crime, trust and the legitimacy of legal institutions : a comparative … · 2019. 12. 18. ·...
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Crime, Trust and the Legitimacy of Legal Institutions:
A Comparative European Analysis
Jonathan Jackson, LSE Mike Hough, Institute for Criminal Policy Research, Birkbeck, University of London
Ben Bradford, University of Oxford Katrin Hohl, LSE Tia Pooler, LSE Jouni Kuha, LSE
European Social Survey
• Round 5 included a 45-item module on ‘trust in justice’:
– trust in the police and courts – legitimacy of the police and courts – punitive attitudes – cooperation with legal authorities – compliance with the law (including the morality of law-breaking and
the perceived risk of sanction)
• Main questionnaire also has measures of:
– the frequency and impact of worry about crime – victimisation experience
Trust in justice: A comparative European story
• 28 countries in the ESS:
– Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic , Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, Ukraine
• Data from 26 countries now available
Trust in the police and criminal courts
• Trust is the public belief that the police and courts have the right intentions and are competent to do what citizens trust them to do
• The ESS R5 module asks about people’s perceptions of the trustworthiness of the police (and separately, the criminal courts) to act effectively and fairly – Trust in effectiveness (are the police and courts effective?)
– Trust in procedural fairness (do they wield their power in fair ways?)
– Trust in distributive fairness (do they treat groups equally?)
Trust in police procedural fairness
Three measures, but let us focus on just one for now
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Finland
Denmark
Spain
Germany
Ireland
Sweden
Norway
Switzerland
United Kingdom
Belgium
Netherlands
Estonia
Slovenia
Croatia
France
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Hungary
Poland
Greece
Portugal
Bulgaria
Slovakia
Israel
Russian Federation
Ukraine
Citizens views on how often police make fair and impartial decisions: by country Not at all or not very often (as opposed to often or very often)
Trust in court effectiveness and procedural fairness
Belgium
Bulgaria
Switzerland Cyprus
Czech
Germany
Denmark
Estonia
Spain
Finland
France United Kingdom
Slovenia Croatia
Hungary
Ireland
Israel
Netherlands Norway
Poland
Portugal
Russia
Sweden
Greece
Slovakia
Ukraine
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
3 4 5 6 7
How
oft
en d
o co
urts
mak
e fa
ir, im
part
ial d
ecis
ions
bas
ed o
n av
aila
ble
evid
ence
? (h
ighe
r val
ues =
mor
e of
ten)
How often do courts make mistakes that let guilty people go free? (higher values=more often)
Trust in court's procedural fairness and competence
Reflective measurement and cross-national comparisons
• Our scales are designed to reflect specific latent variables
• Cross-national comparisons should thus be comparisons of latent means or proportions
• We are investigating measurement equivalence, conducting sensitivity analysis: – To what extent are estimates of latent quantities sensitive
to freeing up differential intercepts and factor weights?
Testing models of crime-control
• Early analysis showing that Tyler’s procedural justice and legitimacy framework works well across Europe
• These are the most important (and consistent) associations:
– Negative contact with the police – Trust in police procedural fairness – Legitimacy – Cooperation with the police & compliance with the law
Why do people cooperate with the police across Europe?
• Most important pathway:
– Negative contact with the police – Trust in police procedural fairness – Moral alignment with the police – Cooperation
The effect of police fairness and effectiveness on felt obligation to obey the police
procedural fairness effectiveness
The effect of police fairness and effectiveness on moral alignment with the police
What about compliance with the law? The ESS asked:
Testing this model across Europe • In general, the model fitted. Here is a graphical representation of the relative
weights of the predictors of buying stolen goods:
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
Moral alignment with the police
Obligation to obey the law
Obligation to obey the police
Morality of buying stolen goods
Risk of buying stolen goods
Final thoughts
• Work continues…
– But early analysis suggests strong support for a normative model of crime-control
• Institutions of justice should stress principles of procedural justice: – voice, neutrality, treatment with respect and dignity, and trust in
authorities.
• Procedural justice builds legitimacy
• …and legitimacy builds cooperation and compliance
What is legitimacy? 1. Felt obligation to obey
• The first aspect of legitimacy is people’s feelings of obligation to authority
– Legitimacy is a value that leads the person holding it to feel a responsibility and obligation to defer to the law and the decisions of legal authorities
– People recognise the power of authorities to dictate appropriate
behaviour
• they recognise the right of authorities to rule when they obligated to obey
Obligation to obey the police
European Social Survey Round 5 measures
What is legitimacy? 2. Moral alignment
• The second aspect of legitimacy is people’s feelings of moral alignment with authorities
– The police are a source of regulation, but they are also maintain order and secure justice
• Links to the idea of policing by consent – People are more likely to act in ways that support the police when
they feel aligned to the moral purpose and values of officers
Moral alignment with the police
European Social Survey Round 5 measures
Why do people cooperate with the police?
• The European Social Survey asked people:
– ‘If the situation arose, how likely would you be to do the following
three things …?’ Response alternatives were ‘very likely’, ‘somewhat likely’, ‘not too likely’ and ‘not likely at all’
– …call the police to report a crime they had witnessed – …report suspicious activity near their house – …provide information to the police to help find a suspected criminal
Buying something that might be stolen … • 94% said :not once in the past year • 3.8% said: once • 1.3% said: twice • 0.6% said: three or four times • 0.4% said: five times or more
• 94% said: not once • 6% said: at least once
– So the probability of a randomly selected individual in the sample saying they had bought something that might be stolen is 0.06
• Our question is whether this probability varies according to other characteristics:
– Perceived morality of the act – Perceived risk of getting caught – Perceived legitimacy of the police and law