Validating the Police Legitimacy Scale with a Canadian Sample
Publication: Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Volume 61, Number 4
Abstract
Abstract
For years, scholars and law enforcement agencies have been interested in examining the public’s perceptions of police legitimacy. However, previous studies have operationalized “police legitimacy” in a wide variety of ways. In an attempt to standardize this construct, Tankebe, Reisig, and Wang (2016) recently developed and validated the Police Legitimacy Scale using samples from the United States and Ghana. To determine the validity of this scale in a Canadian context, we had 2,962 Canadian community members complete a demographics survey as well as Tankebe et al.’s (2016) Police Legitimacy Scale. Descriptive statistics suggest the majority of responses to the scale do not differ across demographic factors, such as gender or race. Results from a confirmatory factor analysis indicate the previously proposed four-factor model of police legitimacy (lawfulness, procedural fairness, distributive fairness, and effectiveness) strongly fits participants’ responses.
Résumé
Depuis des années, chercheurs et organismes d’application de la loi s’intéressent à la perception du public envers la légitimité de la police. Par contre, des études antérieures ont opérationnalisé la « légitimité de la police » de nombreuses façons. Afin de normaliser ce modèle, Tankebe, Reisig et Wang (2016) ont récemment développé et validé l’Échelle de légitimité de la police à l’aide d’échantillons venus des États-Unis et du Ghana. Afin de déterminer la validité de cette échelle dans un contexte canadien, nous avons demandé à 2 962 membres de communautés canadiennes de remplir un sondage démographique ainsi que l’Échelle de légitimité de la police de Tankebe et coll. (2016). Les statistiques descriptives suggèrent que la majorité des réponses ne varient pas d’un facteur démographique à l’autre, notamment le sexe ou la race. Les résultats d’une analyse factorielle confirmatoire indiquent que le modèle à quatre facteurs précédemment proposé pour la légitimité de la police (caractère licite, équité procédurale, équité distributive et efficacité) s’arrime aux réponses des participants.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
| Factor | White Mean | Black Mean | Cohen’s d | Indigenous Mean | Cohen’s d | Asian Mean | Cohen’s d | East Indian Mean | Cohen’s d | Hispanic Mean | Cohen’s d | Middle Eastern Mean | Cohen’s d | Other Mean | Cohen’s d |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawfulness | 2.81 | 2.60 | −.34 | 2.63 | −.33 | 2.88 | .13 | 2.89 | .15 | 2.79 | −.03 | 2.54 | −.45 | 2.65 | −.30 |
| Procedural fairness | 2.81 | 2.68 | −.22 | 2.62 | −.32 | 2.87 | .11 | 2.97 | .28 | 2.74 | −.11 | 2.41 | −.58 | 2.65 | −.30 |
| Distributive fairness | 2.63 | 2.58 | −.07 | 2.42 | −.32 | 2.74 | .17 | 3.01 | .64 | 2.77 | .22 | 2.25 | −.50 | 2.40 | −.37 |
| Police effectiveness | 2.71 | 2.71 | −.02 | 2.47 | −.35 | 2.80 | .13 | 2.97 | .40 | 2.74 | .04 | 2.78 | .09 | 2.58 | −.19 |
References
Beetham, David. 2013. The Legitimation of Power. New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.
Bentler, Peter M., and Douglas G. Bonett. 1980. Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures. Psychological Bulletin 88(3): 588–606.
Berry, Sujata. 2016. Sammy Yatim family lawyer on his fight for police accountability. CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-february-4-2016-1.3433226/sammy-yatim-family-lawyer-on-his-fight-for-police-accountability-1.3433310
Bottoms, Anthony, and Justice Tankebe. 2012. Beyond procedural justice: A dialogic approach to legitimacy in criminal justice. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 102(1): 119–70.
Bradford, Ben, Aziz Huq, Jonathan Jackson, and Benjamin Roberts. 2014. What price fairness when security is at stake? Police legitimacy in South Africa. Regulations and Governance 8(2): 246–68.
Brown, Ben, and Reed Benedict. 2002. Perceptions of the police: Past findings, methodological issues, conceptual issues and policy implications. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 25(3): 543–80.
Bureau of Justice Statistics n.d. Community policing. https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=81.
Cao, Liqun. 2014. Aboriginal people and confidence in the police. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 56(5): 499–526.
Cao, Liqun. 2015. Differentiating confidence in the police, trust in the police, and satisfaction with the police. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 38(2): 239–49.
Cao, Liqun, Yung-Lien Lai, and Rouhui Zhao. 2012. Shades of blue: Confidence in the police in the world. Journal of Criminal Justice 40(1): 40–49.
Cao, Liqun, and Yuning Wu. 2017. Confidence in the police by race: Taking stock and charting new directions. Police Practice and Research 20(1): 3–17.
Cheng, Hongming. 2015. Factors influencing public satisfaction with the local police: A study is Saskatoon, Canada. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 38(4): 690–704.
Chow, Henry P.H. 2012. Attitudes towards police in Canada: A study of perceptions of university students in a western Canadian city. International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences 7(1): 508–23.
Gabbidon, Shaun L., George E. Higgins, and Hillary Potter. 2011. Race, gender, and the perception of recently experiencing unfair treatment by the police: Exploratory results from an all-black sample. Criminal Justice Review 36(1): 5–21.
Ho, Taiping, and Jerome McKean. 2004. Confidence in the police and perceptions of risk. Western Criminology Review 5(2): 108–18.
Hong, Jackie. 2016. Pollster finds rapid drop in public trust in police. Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/01/31/pollster-finds-rapid-drop-in-public-trust-in-police.html
Hooper, Daire, Joseph Coughlan, and Michael Mullen. 2008. Structural equation modelling: Guidelines for determining model fit. Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods 6(1): 53–60.
Hough, Mike, Jonathan Jackson, and Ben Bradford. 2013. Legitimacy, trust, and compliance: An empirical test of procedural justice theory using the European social survey. In Legitimacy and Criminal Justice: An International Exploration, ed. Justice Tankebe and Alison Liebling. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Hu, Li-tze, and Peter M. Bentler. 1999. Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal 6(1): 1–55.
Institute for Economics and Peace. 2018. Global peace index 2018: Measuring peace in a complex world. http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/06/Global-Peace-Index-2018-2.pdf.
Jackson, Jonathan, Ben Bradford, Mike Hough, Andy Myhill, Paul Quinton, and Tom R. Tyler. 2012. Why do people comply with the law? Legitimacy and the influence of legal institutions. British Journal of Criminology 52(6): 1051–71.
Kelman, Herbert C., and V. Lee Hamilton. 1989. Crimes of Obedience: Toward a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Kenny, David A. 2014. Measuring model fit. http://davidakenny.net/cm/fit.htm
Lerner, Melvin J., and Susan Clayton. 2011. Justice and Self-Interest: Two Fundamental Motives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
MacCallum, Robert C., Michael W. Browne, and Hazuki M. Sugawara. 1996. Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling. Psychological Methods 1(2): 130–49.
Mazerolle, Lorraine, Emma Antrobus, Sarah Bennett, and Tom R. Tyler. 2013. Shaping citizen perceptions of police legitimacy: A randomized field trial of procedural justice. Criminology 51(1): 33–63.
Mazerolle, Lorraine, Sarah Bennet, Jacqueline Davis, Elise Sargeant, and Matthew Manning. 2013. Legitimacy in policing: A systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews 9(1): 1–146.
Milgram, Stanley. 1963. Behavioural study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67(4): 371–78.
Muthén, Bengt O., and Linka K. Muthén 1998–2017. Mplus User’s Guide. Los Angeles, CA: Author.
Nofziger, Stacey, and L. Susan Williams. 2005. Perceptions of police and safety in a small town. Police Quarterly 8(2): 248–70.
O’Connor, Christopher D. 2008. Citizen attitudes toward the police in Canada. An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 31(4): 578–95.
Reisig, Michael D., and Roger B. Parks. 2000. Experience, quality of life, and neighbourhood context: A hierarchical analysis of satisfaction with police. Justice Quarterly 17(3): 607–30.
Reisig, Michael D., Justice Tankebe, and Gorazd Mesko. 2014. Compliance with the law in Slovenia: The role of procedural justice and police legitimacy. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 20(2): 259–76.
Roemer, John. 1996. Theories of Distributive Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Schaefer Morabito, Melissa. 2010. Understanding community policing as an innovation: Patterns of adoption. Crime and Delinquency 56(4): 564–87.
Scheider, Matthew C., Robert Chapman, and Amy Schapiro. 2009. Towards the unification of policing innovations under community policing. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 32(4): 694–718.
Schreiber, James B., Amaury Nora, Frances K. Stage, Elizabeth A. Barlow, and Jamie King. 2006. Reporting structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis results: A review. The Journal of Educational Research 99(6): 323–38.
Schuck, Amie M., Dennis P. Rosenbaum, and Darnell F. Hawkins. 2008. The influence of race/ethnicity, social class, and neighbourhood context on residents’ attitudes towards the police. Police Quarterly 11(4): 496–519.
Sprott, Jane B., and Anthony N. Doob. 2014. Confidence in the police: Variation across groups classified as visible minorities. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 56(3): 367–79.
Sunshine, Jason, and Tom R. Tyler. 2003. The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law and Society Review 37(3): 513–48.
Statistics Canada. 2016. Canadian demographics at a glance. Demography Division. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/pub/91-003-x/91-003-x2014001-eng.pdf?st=B8DfFe1d.
Tankebe, Justice. 2013. Viewing things differently: The dimensions of public perceptions of police legitimacy. Criminology 51(1): 103–35.
Tankebe, Justice, Michael D. Reisig, and Xia Wang. 2016. A multidimensional model of police legitimacy: A cross-cultural assessment. Law and Human Behaviour 40(1): 11–22. Medline:26301708
TVO. 2018. Why police services need to reconsider their militaristic approach to community safety. TVO News. https://tvo.org/article/current-affairs/why-police-services-need-to-reconsider- their-militaristic-approach-to-community-safety.
Tyler, Tom R. 1990. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University.
Tyler, Tom R. 2004. Enhancing police legitimacy. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 593(1): 84–99.
Tyler, Tom R., and Jeffrey Fagan. 2008. Legitimacy and cooperation: Why do people help the police fight crime in the communities. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law 6: 231–75.
Tyler, Tom R., Jeffrey Fagan, and Amanda Geller. 2014. Street stops and police legitimacy: Teachable moments in young urban men’s legal socialization. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 11(4): 751–85.
Tyler, Tom R., Stephen Schulhofer, and Aziz Z. Huq. 2010. Legitimacy and deterrence effects in counterterrorism policing: A study of Muslim Americans. Law and Society Review 44(2): 365–402.
Weitzer, Ronald, and Steven A. Tuch. 2005. Racially biased policing: Determinants of citizen perceptions. Social Forces 83(3): 1009–30.
Wortley, Scott. n.d. Police Use of Force in Ontario: An Examination of Data from the Special Investigations Unit. Ottawa, Ontario: Ministry of the Attorney General.
Wortley, Scott, and Akwasi Owusu-Bempah. 2009. Unequal before the law: Immigrant and racial minority perceptions of the Canadian criminal justice system. Journal of International Migration and Integration 10(4): 447–73.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Volume 61 • Number 4 • October 2019
Pages: 1 - 23
Copyright
© 2019 CJCCJ / RCCJP.
History
Published in print: October 2019
Published online: 20 January 2020
Keywords:
Mots-clés :
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Related Content
Citations
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Download article citation data for:
Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 2019 61:4, 1-23
Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 2019 61:4, 1-23