Police Legitimacy and Compliance With the Law Among Chinese Youth

• Date: 01 August 2018
• Author: Jianhong Liu,Siyu Liu
• Published date: 01 August 2018
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X17740559
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X17740559

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2018, Vol. 62(11) 3536 –3561

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/0306624X17740559

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Article

Police Legitimacy and

Compliance With the Law

Among Chinese Youth

Siyu Liu1 and Jianhong Liu2

Abstract

The process-based model of policing garnered considerable support in the discourse

on police legitimacy. However, findings are largely based on Western contexts, and

little attention has been paid to the model advanced by Tyler that police legitimacy

helps promote compliance. Using a high school sample (N = 711) from China, we

follow Tankebe’s operationalization and examine the role of legitimacy in youth

support for the police and whether legitimacy helps predict compliance with the law.

Findings indicate that procedural justice and shared values are strong predictors of

youth support to the police, and this support positively predicts compliance with the

law. Distributive fairness exerts an independent effect on compliance while having

been questioned by the police is negatively related to compliance.

Keywords

police legitimacy, procedural justice, compliance with the law, juvenile delinquency

Introduction

The effective functioning of a governmental institution is premised on legitimacy,

sometimes defined as “the belief by others that they (the authorities) ought to be

obeyed” (Tyler, 2004, p. 87; see also Beetham, 1991; Bottoms & Tankebe, 2012; Weber,

1947). Often viewed as a symbol of the Party power, Chinese police officers are not

spared from criticisms concerning the abuse of power, corruption, and dereliction of

1Penn State Harrisburg, Middletown, Pennsylvania, USA

2University of Macau, Macau, China

Corresponding Author:

Siyu Liu, School of Public Affairs, Penn State Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, Middletown,

PA 17057-4898, USA.

Email: siyuliu@psu.edu

740559IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X17740559International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyLiu and Liu

research-article2017

Liu and Liu 3537

duties, particularly generated from high-profile cases reported in the media (Dai, 2008;

Sun & Wu, 2010a; Wong, 2002).

Maintaining legitimacy is one of the most crucial tasks for the police to gain public

support (Jackson et al., 2012; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2004; Tyler & Fagan,

2008). More importantly, enhancing legitimacy is also likely to promote the alignment

of individual behaviors with rules promulgated by legal institutions (Gau & Brunson,

2015; Hough, Jackson, Bradford, Myhill, & Quinton, 2010; Huq et al., 2011; Tyler,

1990, 2004). As police and communities form a trusting relationship, this strategy

reinforces the crime control function of the police through perceived obligation and

subsequently habitual law-abiding behaviors (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Fagan,

2008). Past studies have consistently shown that police procedural fairness strongly

facilitates the perception of police legitimacy in certain cultures—People are more

likely to view the police as justified and legitimate if they view that they were treated

fairly in the process (Gau, Corsaro, Stewart, & Brunson, 2012; Hinds & Murphy,

2007; Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Huo, 2002), with the exception of Tankebe’s (2009)

research in Ghana, which suggested that police effectiveness may promote legitimacy

more saliently than procedural justice.

Compared with adults, youth are at a crucial stage of their lives when interactions

with others more effectively shape their social identities through constant interactions

with others (Erikson, 1968; Lee, Steinberg, Piquero, & Knight, 2011). The importance

of gaining trust and cooperation among youth has been emphasized in the literature on

juvenile attitudes toward the police (JATP; Hinds, 2007; Hurst & Frank, 2000; Lee

et al., 2011; Leiber, Nalla, & Farnworth, 1998; Piquero, Fagan, Mulvey, Steinberg, &

Odgers, 2005; Wu, Lake, & Cao, 2015). Taken together, these studies demonstrate that

across racial and ethnic groups in urban areas, the strength in a positive perception of

the police underlines the trust in the justice system; contradictorily when legal cyni-

cism forms, the compliance with the law is harder to achieve (Carr, Napolitano, &

Keating, 2007). However, the latter aspect has not been discussed adequately in

research. Police legitimacy has often been considered as an outcome to be explained

and improved, while relatively few studies have used it as an explanatory factor toward

compliant behaviors. Nevertheless, a significant correlation between police legitimacy

and compliance has been observed in earlier studies (Fagan & Tyler, 2005; Reicher &

Emler, 1985; Sarat, 1975; Tittle, 1980). Few updated investigations on this angle are

present in the literature; even rarer are such studies within non-Western contexts.

The goal of the present study was twofold: We aim to bring the importance of the

legitimacy of the justice authority on behavioral outcomes back into the spotlight.

Most crime prevention strategies have roots in more instrumental and reactionary

behavior modifications through the discourse of what would happen after a crime has

been detected and the risk perceptions of such detection (see, for example, Matsueda,

Kreager, & Huizinga, 2006). Yet there is inadequate discourse revolving around how

behaviors are modified through the encouragement of a self-regulating mechanism

that encompasses the idea that a criminal behavior is intrinsically and morally wrong,

as well as the acceptance of a trusted authority.