Corruption and Trust in Police: Investigating the Moderating Effect of Procedural Justice

• Author: Yongjae Nam,Mahesh K. Nalla
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X20928019
• Subject Matter: Articles

Original Manuscript

Corruption and Trust in

Police: Investigating the

Moderating Effect of

Procedural Justice

Mahesh K. Nalla

1

and

Yongjae Nam

1

Abstract

This article examines the role of citizens’ contact with police and their assessments

of officers’ corruption in police in India. More importantly, we examine whether

police procedural justice moderates the relationship between citizens’ assessments

of police corruption and trust. Data (N¼845) from Delhi, India, suggest that con-

sistent with the literature, citizens’ trust in police is explained by their contact with

police, fear of crime, police effectiveness, and corruption in police work. However,

two significant findings emerged from this analysis. First, though citizens’ perception

of police corruption is a significant explanatory variable of trust in police, procedural

justice moderates the strength of the relationship of corruption on trust. Second,

the nature of contact experience reveals essential differences in the moderating

effect of procedural justice on the relationship between corruption and trust in

police. Finally, irrespective of the nature of contact experience, police effectiveness,

and trust in police is related.

Keywords

police trust, procedural fairness, police corruption, effectiveness, Indian police

1

Michigan State University, East Lansing, USA

Corresponding Author:

Mahesh K. Nalla, Professor, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, 655 Auditorium Road,

560 Baker Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.

Email: nalla@msu.edu

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2021, Vol. 65(6–7) 715–740

!The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20928019

journals.sagepub.com/home/ijo

Introduction

Images of police inability to foster a sense of trust in people in India are wide-

spread in the media and popular culture, raising questions about citizens’ trust

in police. A national survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies

(CSDS) in 2016 found that less than 25% of Indians trust police (Centre for the

Study of Developing Societies [CSDS], 2018). A study by Banerjee and his

colleagues (2012) in the northern state of Rajasthan found that 53% of the

respondents were afraid of the police. Although there is a growing interest in

Indian policing, very few systematic studies have examined the interconnections

between police misconduct, procedural justice, contact experiences, and trust.

The impetus of interest in this area of police research is drawn from the current

work in Western democracies that asserts that citizens’ trust in police is linked to

their perceptions of fairness, respect, and dignity in police–citizen relationships

(Paternoster et al., 1997; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). These studies assert that the

perceived procedural fairness in police practices matters more in shaping trust

than some other attributes of police work, such as police deviance and favorable

outcomes.

Police service is directly dependent on public approval of the organization’s

existence, and the citizens’ willingness to cooperate with them hinges on their

ability to deliver unbiased services to the public. Furthermore, high levels of

corruption decrease trust in governmental institutions (Chang & Chu, 2006),

that includes police bureaucracies. The goal of the present study is to assess

citizens’ trust in police in India, a formerly British colony for about 400 years.

Colonial policing in India, commonly portrayed as “civil in precepts but mili-

taristic in practice” (Das & Verma, 1998, p. 358), had “little to do with serving

the community and everything to do with upholding the authority of the colo-

nial state” (Def‌lem, 1994). Over the years, many reforms were setup with little

efforts in implementing the recommendations (Singh, 2002; Verma, 1998). Even

after more than seven decades as an independent country, citizens in the largest

democracy in the world are afraid and hesitate to approach the police to lodge a

complaint or seek assistance (Madan & Nalla, 2015; Nalla & Madan, 2013).

Citizens view police off‌icers as brutal and ineff‌icient (National Police

Commission, 1981, p. 22), rude, ill-trained in procedural law or human rights,

contemptuous of courts and human rights, and as treating people in positions of

power deferentially (Bureau of Police Research and Development [BPRD],

2009, p. 136). Citizens’ hesitancy in approaching police are driven by the fear

that off‌icers harass, demand bribes, or falsely implicate them (BPRD, 2009;

CSDS, 2018; Nalla & Madan, 2013). These experiences were found to be similar

in most postcolonial countries (Tankebe, 2008a). Thus, in this study, we exam-

ine whether factors such as perceived police effectiveness, integrity (corruption),

and procedural justice inf‌luence citizens’ trust in police. Furthermore,

716 International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 65(6–7)