Procedural justice, perceived injustice, legal cynicism and police performance: understanding the decision to report victimisation to the police in Caribbean countries

ABSTRACT

Extant literature has identified that victims’ decisions to cooperate with police is often related to how they perceive justice, the legal system, and law enforcement. While this line of inquiry has been extensively conducted in the context of developed world, fewer studies have examined this nexus within the context of developing countries. To fill this research gap, the current study brings into focus seven Caribbean countries surveyed by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Using logistic regression models, the research aims to examine how individuals’ beliefs about justice and the criminal justice system affect their crime reporting behaviour. In particular, we evaluate the roles of four factors (procedural justice, performance, perceived justice, and legal cynicism) on the reporting of violent and property crimes. Our results revealed victims of violent crime were more likely to report these crimes to the police when they believe the police are effective. In addition, perceived justice was positively associated with reporting of violent and property crimes in the Caribbean countries. On the contrary, individuals who believed high levels of legal cynicism were less likely to report violent crimes. Implications for future research and policies relevant to the research context as well as to developing countries are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Procedural justice
• police legitimacy
• legal cynicism
• crime reporting
• Caribbean

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Existing regional boundaries were used when the potential sampling units for each region were essentially homogenous, as determined by the most recent census conducted in each nation.

2 The most recent population census was used to determine the proper proportion of sampling units identified in each rural or urban region.

3 The UN employed a cluster sampling technique with predetermined gender quotas. The cluster was usually a community block, or a row of dwellings determined by the data collection field manager.

4 Selected subjects needed to fit the sampling procedure, which had a predetermined gender and age quota; in cases where two persons were of the same sex and age group, the one with the nearest birthday was selected.

5 Weighting protocols varied by nation based on age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, and area of the country.

6 See Alda et al., 2017 for more information about the data collection. All necessary ethics approvals were approved.

7 Information on CFA Findings for the four scales is available upon request.

8 In the original dataset, ethnic minority status was included and measured as 1 for ‘minority’ and 0 for ‘other.’ While we initially ran analyses of models that include ethnic minority status as a variable, the results consistently showed this variable to be insignificant, thus this variable was not included. Previous literature shows that minority status is one of the more important factors contributing to crime reporting, particularly in the context of the United States. However, in Caribbean countries this phenomenon is not as salient given the different histories and experiences with colonisation. For a more in-depth discussion, see Bennett & Morabito, 2006. Accordingly, we decided not to report models with ethnic minority status as a variable in the paper, but the results are available upon request.

9 Our analyses of using weighted and unweighted data are consistent. Unweighted results are available upon request.