Procedural Justice and Legitimacy in Policing

This brief focuses on the 'doing' of procedural justice: what the police can do to implement the principles of procedural justice, and how their actions can improve citizen perceptions of police legitimacy. Drawing on research from Australia (Mazerolle et al), the UK (Stanko, Bradford, Jackson etc al), the US (Tyler, Reisig, Weisburd), Israel (Jonathon-Zamir et al), Trinidad & Tobago (Kochel et al) and Ghana (Tankebe), the authors examine the practical ways that the police can approach engagement with citizens across a range of different types of interventions to embrace the principles of procedural justice, including:

·         problem-oriented policing

·         patrol

·         restorative justice

·         reassurance policing

·         and community policing.

Through these examples, the authors also examine some of the barriers for implementing procedurally just ways of interacting with citizens, and offer practical suggestions for reform. This work will be of interest for researchers in criminology and criminal justice focused on policing as well as policymakers.

Lorraine Mazerolle is a Research Professor in the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR) at the University of Queensland and an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow. She is also the Foundation Director and a Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS), a Chief Investigator in the Drug Policy Modelling Program, and the ISSR 'Policing and Security' Program Director. Professor Mazerolle leads a team of highly talented research scholars with expertise in experimental criminology, urban criminological theories, survey methods, advanced multi-level statistics and spatial statistics. She is the recipient of numerous US and Australian national competitive research grants on topics such as community regulation, problem-oriented policing, police technologies, civil remedies, street-level drug enforcement and policing public housing sites. Professor Mazerolle is a Fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology, immediate past President of the Academy, foundation Vice President of the American Society of Criminology Division of Experimental Criminology and author of scholarly books and articles on policing, drug law enforcement, third party policing, regulatory crime control, displacement of crime and crime prevention.