Abstract
The purpose of this study was to determine whether a person’s attitude toward offending correlated with his or her self-reported involvement in offending behavior above and beyond the contributions of perceived procedural justice, institutional legitimacy beliefs, age, gender, ethnic minority status, and education. Using cross-sectional data provided by 52,458 participants from the fifth round of the European Social Survey (ESS), the current study sought to answer this question. The results of a multiple regression analysis performed on the total sample of participants revealed support for the notion that attitude toward offending was associated with self-reported minor offending in the past 5 years after controlling for procedural justice, institutional legitimacy, age, gender, ethnic minority status, and education. In fact, a negative attitude toward offending correlated significantly better with self-reported minor offending than either procedural justice or institutional legitimacy. A belief in the wrongfulness of offending behavior, it would seem, may serve as a link between perceived procedural justice and institutional legitimacy, on the one hand, and compliance with the law or decreased offending behavior, on the other hand.
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This study was approved by the Kutztown University Institutional Review Board (IRB30032018).
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Walters, G.D. Does Attitude Toward Offending Play a Role in a Person’s Compliance with the Law? Procedural Justice, Institutional Legitimacy, and the Perceived Wrongfulness of Offending Behavior. J Police Crim Psych 34, 303–313 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-019-09328-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-019-09328-3