Disparities in Procedural Justice: Police Behavior and Citizen Judgments

• In Event: Measuring Bias and Procedural Justice during Police-Community Encounters (Organized by the Division of Policing)

Abstract

Procedural justice in police-citizen encounters has been conceived as citizens’ subjective judgments and measured through surveys, and also as officers’ behavior and measured through systematic social observation. Survey-based studies of subjective procedural justice find that people of color report lower levels of procedural justice; SSO-based studies of behavioral procedural justice find no bias against people of color. Seldom have studies measured and analyzed procedural justice in both forms. We use SSO data to analyze disparities in behavioral procedural justice, taking account of the situational features of encounters with which the effects of citizens’ race/ethnicity could be confounded. We also use survey data on the same encounters to analyze disparities in citizens’ subjective judgments, taking account of behavioral procedural justice and situational factors. From the results we draw conclusions about the nature and sources of disparities.

Authors

• Robert E. Worden, University at Albany, SUNY / The John Finn Institute

• Sarah J. McLean, John F. Finn Institute

• Danielle L. Reynolds, University at Albany, SUNY / The John Finn Institute