Gendered perceptions of procedural (in)justice in police encounters

ABSTRACT

Paramount to effective public safety and perception of the police is the public’s experiences. Looking through the lens of procedural justice, we examine implications of citizen-gender perceptions during police interactions. We expect that, despite invariant implementation of procedural justice, public perceptions will vary depending on both officer and respondent gender. We use a 2 × 2 factorial vignette design to measure the relationship between officers’ behavior as consistent or inconsistent with procedural justice and respondent attitudes toward those behaviors. Respondents’ (N = 1028) perceptions were measured based on antagonistic feelings, positive personal qualities, fear, and respect. Results reflect expectations; female officers are perceived differently than male officers despite invariant levels of procedural justice implementation in three out of four categories (excluding respect). Results strengthen the existing body of work concerning the significance of procedural justice and add to the growing understanding of the effects of gender perceptions in the sphere of law enforcement.

KEYWORDS:

• Women policing
• procedural justice
• survey experiment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Ordinal regression was also conducted with no discrepancies to note. This would be appropriate for our dependent variables fear and respect but we use linear regression for consistent interpretation. The combined scales for antagonistic feelings and positive personal qualities are large enough to warrant our chosen regression technique.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Allene R. Chiesman Center for Democracy.

Notes on contributors

Julia Marin Hellwege

Julia Marin Hellwege is an Assistant Professor at the University of South Dakota in the Department of Political Science. She is also affiliated with the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program in the College of Arts & Sciences. Her primary research concentration lies in the interaction between political institutions and identity, particularly as related to the political representation of women and other marginalized identities, including race and ethnicity.

Thomas Mrozla

Thomas Mrozla is a tenure-track, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of South Dakota in the Department of Political Science. His research interests include police accountability, fear of crime, and rural policing.

Keenan Knutelski

Keenan Knutelski is a student of the Masters of Public Administration program at the University of South Dakota. He is also currently a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Political Science & Criminal Justice at the University of South Dakota. His B.A. was in Political Science and History from Black Hills State University.