Getting a Little More PJ in Your Day

Abstract

In the previous chapter, we demonstrated how important it is that the public believe the police are legitimate, and we identified procedural justice (PJ) as the key antecedent of legitimacy. Many different types of police tactics, interventions, and approaches could incorporate elements of PJ and improve public perceptions of legitimacy, but what exactly might comprise PJ-enhancing strategies and interventions? In this chapter, we draw on an extensive collection of studies that were part of a systematic search and review that described evaluations of interventions designed to build police legitimacy. In our reading of this literature, we identified a range of different policing interventions that have incorporated PJ and/or sought to improve legitimacy. We begin by summarizing how we collected the police studies and then discuss how we categorized the interventions into four broad groups according to the typology put forth by Weisburd and Eck (2004, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 593, 42–65). For each of the broad policing categories (community policing, problem-oriented policing, hot-spots policing, and the standard model of policing), we describe how these policing approaches can enhance legitimacy and how including and/or emphasizing elements of PJ can best achieve this goal.