Promoting trust in police: findings from a randomised experimental field trial of procedural justice policing

By Kristina Murphy, Lorraine Mazerolle, Sarah Bennett. 2014

203 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper reports findings from the world's first randomised experimental field trial of procedural justice policing. We tested whether or not procedural justice could be used by police agencies during short, routine traffic stops to increase public trust and confidence in police. Using survey data from 2762 Australian drivers who had been exposed to either a procedural justice script (experimental condition) or a standard police procedure (control condition), it was found that trust and confidence in police was higher in the experimental condition. This was even the case after respondents' demographic background and general perceptions of police were taken into account. Similar effects were not found for drivers' obligation to obey police, nor their willingness to cooperate with police. Importantly, however, trust in police did predict both obligation to obey police and the willingness to cooperate with police. The findings have important implications for procedural justice research and policing practice.

Subfields: Political Science and International Relations, Sociology and Political Science, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/baf010d56a52cdb2a4d0443a4ce79816dcb7c431

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In Political Science and International Relations

In Sociology and Political Science

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Race and Perceptions of Police: Experimental Results on the Impact of Procedural (In)Justice (2017, unknown): “Further analyses indicated that the intervention had a direct effect on encounter-speciﬁc trust and conﬁdence and indirect effects (through trust and conﬁdence) on willingness to cooperate and obligation to obey (Murphy, Mazerolle, & Bennett, 2014).”
Victim Willingness to Report Crime to Police: Does Procedural Justice or Outcome Matter Most? (2014, result): “When asked about whether they had been the victim of these six types of crimes in the preceding 12 months, 67 respondents indicated they had been burgled (5.5% of the overall sample or 18% of the burglary victims), 34 had their motor vehicle stolen, 216 indicated they had property that was vandalize”
Explaining officer compliance: The importance of procedural justice and trust inside a police organization (2015, background): “In a discussion of the implications of findings from the world’s first randomized experimental field trial of procedural justice policing, Murphy et al. (2014) for instance state that if members of the public have repeated experiences of fair treatment by police, over time their willingness to…”