The Social Context of Responses to Injustice: Considering the Indirect and Direct Effects of Group-Level Factors

Whether individuals evaluate a distribution of outcomes to be unfair and how they respond to it depends upon the social context and their perceptions of why the objective injustice occurred. Here we examine a general feature of the situation that highlights what is often overlooked in distributive justice research: the impact of the group. We conceptualize such impact in terms of the group value model of procedural justice (Lind and Tyler, 1988) and in terms of collective sources of legitimacy (Walker and Zelditch, 1993). The former highlights how the extent to which one feels valued by the group may enhance perceptions of distributive justice (net of actual outcomes) and thus ameliorate the impetus to respond to objective injustice. The latter considers how the dynamics of group influence may reduce the propensity to respond behaviorally to perceived injustice. Our analysis shows how procedural justice and legitimacy (in the forms of authorization and endorsement) may affect attributions in a work setting, and, in turn, influence individuals' justice perceptions and reactions. By combining these elements, we chart for the first time the relative impact of two factors representing elements of the group on an individual's evaluation of and response to distributive injustice.     

COMPROMISED POLICE LEGITIMACY AS A PREDICTOR OF VIOLENT CRIME IN STRUCTURALLY DISADVANTAGED COMMUNITIES*

This study examined whether indicators of compromised police legitimacy explained variations in violent crime within New York City police precincts from 1975 to 1996. Integrating models of urban cultural attenuation and procedural justice, the study hypothesized that variations in patterns of police misconduct and over/under policing (the indicators of police legitimacy) would predict variations in violent crime rates of communities characterized by concentrated structural disadvantage. Using a panel design and controlling for the relevant ecology of crime factors and spatial autocorrelation, the study found that in communities characterized by high disadvantage, incidents of police misconduct predicted variations in violent crime; in communities characterized by extreme disadvantage, both indicators of compromised police legitimacy (misconduct and over policing) predicted variations in violent crime. The study found no significant relationships between the indicators of police legitimacy and violent crime in communities of low disadvantage. Findings support emerging arguments that emphasize the importance of formal institutions of social control in the most structurally disadvantaged communities (that is, those often subjected to cultural attention) and suggest implications for the ecology of crime model and police accountability.     

Measuring Procedural Justice in Police-Citizen Encounters

Procedural justice has dominated recent discussions of police interactions with the public. It has mostly been measured from the perspective of citizens (using surveys or interviews), but several important questions about predictors and outcomes of fair police treatment are best answered using direct observations of police-citizen interactions. Building on prior observational studies, we develop and validate an instrument for measuring procedural justice as it is exercised by the police in the natural setting of their encounters with the public. In doing so, we adopt a “formative” rather than the common “reflective” approach, based on the assumption that specific behaviors that make up procedural justice do not reflect a single underlying construct but rather form one. We justify this approach and validate our instrument accordingly. We also discuss the implications of our measurement for future research on procedural justice in police behavior.     

关于"正义"的法哲学研究

法律应体现正义,对此应作出法哲学的历史考察。研究表明,对"正义"的追问必触及到其中关于"程序"与"伦理"的内在矛盾。要强调,"程序正义""伦理正义"的合理性,共同构成"法律合法性"的基础。总之,应当立足实际建设体现"程序正义""伦理正义"相统一的"正义之法"。     

Procedural justice and ethical decision making

Procedural justice, in the form of voice and respectful treatment by supervisor, and ethical decision making are examined in this research. Ethical decision making is hypothesized to be a direct function of moral intent, as indicated by willingness to use moral criteria in decision making. Moral intent is, in turn, expected to be a function of the decision-making context, including perceptions of voice, respect and trust between supervisor and subordinate, and moral climate. Individual moral development is also expected to have a positive effect on moral intent. Results generally support the model, with two exceptions. First, perception of voice has a negative effect on moral intent, while caring climate and respectful supervisory relations have the expected positive effect on moral intent. These results suggest either a compensatory model of ethical decision making or a complacency effect. Second, individual characteristics had very little effect on either the decision made or the level of moral intent developed, save for one decision. These results suggest an important overlooked variable, the salience of issues for procedural justice concerns.     

Privacy and procedural justice in organizations

This paper advances the argument that individual privacy is a procedural justice issue in organizations. A review of the organizational privacy literature supports this argument, and new directions for procedural justice research are suggested. In addition, it is argued that a focus on individual privacy highlights the political and paradoxical implications of procedural justice issues in organizations.     

Fairness and organizational citizenship behavior: What are the connections?

A view of organizations as social contracts recognizes self-interests of individuals but does not explain the occurrence of unselfish contributions such as are denoted by organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). We propose that the concept of fairness, as applied to systems of relational contracts, provides a high-leverage construct for understanding the fusion of self-interest and self-denial. A review of the empirical literature suggests that fairness, rather than job satisfaction, accounts for OCB; and that the evidence points toward procedural and interactional fairness as both empirically and conceptually critical in the fairness-OCB relationship. However, we explain why distributive fairness still should not be deemphasized.     

Power and fairness in negotiations

This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment on power (specifically, authority) on negotiation process and outcomes. The experiment found that when given a goal to appear fair, high authority negotiators take less of the resources than when not given a goal to appear fair. Furthermore, this paper predicted and found that the relationship between authority imbalance and concern for fairness on negotiation outcomes is a multiplicative relationship. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed within the context of negotiations in intraorganizational relationships.This paper is based on a dissertation by the author, entitled Authority, Dependency, and Fairness in Negotiations. This work was completed while the author was a student at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.     

Legitimacy in corrections

Research Summary
To extend research on legitimacy to the correctional system, we study a sample of 202 adult inmates randomly assigned to serve their 6-month sentence at one of two institutions—a traditional prison or a military-style correctional boot camp. Findings show that perceptions of justice system legitimacy changed during the course of incarceration, that the prison (but not the boot camp) proved delegitimizing, and that certain regime characteristics explained why.
Policy Implications
Across academic disciplines, studies continue to link compliance with perceived legitimacy. Compliance with the law, for instance, is related closely to the legitimacy of the justice system and its actors. These findings suggest implementing legitimacy-building policies such as procedurally fair treatment and decision making by police officers and judges. This article, by finding legitimacy to be malleable even at the final stage of the justice process, proposes the efficacy of similar policies in the correctional system. As research from England and Wales has shown, legitimizing strategies in this context could increase compliance both during and after incarceration.     

Victims’ perceptions of the police response as a predictor of victim cooperation in the Netherlands: a prospective analysis

The current study prospectively explores whether crime victims’ willingness to cooperate with the police is predicted by victims’ perceptions of police officers’ behaviour with regard to their case through their perceptions of police legitimacy. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the interrelationships between the study variables while controlling for baseline values among a sample of 201 crime victims in the Netherlands. Results indicate that victims’ perceptions of procedural justice and police performance were predictive of both indicators of perceived police legitimacy (i.e. obligation to obey the law and trust in the police). Moreover, victims’ willingness to cooperate with the police was indirectly predicted by victims’ perceptions of procedural justice and police performance, through their perceptions of obligation to obey the law. These findings suggest that police officers may play an important role in stimulating victims’ willingness to cooperate with the police by treating victims fairly and by taking investigative actions to solve the crime.