Legitimacy and Policing

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

The importance of legitimacy lies in the argument that people more willingly comply with legal authorities when they trust them and view them as entitled to be obeyed. This willing compliance is an important supplement to traditional deterrence-based approaches to compliance, and facilitates more effective and efficient policing. Further, the importance of encouraging public cooperation with and support for the empowerment of the police is increasingly being recognized as equally central to the success of policing efforts to manage crime and urban disorder and legitimacy also encourages cooperation and empowerment. Hence, legitimacy is a key attribute for authorities such as the police. However, there is evidence that police legitimacy is low, particularly among minority group members. This research addresses this issue by exploring the psychology of legitimacy to provide a better picture of what sustains or undermines public trust and confidence in the police. The project builds upon a recently completed study of a diverse sample of 1,650 New Yorkers, interview about their views on the New York Police Department (NYPD). These respondents will be recontacted and, where possible, reinterviewed one year after their initial interviews to create a panel design. This dataset will then be used to explore the dynamics of legitimacy on two levels: personal and organizational. On the personal level, the panel data will be used to more rigorously test the arguments about the nature of the dynamics of legitimacy during personal experiences with legal authorities. The panel data also are used to more effectively examine the psychological dynamics influencing legitimacy. In this case, however, those dynamics involve the influence of legitimacy on everyday compliance and cooperation, as well as on the willingness to empower legal authorities. In addition, a panel dataset will allow the influence of procedural justice on legitimacy to be more effectively modeled. These analyses explore the role of legitimacy in the authority dynamics underlying the relationship between community residents, the police, and the law. In addition, they test the potential for managing those dynamics via process-based strategies of regulation. Hence, the study will have both theoretical and policy-related value.