Confronting Issues of Legal Cynicism: Law Enforcement’s Role in Impeding Community Expectations for Informal Social Control

• In Event: Policing Impact on Collective Efficacy and Well-being in Communities

Abstract

Research on negative perceptions of law enforcement and mistrustful attitudes toward the legal system are often examined as part of the concept of legal cynicism, which is associated with higher levels of neighborhood crime. Most commonly evidenced in economically disadvantaged and minority communities, legal cynicism relates to community-level evaluations of the police as biased and ineffective. Many prior studies focus on the sources or criminal consequences of legal cynicism, yet neglect to describe how this neighborhood characteristic affects a community’s capacity for informal social. Residents’ uncertainty that police will behave in procedurally legitimate ways may infringe upon their ability to maintain strong conventional values, trust, and expectations for informal social control leading to the adoption of laissez-fair approaches to crime problems. The current study empirically examines both legal cynicism and perceptions of police efficacy to determine their roles in a community’s expectation for informal social control.

Authors

• Michelle Block, Georgia State University

• Barbara D. Warner, Georgia State University