Examining Differences in the Effect of Vicarious and Personal Procedural Justice on Legal Orientations and Offending Across Race/Ethnicity Among a Sample of Serious Juvenile Offenders

Abstract

In the current study it is examined if the impact of vicarious and personal perceptions of procedural justice on legal cynicism, legitimacy, and offending across time is invariant across race/ethnicity. Using longitudinal data from a sample of serious juvenile offenders from the Pathways to Desistance, the within- and between-individual associations of procedural justice, legal orientations, and offending were tested. Race/ethnic-specific models were estimated to examine differences across race/ethnicity. Positive personal and vicarious experiences with police had positive effects on legal orientations (i.e., legitimacy and cynicism), while vicarious experiences were more influential on offending compared to personal experiences. These effects were consistent across race/ethnicity. Both changes in legitimacy (positive) and cynicism (negative) were important for understanding changes in offending; however, the effect of cynicism was more consistent across race/ethnicity. The findings suggest that procedurally just treatment of juveniles by police can enhance legal compliance.

Keywords

procedural justice legal orientation legal socialization self-reported offending race/ethnicity

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Allison

P. D.

(2009). Fixed effects regression models. SAGE.

Ameri

Burgason

K. A.

DeLisi

Heirigs

M. H.

Hochstetler

Vaughn

M. G.

(2019). Legal cynicism: Independent construct or downstream manifestation of antisocial constructs? New evidence. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 64, 211–218.

Bolger

M. A.

Lytle

D. J.

Bolger

P. C.

(2021). What matters in citizen satisfaction with police: A meta-analysis. Journal of Criminal Justice, 72, 101760.

Bolger

P. C.

(2015). Just following orders: A meta-analysis of the correlates of American police officer use of force decisions. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 40(3), 466–492.

Brandl

S. G.

Frank

Worden

R. E.

Bynum

T. S.

(1994). Global and specific attitudes toward the police: Disentangling the relationship. Justice Quarterly, 11, 119–134.

Brick

Taylor

Esbensen

(2009). Juvenile attitudes towards the police: The importance of subcultural involvement and community ties. Journal of Criminal Justice, 37, 488–495.

Brunson

R. K.

(2007). “Police don’t like black people”: African-American young men’s accumulated police experiences. Criminology & Public Policy, 6(1), 71–101.

Brunson

R. K.

Weitzer

(2011). Negotiating unwelcome police encounters: The intergenerational transmission of conduct norms. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40(4), 425–456.

Chandek

M. S.

(1999). Race, expectations and evaluations of police performance. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 22(4), 675–695.

10.

Demirtas

Freels

S. A.

Yucel

R. M.

(2008). Plausibility of multivariate normality assumption when multiply imputing non-Gaussian continuous outcomes: A simulation assessment. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, 78(1), 69–84.

11.

Evans

D. N.

Williams

C. L.

(2017). Stop, question, and frisk in New York City: A study of public opinions. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 28(7), 687–709.

12.

Fagan

Tyler

T. R.

(2005). Legal socialization of children and adolescents. Social Justice Research, 18(3), 217–241.

13.

Fine

Cavanagh

Donley

Frick

P. J.

Steinberg

Cauffman

(2017). Is the effect of justice system attitudes on recidivism stable after youths’ first arrest? Race and legal socialization among first-time youth offenders. Law and Human Behavior, 41(2), 146.

14.

Fite

P. J.

Wynn

Pardini

D. A.

(2009). Explaining discrepancies in arrest rates between Black and White male juveniles. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 77(5), 916.

15.

Flexon

J. L.

Lurigio

A. J.

Greenleaf

R. G.

(2009). Exploring the dimensions of trust in the police among Chicago juveniles. Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(2), 180–189.

16.

Gardner

Steinberg

(2005). Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: An experimental study. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 625.

17.

Gau

J. M.

(2015). Procedural justice, police legitimacy, and legal cynicism: A test for mediation effects. Police Practice and Research, 16(5), 402–415.

18.

Gau

J. M.

Corsaro

Stewart

E. A.

Brunson

R. K.

(2012). Examining macro-level impacts on procedural justice and police legitimacy. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40(4), 333–343.

19.

Higgins

G. E.

Wolfe

S. E.

Mahoney

Walters

N. M.

(2009). Race, ethnicity, and experience: Modeling the public’s perceptions of justice, satisfaction, and attitude toward the courts. Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice, 7(4), 293–310.

20.

Hollingshead

A. B.

(1975). Four factor index of social status. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University.

21.

Hox

J. J.

Moerbeek

Van de Schoot

(2017). Multilevel analysis: Techniques and applications. Routledge.

22.

Huizinga

Esbensen

F. A.

Weiher

A. W.

(1991). Are there multiple paths to delinquency. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, 82, 83.

23.

Hurst

Y. G.

(2007). Juvenile attitudes toward the police: An examination of rural youth. Criminal Justice Review, 32(2), 121–141.

24.

Hurst

Y. G.

Frank

(2000). How kids view cops: The nature of juvenile attitudes toward the police. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28, 189–202.

25.

Hurst

Y. G.

Frank

Browning

(2000). The attitudes of juveniles toward the police. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategy and Management, 23, 37–53.

26.

Jonathan-Zamir

Perry

Weisburd

(2021). Illuminating the concept of community (group)-level procedural justice: A qualitative analysis of protestors’ group-level experiences with the police. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 48(6), 791–809.

27.

Kaiser

Reisig

M. D.

(2019). Legal socialization and self-reported criminal offending: The role of procedural justice and legal orientations. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 35(1), 135–154.

28.

LaMotte

Ouellette

Sanderson

Anderson

S. A.

Kosutic

Griggs

Garcia

(2010). Effective police interactions with youth: A program evaluation. Police Quarterly, 13(2), 161–179.

29.

Lee

K. J.

Carlin

J. B.

(2010). Multiple Imputation for missing data: Fully conditional specification versus multivariate normal imputation. American Journal of Epidemiology, 171(5), 624–632.

30.

Mazerolle

Bennett

Davis

Sargeant

Manning

(2013). Procedural justice and police legitimacy: A systematic review of the research evidence. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 9(3), 245–274.

31.

McLean

(2017). Ethnic identity, procedural justice, and offending: Does procedural justice work the same for everyone? Crime & Delinquency, 63(10), 1314–1336.

32.

Moule

R. K.

Jr. Fox

B. H.

Parry

M. M.

(2019). The long shadow of Ferguson: Legitimacy, legal cynicism, and public perceptions of police militarization. Crime & Delinquency, 65(2), 151–182.

33.

Nagin

D. S.

Telep

C. W.

(2017). Procedural justice and legal compliance. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 13, 5–28.

34.

Nivette

Eisner

Ribeaud

(2020). Evaluating the shared and unique predictors of legal cynicism and police legitimacy from adolescence into early adulthood. Criminology, 58(1), 70–100.

35.

O’Brien

T. C.

Tyler

T. R.

Meares

T. L.

(2020). Building popular legitimacy with reconciliatory gestures and participation: A community-level model of authority. Regulation & Governance, 14(4), 821–839.

36.

Paternoster

Bachman

Brame

Sherman

L. W.

(1997). Do fair procedures matter-the effect of procedural justice on spouse assault. Law & Society Review, 31, 163.

37.

Paternoster

Brame

Mazerolle

Piquero

(1998). Using the correct statistical test for the equality of regression coefficients. Criminology, 36(4), 859–866.

38.

Piquero

A. R.

Blumstein

Brame

Haapanen

Mulvey

E. P.

Nagin

D. S.

(2001). Assessing the impact of exposure time and incapacitation on longitudinal trajectories of criminal offending. Journal of Adolescent Research, 16(1), 54–74.

39.

Rosenbaum

D. P.

Schuck

A. M.

Costello

S. K.

Hawkins

D. F.

Ring

M. K.

(2005). Attitudes toward the police: The effects of direct and vicarious experience. Police Quarterly, 8(3), 343–365.

40.

Sampson

R. J.

Bartusch

D. J.

(1998). Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law and Society Review, 32(4), 777–804.

41.

Schubert

C. A.

Mulvey

E. P.

Steinberg

Cauffman

Losoya

S. H.

Hecker

Knight

G. P.

(2004). Operational lessons from the pathways to desistance project. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 2(3), 237–255.

42.

Schunk

Perales

(2017). Within- and between-cluster effects in generalized linear mixed models: A discussion of approach and the xthybrid command. The Stata Journal, 17(1), 89–115.

43.

StataCorp. (2019). Stata statistical software: Release 16. StataCorp LLC.

44.

Sunshine

Tyler

T. R.

(2003). The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law & Society Review, 37(3), 513–548.

45.

Sweeten

(2012). Scaling criminal offending. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 28(3), 533–557.

46.

Sweeten

Piquero

A. R.

Steinberg

(2013). Age and the explanation of crime, revisited. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 42(6), 921–938.

47.

Sykes

G. M.

Matza

(1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22(6), 664–670.

48.

Thornberry

T. P.

Krohn

M. D.

(2000). The self-report method for measuring delinquency and crime. In Duffee

Crutchfield

R. D.

Mastrofski

Mazerolle

McDowall

(Eds.), Criminal justice 2000, Vol. 4: Innovations in measurement and analysis (pp. 33–83). U.S. Department of Justice.

49.

Tyler

(2017). Procedural justice and policing: A rush to judgment? Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 13, 29–53.

50.

Tyler

T. R.

(1990). Why people obey the law: Procedural justice, legitimacy, and compliance. Yale University Press.

51.

Tyler

T. R.

(1997). The psychology of legitimacy: A relational perspective on voluntary deference to authorities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1(4), 323–345.

52.

Tyler

T. R.

(2001). Public trust and confidence in legal authorities: What do majority and minority group members want from the law and legal institutions? Behavioral Sciences & The Law, 19(2), 215–235.

53.

Tyler

T. R.

(2005). Policing in black and white: Ethnic group differences in trust and confidence in the police. Police Quarterly, 8(3), 322–342.

54.

Tyler

T. R.

(2009). Legitimacy and criminal justice: The benefits of self- regulation. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 7, 307–360.

55.

Tyler

T. R.

Fagan

(2008). Legitimacy and cooperation: Why do people help the police fight crime in their communities. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 6, 231.

56.

Tyler

T. R.

Fagan

Geller

(2014). Street stops and police legitimacy: Teachable moments in young urban men’s legal socialization. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 11(4), 751–785.

57.

Tyler

T. R.

Huo

(2002). Trust in the law, encouraging public cooperation with the police and courts. Russell Sage Foundation.

58.

Tyler

T. R.

Jackson

(2013). Future challenges in the study of legitimacy and criminal justice (Public Law Working Paper, 264), Yale Law School.

59.

Tyler

T. R.

Allan Lind

(2002). Procedural justice. In Sanders

Hamilton

V. L.

(Eds.), Handbook of Justice Research in Law (pp. 65–92). Boston, MA: Springer.

60.

Tyler

T. R.

Trinkner

(2017). Why children follow rules: Legal socialization and the development of legitimacy. Oxford University Press.

61.

Tyler

T. R.

Wakslak

C. J.

(2004). Profiling and police legitimacy: Procedural justice, attributions of motive, and acceptance of police authority. Criminology, 42(2), 253–282.

62.

Walters

G. D.

Bolger

P. C.

(2019). Procedural justice perceptions, legitimacy beliefs, and compliance with the law: A meta-analysis. Journal of experimental Criminology, 15(3), 341–372.

63.

Watkins

A. M.

Maume

M. O.

(2012). Rethinking the study of juveniles’ attitudes toward the police. Criminal Justice Studies, 25(3), 279–300.

64.

Wolfe

S. E.

McLean

Pratt

T. C.

(2017). I learned it by watching you: Legal socialization and the intergenerational transmission of legitimacy attitudes. British Journal of Criminology, 57(5), 1123–1143.

65.

Wolfe

S. E.

Nix

Kaminski

Rojek

(2016). Is the effect of procedural justice on police legitimacy invariant? Testing the generality of procedural justice and competing antecedents of legitimacy. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 32(2), 253–282.

66.

Lake

Cao

(2015). Race, social bonds, and juvenile attitudes toward the police. Justice Quarterly, 32(3), 445–470.