Normative and instrumental judgements of policing and their relative impacts on police empowerment during protracted conflict

ABSTRACT

Why do citizens living under conditions of protracted conflict empower the police with greater discretionary authority? Relying on survey data of community perceptions, this study compares the relative impact that normative and instrumental judgements of policing have on the public’s willingness to empower the police with greater discretionary authority in a context of protracted conflict located in sub-Saharan Africa. Results from this study of 323 residents living in Kismayo city in southern Somalia suggest that both normative and instrumental judgements matter for empowering police to fight crime. Moreover, the perception that the police are representative of local clans is also significantly associated with police empowerment. Accordingly, these findings suggest support for the notion that there does not always exist a “zero-sum game” between normative and instrumental judgements, particularly in a sociopolitical context little studied within the policing literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Conflict
• police empowerment
• procedural fairness
• effectiveness
• distributive fairness

Acknowledgments

I want to thank the reviewers for their helpful feedback on the earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

There are no conflicts of interests.

Ethics approval

The current study was undertaken with Institutional Review Board Approval from American University (Protocol #: IRB-2019-275), approved on May 24, 2019

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17467586.2023.2218899

Notes

1. In contrast to rational legal legitimacy, Mclean and Nix do argue that an unbounded relationship does exist when individuals legitimate police through traditional means (see McLean & Nix, 2022 for a more detailed discussion). Our study, however, conceptualizes and measures legitimacy in the traditional rational legal way using trust and obedience.

2. It is also worth noting that during the data collection period, there existed an extra 110 police officers on the force comprised of federal police and ex-security force personnel who did not undergo the RBPP/JPP programme and were not trained under AMISOM.

3. The last official census was conducted in 1975. While there was another census conducted between 1985 and 1986, the results were never released to the public.

4. Questions used to capture police empowerment:

(i) Stop and Question: Do you believe the police have the right to stop and question people on the street?

(ii) Provide Protection: Do you believe the police should have the power to decide which areas of the city should receive the most police protection?

(iii) Deal with Crime: Do you believe the police, because of their training and experience, are best able to decide how to deal with crime in your neighbourhood?

(iv) Fight Crime: Do you believe the police should have the power to do whatever they think is needed to fight crime?

(v) Control Crime: Do you believe that if we give enough power to the police, they will be able to effectively control crime?

5. Questions used to capture procedural justice:

(i) Fair Treatment: Do the police treat people fairly?

(ii) Dignity and Respect: Do the police treat everyone in your neighbourhood with dignity and respect?

(iii) Equal Treatment: Do the police treat everyone in your community equally?

(iv) Voice: Do the police give people a chance to express their views before making decisions?

(v) Respect Rights: Do the police respect people’s rights?

6. Questions used to capture police effectiveness:

(i) Controlling Crime: Are the police effective at controlling crime in your neighbourhood?

(ii) Quick Response: Do the police in your neighbourhood respond quickly when people call them for help?

(iii) Easy Assistance: Is it easy to get assistance from the police in your neighbourhood?

7. Question used to capture distributive fairness:

(i) Distributive Fairness: Do the police in your neighbourhood provide the same quality of service to all residents (including minority clans)?

8. Questions used to capture legitimacy:

(i) Obedience:

(a) Obey the Law: Do you believe the police always have the right to make people obey the law?

(ii) Institutional Trust:

(a) Trustworthiness: The Jubbaland police are trustworthy

9. For a more detailed discussion on the police legitimacy debate and a summary of other studies that measure legitimacy using obedience and trust see Trinkner, 2019.

10. Question used to capture clan representation:

Clan Representation: Is the Jubbaland police force representative of the local clans/communities?

11. See Ray, 2003.

12. The results of our analysis below demonstrate that despite being highly correlated, both explanatory variables maintain a statistically significant relationship with the outcome.

13. Care was taken to estimate the relationships between the competing antecedents (procedural fairness and effectiveness), as well as the intervening variable (distributive fairness) and controls, on the one hand, and police legitimacy, on the other hand. These results can be found in the appendix section and suggest that both instrumental and normative judgements are associated with improved views on police legitimacy. Moreover. distributive fairness, as a moderator between procedural fairness and legitimacy, is not only impacted by procedural fairness in a statistically significant way but is also associated with improved attitudes towards police legitimacy.

14. For more discussion on how conflict creates avenues for increased criminal activities see Bayley and Perito, 2010.

15. As it stood during the data collection period for this study, other than the Ogaadeen, other clans with significant representation within the force included the Harti (15.9%, Mareehaan (15.3%), Jareerweyne (8%) and Hawiye (7.2%). Other clans with less than 5% representation within the force include the Awrmale, Ashraaf, Awrtable, Bajuni, Digil, Dir, Geri, Ogaadeen, Leelkase, Rahanweyn, Wardei and other Kumade clans.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa;

Notes on contributors

Daisy Muibu

Dr. Daisy Muibu is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a Research Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research examines the relationship between terrorism, domestic security sector actors, counterterrorism/counterinsurgency, the public, and civil conflict.