Is It the What or the How? The Roles of High‐Policing Tactics and Procedural Justice in Predicting Perceptions of Hostile Treatment: The Case of Security Checks at Ben‐Gurion Airport, Israel

• Published date: 01 September 2016
• Date: 01 September 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12216

Is It the What or the How? The Roles of

High-Policing Tactics and Procedural Justice

in Predicting Perceptions of Hostile Treatment:

The Case of Security Checks at Ben-Gurion

Airport, Israel

Tal Jonathan-Zamir

Badi Hasisi

Yoram Margalioth

What affects perceptions of hostile treatment by police, characterized by feel-

ings such as humiliation and intimidation? Is it what the police do to the citi-

zen, or is it about how they do it? The important effects of procedural justice

are well documented in the policing literature. Yet, it is not clear how high-

policing tactics, coupled with procedural justice, affect one’s sense of hostile

treatment: is it the case that what the police do does not matter as long as they

follow the principles of procedural justice, or do some invasive or unpleasant

tactics produce negative emotions regardless of the amount of procedural jus-

tice displayed by the officer? In the present study we examine this question in

the context of security checks at Ben-Gurion Airport, Israel. Using a survey of

1,970 passengers, we find that the behavioral elements of procedural justice

are an important antidote, mitigating the negative effects of four “extra”

screening measures on the perceived hostility of the checks. At the same time,

two security measures retain an independent and significant effect. We discuss

the implications of our findings and hypothesize about the characteristics of

policing practices that are less sensitive to procedural justice.

Following recent protests and civil disorders in Ferguson, Mis-

souri and other American cities, President Barack Obama estab-

lished a Task Force on 21st Century Policing. “When any part of

the American family does not feel like it is being treated fairly [by law

enforcement], that’s a problem for all of us,” he stated (President’s

Task Force on 21st Century Policing 2015: 5). One of the recom-

mendations of the Task Force was that “...law enforcement agencies

should adopt procedural justice as the guiding principle for internal and

external policies and practices to guide their interactions with rank and

file officers and with the citizens they serve” (President’s Task Force on

21st Century Policing 2015: 1). Procedural justice refers to the

fairness embedded in the processes by which power holders exer-

cise their authority, and involves behaviors such as respectful

Please direct all correspondence to Tal Jonathan-Zamir, Institute of Criminology, Fac-

ulty of Law, The Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel; e-mail:

tal.jonathan@mail.huji.ac.il.

Law & Society Review, Volume 50, Number 3 (2016)

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C2016 Law and Society Association. All rights reserved.

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speech, inviting citizen input, and transparency in decision mak-

ing. Such behaviors, in turn, were found to promote highly desir-

able outcomes, including an overall sense of fair treatment,

legitimacy, satisfaction, and willingness to comply and cooperate

with police officers (e.g., Blader & Tyler 2003a, 2003b; Jonathan-

Zamir et al. 2015; Murphy 2014; National Research Council

2004; Schulhofer et al. 2011; Sunshine & Tyler 2003; Tyler 2004,

2009, 2011).

On December 30, 2014, the same month the Executive Order

establishing the Task Force was signed, a police officer in New

Jersey stopped a vehicle for allegedly driving through a stop

sign. The officer politely greeted the occupants of the vehicle,

identified himself by name and affiliation, and explained why

they were being stopped. When one of the passengers asked a

question about the location of the stop sign, the officer patiently

explained. He was polite and calm. Yet, at least one of the pas-

sengers did not appear to fully comply with the officer’s

demands, and less than 90 seconds later, Jerame Reid, a 36-year

old Black man, was shot dead by the officers who feared that he

was reaching for a gun (Sanchez 2015). This event is one

(extreme) example of the complexity of police-citizen interac-

tions. The procedural justice model in its most simple form

would have predicted that the officer’s behavior would lead to cit-

izen compliance and cooperation, which would have made the

use of force unnecessary. Yet, like many police-citizen interac-

tions, this encounter clearly involved other factors that led to the

unfortunate outcome. Recognizing that the outcomes of

procedurally-just treatment vary, important questions can be

asked about this variation and the factors that affect it.

In this article we focus on one expected outcome of police-

provided procedural justice—the mitigation of negative emotions

that may arise in police-citizen interactions: humiliation, intimida-

tion, and a sense of indifferent treatment (referred to herein as

perceptions of hostile treatment); and one factor that is expected

to elicit such negative emotions: the use of “high-policing” prac-

tices. High policing addresses strategic problems at the macro-

level, such as national security (rather than local crime and

disorder problems), and is characterized by tactics that are less

transparent and accountable, and thus prone to violations of

human rights and due process (e.g., Bayley & Weisburd 2009;

Brodeur 1983, 2010; Brodeur & Dupeyron 2003). We ask if the

behavioral elements of procedural justice (including treating

citizens with respect, concern, and transparency) “neutralize” the

expected negative outcomes of high policing, or, alternatively, if

some intrusive tactics produce a sense of hostile treatment

Jonathan-Zamir, Hasisi, & Margalioth 609