Police legitimacy, ideology and qualitative methods: A critique of procedural justice theory. (November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Harkin, Diarmaid
• Is Part Of: Criminology & criminal justice. Volume 15:Number 5(2015)
• Page Start: 594
• Page End: 612
• Publication Date: 2015-11
• Subjects: Ideology -- police legitimacy -- power -- procedural justice -- systems-justification theory; Criminology -- Periodicals; Criminal justice, Administration of -- Periodicals; 364.05
• DOI: 10.1177/1748895815580397
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1748-8958

Abstract

I argue that there are unconsidered complexities to police legitimacy and use examples from my study of police–public consultation forums in Edinburgh, Scotland to illustrate. I make a number of conceptual and methodological critiques by drawing upon Steven Lukes' social theory on power to show how legitimacy can be a product of authority relations as much as it is a cause of authority relations. This view finds support from systems-justification theory. I also tackle Beetham's conception of legitimacy and argue that there is evidence from police studies that the police breach his key antecedents to legitimacy without incurring the expected consequences. Furthermore, I take an original methodological approach to studying police legitimacy which reveals additional insights. For instance, Bottoms and Tankebe suggest legitimacy addresses multiple 'audiences'; I would also add that it addresses multiple recipients as legitimacy is shown to vary among officers and positions of rank.