Police Legitimacy or Dull Compulsion?: Assessing Why People Comply with Laws in Nigeria

• In Event: Predicting Cooperation with Police and Compliance with the Law

Abstract

Do Nigerians comply with the law because they perceive police as legitimate or because of dull compulsion? Studies have shown that people’s motivation to ascribe legitimacy to the police and voluntarily comply with the law is linked to procedural justice and police effectiveness. Guided by prior research in Africa, this study explores whether public perceptions of procedural justice are more or less influential than perceptions of police effectiveness in predicting perceptions of police legitimacy and by extension voluntary compliance with the law. Specifically, this study extends boundaries of research beyond current theorisation of Tyler’s procedural justice model, by incorporating other factors that may be unique to Nigerians and their sociocultural environment (e.g., predatory policing, police corruption, experience of police abuse, police colonial origin, dull compulsion). Using cross-sectional survey data collected from Southwest Nigeria, this study confirmed that perceptions of police effectiveness and procedural justice both predicted voluntary compliance with the law, but procedural justice was not related to perceptions of police legitimacy. A significant relationship was not established between dull compulsion and compliance with the law; however, dull compulsion was significantly predicted by other variables in the study. The implications of this current finding are discussed.

Authors

• Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabi, Griffith University

• Kristina Murphy, Griffith University

• Philip Stenning, Griffith University