Overview
In many ways, these are the best times for legitimacy in criminology. For decades, legitimacy had been peripheral in criminological research although it was a central concept in both political science and sociology. In many ways, this inattention to legitimacy was due to a general historical tendency for criminologists to avoid normative issues. The situation today is different; legitimacy is now an established topic in criminological studies, with an explosion in empirical research about its antecedents and consequences. The impetus for the remarkable change of fortune for legitimacy can undoubtedly be traced to the pioneering work of Tom Tyler, beginning with his Why People Obey the Law. Tyler’s procedural justice arguments have been studied in different contexts, focusing principally on everyday interactions between criminal justice agents – such as prisons and police officers – and citizens. The results from these studies consistently show that public perceptions of...
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Tankebe, J. (2014). Police Self-Legitimacy. In: Bruinsma, G., Weisburd, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_470
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