Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Legal Socialization and Self-Reported Criminal Offending: The Role of Procedural Justice and Legal Orientations

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Quantitative Criminology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

The procedural justice model of legal socialization holds that personal fairness judgments influence criminal offending directly and indirectly, via legal orientations (e.g. legitimacy and legal cynicism). This study used longitudinal data to empirically scrutinize these arguments.

Methods

Using 11 waves of data from the Pathways to Desistance study (i.e. baseline and 10 follow-up interviews), a series of time-lagged, multi-level longitudinal regression models with time-varying and time-stable measures decomposed into between- and within-individual components were estimated.

Results

The estimates from the linear mixed-effects models showed that procedural justice judgments directly influence legitimacy and, though relatively more limited, legal cynicism over time both between- and within-individuals. Test statistics indicated too that positive procedural justice judgments reduce involvement in criminal offending between individuals. However, legitimacy is found to significantly mediate the effect of personal procedural justice judgments. The effect of vicarious procedural justice judgments remained statistically significant in explaining differences in criminal offending. As for the within-individual model, neither procedural justice scale predicted offending. However, legal cynicism did have a direct significant effect in the within-individual offending model.

Conclusions

The findings support key elements legal socialization theory, especially the premise that the way in which criminal justice authorities treat the individuals they come into contact with influences (albeit indirectly) subsequent compliance with the law.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The objective here is to provide readers with an idea of the relative strength of the hypothesized relationships in different studies. While some readers might prefer standardized partial regression coefficients, different reporting practices from one study to the next did not allow for the reporting such estimates. Accordingly, bivariate estimates are used because they were widely available and, though less robust than standardized regression estimate, because they allow readers to make judgments regarding the relative strength of relationships.

  2. A small but growing body of legal socialization research has employed samples of criminal justice involved individuals, including people who are incarcerated (Reisig and Meško 2009; Baker et al. 2014), individuals with recent contact with the police or courts (Tyler and Huo 2002), and court defendants (Baker 2017).

  3. For more information on the procedural justice measures can be found at www.pathwaysstudy.pitt.edu/codebook/procedural-justice-sf.html. The full list of procedural justice items can be found in Augustyn (2016, pp. 277–279) and an exhaustive list of items can be found in Piquero et al. (2005, p. 278).

  4. Although confirmatory factor modeling would help determine whether combining police and court judgments into personal and vicarious procedural justice measures is empirically justified, the available Pathways data do not provide the individual survey items necessary to estimate such models. There is reason to conclude that the constructs are valid. First, prior work has demonstrated the consistent trajectories for personal procedural justice of both police and courts over time using the Pathways data (which differ from the trajectories of vicarious procedural justice; see Kaiser 2016). Further, when assessing the correlations for the procedural justice measures—personal/police, personal/courts, vicarious/police, and vicarious/courts—the two personal measures are more strongly correlated relative to the correlations for mixed sources (e.g. personal/police and vicarious police). This pattern held when evaluating the vicarious measures. Finally, the distinction between personal and vicarious (also known as general and specific) procedural justice is consistent with prior research (see Gau 2014; Murphy et al. 2014).

  5. Unconditional growth curve models were used to assess the magnitude of the variation within individuals for the variables of theoretical interest. According to the within-individual (level 1) error terms in the models, there is statistically significant within-individual variation across time for all for variables: personal procedural justice (b = .507, SE = .004, p < .001) vicarious procedural justice (b = .468, SE = .046, p < .001), legitimacy (b = .387, SE = .003, p < .001), and legal cynicism (b = .433, SE = .003, p < .001).

  6. To ensure the robustness of observed findings, separate analyses were conducted whereby personal and vicarious procedural justice judgments of police and courts were disaggregated. Specifically, models were estimated with separate measures for personal and vicarious procedural justice of police and separate measures for vicarious and personal procedural justice of courts. The procedural justice measures in these subsequent analyses performed as follows: between-individual differences of police procedural justice (b = − .192, SE = .052, p < .001, for personal and b = − .183, SE = .047, p < .001, for vicarious); within-individual change in police procedural justice (b = .032, SE = .022, for personal and b = .021, SE = .027, for vicarious); between-individual differences in courts procedural justice (b = − .063, SE = .054, for personal and b = − .106, SE = .046, p < .01, for vicarious); and, within-individual change in courts procedural justice (b = − .063, SE = .054, for personal and b = − .012, SE = .026, for vicarious). Though some modest differences between the police and courts measures were observed, the results are very similar in terms of sign and significance level.

References

  • Augustyn M (2015) The (ir)relevance of procedural justice in pathways to crime. Law Hum Behav 39(4):388–401

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Augustyn M (2016) Updating perceptions of (in)justice. J Res Crime Delinq 53(2):255–286

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker T (2017) Exploring the relationship of shared race/ethnicity with court actors, perceptions of court procedural justice, and obligation to obey among male offenders. Race Justice 7(1):87–102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker T, Pelfrey W, Bedard L, Dhungana K, Gertz M, Golden K (2014) Female inmates’ procedural justice perceptions of the police and courts: Is there a spill-over of police effects? Crim Justice Behav 41(2):144–162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bandura A, Barbarnelli C, Caprara G, Pastorelli C (1996) Mechanisms of moral disengagement in the exercise of moral agency. J Pers Soc Psychol 71(2):364–374

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baron R, Kenny D (1986) The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. J Pers Soc Psychol 51(6):1173–1182

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bates L, Allen A, Watson B (2016) The influence of the elements of procedural justice and speed camera enforcement on young novice driver self-reported speeding. Accid Anal Prev 92:34–42

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blood E, Cheng D (2011) The use of mixed models for the analysis of mediated data with time-dependent predictors. J Environ Public Health 2011:1–12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blood E, Cabral H, Heeren T, Cheng D (2010) Performance of mixed effects models in the analysis of mediated longitudinal data. BMC Med Res Methodol 10(1):16–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bottoms A, Tankebe J (2012) Beyond procedural justice: a dialogic approach to legitimacy in criminal justice. J Crim Law Criminol 102(1):119–170

    Google Scholar 

  • Bradford B, Jackson J, Hough M (2014) Police legitimacy in action: Lessons for theory and practice. In: Reisig M, Kane R (eds) The Oxford handbook on police and policing. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 551–570

    Google Scholar 

  • Cavanagh C, Cauffman E (2015) Viewing law and order: mothers’ and sons’ justice system legitimacy attitudes and juvenile recidivism. Psychol Public Policy Law 21(4):432–441

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fagan J, Piquero AR (2007) Rational choice and developmental influences on recidivism among adolescent felony offenders. J Empir Leg Stud 4(4):715–748

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fagan J, Tyler TR (2005) Legal socialization of children and adolescents. Soc Justice Res 18(3):217–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gau J (2011) The convergent and discriminant validity of procedural justice and police legitimacy: an empirical test of core theoretical propositions. J Crim Justice 39:489–498

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gau J (2014) Procedural justice and police legitimacy: a test of measurement and structure. Am J Crim Justice 39(2):187–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gau J (2015) Procedural justice, police legitimacy, and legal cynicism: a test for mediation effects. Police Pract Res 16(5):402–415

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirschi T (1969) Causes of delinquency. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmbeck G (2002) Post-hoc probing of significant moderational and mediational effects in studies of pediatric populations. J Pediatr Psychol 27(1):87–96

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huizinga D, Esbensen F, Weiher A (1991) Are there multiple paths to delinquency? J Crim Law Criminol 82(1):83–118

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jonathan-Zamir T, Mastrofski S, Moyal S (2015) Measuring procedural justice in police-citizen encounters. Justice Q 32(5):845–871

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaiser K (2016) Procedural justice and legal socialization among serious adolescent offenders: a longitudinal examination. Doctoral dissertation, retrieved from Digital Repository at Arizona State University (Order No. 10107547)

  • Kenny D, Korchmaros J, Bolger N (2003) Lower level mediation in multi-level models. Psychol Methods 8(2):115–128

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krull J, MacKinnon D (2001) Multi-level modeling and individual and group level mediated effects. Multivar Behav Res 36(2):249–277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacCoun R (2005) Voice, control, and belonging: the double-edged sword of procedural fairness. Annu Rev Law Soc Sci 1:171–201

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacKinnon D, Lockwood C, Hoffman J, West S, Sheets V (2002) A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychol Methods 7(1):83–104

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malhotra M, Singhal C, Shang G, Ployhart R (2014) A critical evaluation of alternative methods and paradigms for conducting mediation analysis in operations management research. J Oper Manage 32(4):127–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mathieu J, Taylor S (2007) A framework for testing medo-mediational relationships in organizational behavior. J Organ Behav 28(2):141–172

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mazerolle L, Bennett S, Davis J, Sargeant E, Manning M (2013) Procedural justice and police legitimacy: a systematic review of the research evidence. J Exp Criminol 9:245–274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCluskey J, Mastrofski S, Parks R (1999) To acquiesce or rebel: predicting citizen compliance with police requests. Police Q 2(4):389–416

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller W (1977) Cops and Bobbies: police authority in New York and London. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 1830–1870

    Google Scholar 

  • Mulvey E (2013) Research on pathways to desistance [Maricopa County, AZ and Philadelphia County, PA]: Subject Measures, 2000–2010. ICPSR29961-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR29961.v2

  • Mulvey E (2014) Research on pathways to desistance [Maricopa County, AZ and Philadelphia County, PA]: Calendar Data, 2000–2010 [Restricted]. ICPSR32282-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor]. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR32282.v2

  • Murphy K (2009) Public satisfaction with police: the importance of procedural justice and police performance in police-citizen encounters. Aust N Z J Criminol 42(2):159–187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murphy K, Tyler T, Curtis A (2009) Nurturing regulatory compliance: Is procedural justice effective when people question the legitimacy of law? Regul Gov 3:1–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murphy K, Mazerolle L, Bennett S (2014) Promoting trust in police: findings from a randomised experimental field trial of procedural justice policing. Policing Soc 24(4):405–424

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nagin D, Telep C (2017) Procedural justice and legal compliance. Annual review of law and social science, first published online February 22, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110316-113310

  • Nivette A, Eisner M, Malti T, Ribeaud D (2015) The social and developmental antecedents of legal cynicism. J Res Crime Delinq 52(2):270–298

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Papachristos A, Meares T, Fagan J (2012) Why do criminals obey the law? The influence of legitimacy and social networks on active gun offenders. J Crim Law Criminol 102:397–440

    Google Scholar 

  • Paternoster R, Brame R, Bachman R, Sherman L (1997) Do fair procedures matter? The effect of procedural justice on spousal assault. Law Soc Rev 31(1):163–204

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Penner E, Viljoen J, Douglas K, Roesch R (2014) Procedural justice versus risk factors for offending: predicting recidivism in youth. Law Hum Behav 38(3):225–237

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piquero A, Blumstein A, Brame R, Haapanen R, Mulvey E, Nagin D (2001) Assessing the impact of exposure time and incapacitation on longitudinal trajectories of criminal offending. J Adolesc Res 16(1):54–74

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piquero A, Fagan J, Mulvey E, Steinberg L, Odgers C (2005) Developmental trajectories of legal socialization among serious adolescent offenders. J Crim Law Criminol 96(1):267–298

    Google Scholar 

  • Piquero A, Schubert C, Brame R (2014) Comparing official and self-report records of offending across gender and race/ethnicity in a longitudinal study of serious youthful offenders. J Res Crime Delinq 51(4):526–546

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Preacher K (2015) Advances in mediation analysis: a survey and synthesis of new developments. Annu Rev Psychol 66(1):825–852

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Preacher K, Hayes A (2004) SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput 36(4):717–731

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raudenbush S, Bryk A (2002) Hierarchical linear models: applications and data analysis methods, vol 1, 2nd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks

    Google Scholar 

  • Reisig M (2007) Procedural justice and community policing: What shapes residents’ willingness to participate in crime prevention programs? Polic J Policy Pract 1(3):256–269

    Google Scholar 

  • Reisig M, Meško G (2009) Procedural justice, legitimacy, and prisoner misconduct. Psychol Crime Law 15(1):41–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reisig M, Bratton J, Gertz M (2007) The construct validity and refinement of process-based policing measures. Crim Justice Behav 34(7):1005–1028

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reisig M, Wolfe S, Holtfreter K (2011) Legal cynicism, legitimacy, and criminal offending: the nonconfounding effect of low self-control. Crim Justice Behav 38(2):1265–1279

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reisig M, Tankebe J, Meško G (2014) Compliance with the law in Slovenia: the role of procedural justice and police legitimacy. Eur J Crim Policy Res 20(2):250–276

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reiss A (1971) The police and the public. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Sampson R, Bartusch D (1998) Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of deviance: the neighborhood context of racial differences. Law Soc Rev 32(4):777–804

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schubert C, Mulvey E, Steinberg L, Cauffman E, Losoya S, Hecker T, Chassin L, Knight G (2004) Operational lessons from the pathways to desistance project. Youth Violence Juv Justice 2(3):237–255

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schubert C, Mulvey E, Pitzer L (2016) Differentiating serious adolescent offenders who exit the justice system from those who do not. Criminology 54(1):56–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Selig J, Preacher K (2009) Mediation models for longitudinal data in developmental research. Res Hum Dev 6(2–3):144–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sobel M (1982) Asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. Sociol Methodol 13:290–312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sunshine J, Tyler T (2003) The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law Soc Rev 37(3):513–547

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sweeten G (2012) Scaling criminal offending. J Quant Criminol 28(3):533–557

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sweeten G, Bushway SD, Paternoster R (2009) Does dropping out of school mean dropping into delinquency? Criminology 47(1):47–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sweeten G, Piquero A, Steinberg L (2013) Age and the explanation of crime, revisited. J Youth Adolesc 42(6):921–938

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tankebe J (2009) Public cooperation with the police in Ghana: Does procedural fairness matter? Criminology 47(4):1265–1293

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tankebe J (2013) Viewing things differently: the dimensions of public perceptions of police legitimacy. Criminology 51(1):103–135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tankebe J (2014) Police legitimacy. In: Reisig M, Kane R (eds) The Oxford handbook on police and policing. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 238–259

    Google Scholar 

  • Tankebe J, Reisig M, Wang X (2016) A multidimensional model of police legitimacy: a cross-cultural assessment. Law Hum Behav 40(1):11–22

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tatar J, Kaasa S, Cauffman E (2012) Perceptions of procedural justice among female offenders: time does not heal all wounds. Psychol Public Policy Law 18(2):268–296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thornberry T, Lizotte A, Krohn M, Farnworth M, Jang S (1994) Delinquent peers, beliefs, and delinquency behavior: a longitudinal test of interactional theory. Criminology 32(1):47–83

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Trinkner R, Cohn E (2014) Putting the “social” back in legal socialization: procedural justice, legitimacy, and cynicism in legal and nonlegal authorities. Law Hum Behav 38(6):602–617

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler T (1988) What is procedural justice?: Criteria used by citizens to assess the fairness of legal procedures. Law Soc Rev 22(1):103–136

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler T (1990) Why people obey the law. Yale University Press, New Haven

    Google Scholar 

  • Tyler T (2003) Procedural justice, legitimacy, and the effective rule of law. Crime Justice 30:283–357

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler T (2006) Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitimation. Annu Rev Psychol 57:375–400

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler T, Huo Y (2002) Trust in the law. Russell Sage, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Tyler T, Jackson J (2014) Popular legitimacy and the exercise of legal authority: motivating compliance, cooperation, and engagement. Psychol Policy Law 20(1):78–95

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ulmer J, Steffensmeier D (2014) The age and crime relationship: social variation, social explanations. In: Beaver K, Boutwell B, Barnes JC (eds) The nurture versus biosocial debate in criminology. Sage, Newbury Park, pp 377–396

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Walden T, Harris V, Catron T (2003) How I feel: a self-report measure of emotional arousal and regulation for children. Psychol Assess 15(3):399–412

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weinberger D, Schwartz G (1990) Distress and restraint as superordinate dimensions in self-reported adjustment: a typological perspective. J Pers 58(2):381–417

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolfe S, McLean K, Pratt T (2016) I learned it by watching you: legal socialization and intergenerational transmission of legitimacy attitudes. Br J Criminol first published online April 7, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azw038

  • Worsham R (1996) The effect of tax authority behavior on taxpayer compliance: a procedural justice approach. J Am Tax Assoc 18(2):19–39

    Google Scholar 

  • Zhang Z, Zyphur M, Preacher K (2009) Testing multi-level mediation using hierarchical linear models: problems and solutions. Organ Res Methods 12(4):695–719

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank for Gary Sweeten for his statistical advice and helpful comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Legal Studies, University of Mississippi, 203 Odom Hall, University, MS, 38677-1848, USA

    Kimberly Kaiser

  2. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, 411 N. Central Ave, Suite 600, Phoenix, AZ, 85004, USA

    Michael D. Reisig

Authors
  1. Kimberly Kaiser
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael D. Reisig
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kimberly Kaiser.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kaiser, K., Reisig, M.D. Legal Socialization and Self-Reported Criminal Offending: The Role of Procedural Justice and Legal Orientations. J Quant Criminol 35, 135–154 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-017-9375-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-017-9375-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation