Examining the Relationship Between Procedural Justice, Perceptions of Police Legitimacy and Self-Identification

• In Event: Perception, Identity, and Encounter-Specific Legitimacy

Abstract

The main goal of this study is to explore the temporal relationship between procedural justice, legitimacy, and self-identification. Procedural justice and legitimacy assessments may be related to how offenders self-identify and think about crime, but the exact nature of these relationships is still unclear. Gaps in research knowledge include how changes in procedural justice and legitimacy perceptions may be linked to changes in various aspects of self-identification and criminal cognition, especially self-esteem, prosocial aspirations, perceived personal rewards of crime, and moral engagement or disengagement. This focus is important because it has been shown that changes in the cognition and self-identification of offenders usually accompany desistance from crime. Relying on data from the Pathways to Desistance study, the current study explores these relationships by taking a longitudinal approach in investigating within-individual changes in procedural justice, police legitimacy, and different aspects of self-identification and criminal cognition over time among an offender sample. Results show that changes in procedural justice perceptions and legitimacy attitudes were accompanied by changes in offender self-identification and cognition. These results matter for better understanding the desistance process and role that legal attitudes and police-citizen interactions play in how offenders think about themselves and the law.

Authors

• Qassim Bolaji, Auburn University at Montgomery

• Christi Metcalfe, University of South Carolina