In Search of Legitimacy: Toward An Empirical Analysis

Legitimacy is a much used concept in the social sciences. However, the absence of precise operational meaning has prompted questions about its utility as an explanation of compliance with social norms. Most recently, Alan Hyde has argued that legitimacy cannot be disentangled from other explanations of compliance such as coercion and self-interest and should, therefore, be abandoned. However, institutional, attitudinal, and behavioral dimensions of legitimacy can be operationalized. As part of our research on small claims courts we examined variations in institutional processes and legitimacy, gathered data on levels of voluntary compliance, and questioned defendants about their reasons for paying claims against them. We conclude that institutional legitimacy is related to voluntary compliance, and that the "language of obligation" is an important part of normal discourse. Operational meanings for legitimacy are available and empirical research about legitimacy should be a prominent part of the social science research agenda.     

ARREST FOR DOMESTIC AND OTHER ASSAULTS*

We use the National Crime Victimization Survey to examine whether a suspect's relationship to an assault victim affects whether the police make an arrest. The results indicate that in cases of minor assaults the police are less likely to make an arrest when the suspect is an intimate partner of the victim than when the suspect is an identifiable stranger. However, the police are not as lenient when the suspect is an intimate partner as they are when the suspect is someone else the victim knows. Intimate partner suspects avoid arrest in part because they are less likely to commit their crimes in front of witnesses. In addition, victims who know the suspect in any way are reluctant to sign complaints, and this reluctance inhibits arrest. Men are less likely than women to sign complaints, particularly when the suspect is a partner.     

Correlates Of Cynicism: The Case For Black Police Officers

In this paper we test the relationship between perceived satisfaction with promotion policy and cynical attitudes for fifty-seven black male officers in a southern metropolitan police department. Correlation analyses revealed that selected variables taken from the Niederhoffer (1967) model relate to feelings of mistrust in hypothesized directions. Satisfaction with promotion policy was observed to be the most important predictor of cynicism after controlling for the effects of rank, years of service, and education. Equity motivation theory is then presented as an approach to modify traditional opportunity structures grounded in politics and seniority.     

Overcrowding and Inmate Fatalities

A number of theorists have suggested that prison overcrowding produces greater tendencies toward violence and interpersonal aggression. Empirical studies of the effects of overcrowding on the prison population have been conducted on individual inmate buffer zones, or have focussed on specific institutions within a state or federal prison system.

This paper reevaluates the relationship between prison overcrowding and inmate violence using official data reported for fifty-one (N = 51) Departments of Corrections reported in the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics.

Results of the analysis indicate that although overcrowding relates to the number of suicides and homicides in expected directions, these connections reverse themselves as indicators of inmate violence are translated into percentages of respective inmate populations.

The number of suicides reported explains a significant (R² = .27) portion of the variance in the number of homicides and clearly suggests that both forms of violence tend to occur together in state reporting areas.