Justice-restoring responses: a theoretical framework for understanding citizen complaints against the police. (7th February 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McLean, Kyle
• Is Part Of: Policing and society. Volume 31:Number 2(2021)
• Page Start: 209
• Page End: 228
• Publication Date: 2021-02-07
• Subjects: Police complaints -- procedural justice -- justice-restoring responses -- outcome favourability; Police -- Periodicals; Crime prevention -- Periodicals; 363.2
• DOI: 10.1080/10439463.2019.1704755
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1043-9463

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In an effort to provide a theoretical framework for understanding citizens' decisions to complain about the police, this paper suggests that citizen complaints can be viewed as a justice-restoring response and tests six hypotheses using a factorial vignette experiment. The findings indicate that individuals are more likely to complain when they perceive the interaction as procedurally unfair, distributively unfair, and when the outcome is unfavourable. Positive pre-existing attitudes towards the police result in an increased likelihood of engaging in a justice-restoring response. Despite drawing on Tyler's legitimacy theory, these findings differentiate justice-restoring responses from legitimacy by the comparatively greater impact of outcome favourability and the differing direction of the effect of pre-existing attitudes towards the police.