Viewing Things Differently: The Dimensions of Public Perceptions of Police Legitimacy
2012/12/19 by Justice Tankebe · 891 citations
Environmental Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Conflation #Crime Patterns and Interventions #Empirical evidence #Empirical research #Epistemology #Feeling #Law #Law and economics #Legitimacy #Obligation #Perception #Policing Practices and Perceptions #Political science #Politics #Power (physics) #Procedural justice #Psychology #Social psychology #Sociology #Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.2012.00291.x
published in Criminology 51(1), 103-135 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2012/12/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Abstract
Legitimacy (or “the right to exercise power”) is now an established concept in criminological analysis, especially in relation to policing. Substantial empirical evidence shows the importance of legitimacy in securing law‐abiding behavior and cooperation from citizens. Yet adequate theorization has lagged behind empirical evidence, and there has been a conflation of legitimacy with the cognate concepts of “trust” and of “obligation to obey the law.” By drawing on the work of Beetham (1991) and others (e.g., Bottoms and Tankebe, ), this study tests the hypothesis that the contents of the multiple dimensions of police legitimacy comprise procedural fairness, distributive fairness, lawfulness, and effectiveness. The study also investigates the relative influence of legitimacy and feelings of obligation on citizens’ willingness to cooperate with the police. Using data from London, the results substantiate the hypothesized dimensions of police legitimacy. In addition, legitimacy was found to exhibit both a direct influence on cooperation that is independent of obligation and an indirect influence that flows through people's felt obligations to obey the police. Implications for future research are discussed.
Citations
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