help police the community against terror threats.

Both of these forms of cooperation are essentially voluntary. Noncooperation risks little or no sanction. In particular, not reporting threats to the community is something that is virtually undetectable. People’s willingness to do so is therefore linked to a broader loyalty or sense of duty to the community and its authorities. Such cooperative behaviors are therefore general civic activities akin to the more traditionally studied forms of political participation. The issue that is being raised in respect to crime, in other words, is the same type of issue raised with regard to any matter affecting a community. How can citizens be motivated to become involved in deciding how to manage their community and in engaging in behaviors oriented toward doing so?

It is also clear that the actions of legal authorities have an impact on people’s views about government. Because the actions of legal authorities generalize to views about society and government, it should be possible to develop strategies of law enforcement that are more socially beneficial by building identification with government and society as well as the type of supportive values that lead to feelings of obligation. For example, the police might be able to help build the values that would lead people to pay their taxes or act as volunteers. Further, they might build the type of connections that lead people to work willingly and enthusiastically in their communities. In other words, rather than being viewed as a (necessary) cost that has negative implications for society, the legal system could generate supportive attitudes and values that would resonate more broadly through society.

Legal authorities can produce the benefits of building public support, benefits which include success in fighting crime and also general support for the community. People are more likely to come to and revisit communities in which they feel that they will be well treated by the representatives of government they are most likely to encounter – the police. This benefits communities economically because people more willingly come to them to work and to shop, as tourists, and for entertainment and sporting events. Hence, the police play a central role in creating the reassurance that makes a community inviting and desirable to the general public. In other words, the law provides a framework for building vibrant, alive, successful communities. If people feel reassured by the presence of the police and believe that they will be protected and, if they need it, helped, then they will be encouraged to engage in their communities socially and economically. When people engage in such behaviors, they build social capital and the sense of efficacy that we have already noted has broad social value. If people engage in their communities, they come to know others and to know how to work with them when problems arise in the community. They build trust in others and develop the police that others can and will join together to address issues when they arise. By providing a framework of reassurance, the police are creating the climate that allows the community to develop valuable psychological and sociological characteristics.

Underlying these comments is the question of how legitimacy, trust, and values such as collective efficacy are related. It may be that strong government and legitimate institutions help foster collective efficacy (LaFree 1998; Kochel 2012). Equally, work in the UK suggests that people infer the moral values of the police from the strength of the values and social ties they experience in their community. We would suggest that to some extent, both of these are true. A feedback loop may exist between collective efficacy and institutional legitimacy.

Tyler and Blader (2000) explore the relationship between people and groups in the context of work organizations. They demonstrate that identification with authorities and institutions is central to motivating the development of supportive attitudes and values, as well as to motivating cooperative behavior. Hence, to the degree that the police can build identification with legal authorities and with the community itself, they promote supportive public attitudes and voluntary cooperative behaviors. Studies in work settings widely suggest that, as with law, when authorities exercise their authority in fair ways, they motivate employees to identify with their companies, and this identification in turn leads to voluntary cooperation with management. Our argument is that the police and the courts can similarly build identification with society and social institutions and through that identification can motivate members of the community to more actively work on its behalf.

A value-based perspective on human motivation suggests the importance of developing and sustaining a civic culture in which people more willingly abide by the law because they feel that legal authorities are legitimate and ought to be obeyed. For this model to work, society must create and maintain public values. Psychological social capital must be created. Political scientists refer to this set of values as a “reservoir of support” for government and society. But however labeled, a value-based model is consistent with a social psychological understanding of how authorities can effectively regulate citizen behavior, maintain social order, and promote an effective, well-functioning society – by developing and maintaining a culture of supportive social values that will be internalized by the citizenry (Tyler 2011).

As we have noted, such values include feelings of obligation and responsibility to the state. They also include judgments about the degree of moral alignment that people feel with the police, the courts, and the law. And they include broader types of social connections to society, for example, identification with authorities and institutions. All of these values potentially provide an alternative basis for the effective operation of the legal system.

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