Social identity and procedural justice in police encounters with the public: results from a randomised controlled trial

Abstract

The role of social identity in shaping citizen views of police is central to the group-value model (GVM). The GVM suggests that the relationship between public perceptions of fair treatment and views of police legitimacy will be tempered by social identity. Our paper employs a randomised field trial of procedural justice dialogue – the Queensland Community Engagement Trial – to test the role of social identity in the GVM. Under randomised field trial conditions we find that social identity is connected to perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy, but that it does not moderate the effect of procedural justice on legitimacy. We discuss the implications of this finding, concluding that when police use procedurally just dialogue in encounters with the public, they can enhance perceptions of police, regardless of social identification.

Keywords:

• procedural justice
• social identity
• police legitimacy
• group-value model

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the team of researchers from The University of Queensland (Institute for Social Science Research) and Griffith University who participated in a variety of ways to bring this trial to fruition. The partnership between the research team and the Queensland Police Service is particularly acknowledged. The views expressed in this material are those of the authors and are not those of the Queensland Police Service. Responsibility for any errors of omission or commission remains with the authors. The Queensland Police Service expressly disclaims any liability for any damage resulting from the use of the material contained in this publication and will not be responsible for any loss, howsoever arising, from use or reliance on this material.

Notes

1. With the exception of one operation where a significant rain event led officers to hand out 285 surveys.

2. For a detailed outline of the survey measures see Mazerolle et al. (2012) and Mazerolle et al. (2013a).

3. To fit with recent theoretical developments in legitimacy theory (e.g. Jackson et al. 2012) we have changed the names of these variables for the current paper (i.e. ‘consistency of views’ in Mazerolle et al. 2013a is changed to ‘moral alignment’ in the current paper).

4. For further information regarding the findings of the QCET see Mazerolle et al. (2013a) and Mazerolle et al. (2012).

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this paper was funded, in its entirety, by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS).