Procedural Justice and Demographic Diversity: A Quasi-Experimental Study of Police Recruitment

• Author: Michael F. Aiello
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10986111211043473
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Procedural Justice and

Demographic Diversity:

A Quasi-Experimental

Study of Police

Recruitment

Michael F. Aiello

Abstract

Online recruitment materials are often the first encounter for individuals considering

a police career. Procedural justice (PJ) theory argues that how police officers treat

the public is an important predictor for future citizen cooperation. Taking steps

towards becoming a police officer is a unique form of organizational cooperation.

This project examined job interest for a sample of 993 respondents in Amazon’s

mTurk, experimentally manipulating whether the presented recruitment materials

emphasized PJ policing or not (PJ content) in a quasi-experimental vignette design.

The PJ content significantly increased two of the four job interest outcomes. PJ

theory also argues fair and respectful treatment should impact all groups similarly,

deemed the invariance thesis. The results largely showed groups being influenced in

similar ways. This study’s findings largely support this extension of PJ theory, and are

useful to practitioners interested in building their recruitment pool through eco-

nomical changes in recruitment materials.

Keywords

Invariance thesis, police recruitment, procedural justice, vignettes, experiment

Department of Sociocultural and Justice Sciences, State University of New York at Fredonia, Fredonia,

New York, United States

Corresponding Author:

Michael F. Aiello, W363 Thompson Hall, 280 Central Ave, Fredonia, NY 14063, United States.

Email: aiello@fredonia.edu

Police Quarterly

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DOI: 10.1177/10986111211043473

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2022, Vol. 25(3) 387–411

388 Police Quarterly 25(3)

A fundamental crisis in US police organizations remains a lack of demographic

diversity representative of the civilian population. When viewed from the axes of

race, ethnicity, and gender identity, US policing remains largely composed of

White males. With the exception of African-American officers, no other minor-

ity group even approaches parity with civilian figures in the USA (Reaves,

2015). The lack of representativeness in police forces persists, despite steady

increases for racial and ethnic groups (Reaves, 2015). Evidence continues to

be varied about whether women and racial/ethnic minorities police in funda-

mentally different ways than White men (see Hoffman & Hickey, 2005;

Mastrofski et al., 2016; Skogan & Frydl, 2004). However, Schuck and Rabe-

Hemp (2005) found women officers used less force than men officers, and used

less force than was typical in a given situation. Wright and Headley (2020)

recently studied officers from two cities, finding White officers used more

force on Black citizens, while all other examined interactions were non-

significant.

Increased representation could have impacts beyond the behavior of those

officers, through increased legitimacy in the eyes of the community as well as

expanding police officers’ knowledge and comfort with diverse cultures. One of

the first steps in addressing these imbalances is through outreach and recruit-

ment of underrepresented groups. This project is part of a growing body of

research examining how potential applicants respond to police recruitment

materials (Aiello, 2019), and those examining candidates’ perceptions of barriers

to their employment (Cambareri & Kuhns 2018; Rossler et al., 2019). Decades

of targeted outreach have not accomplished the goal of police forces more

reflective of the communities they serve.

While not directly linked to law enforcement agency diversity, one area of

police scholarship and policy that is meant to address public perceptions of

police legitimacy is procedurally-just policing. The procedural justice (PJ)

model and its various iterations, largely shepherded by Tom Tyler in the crim-

inal justice field (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 1990, 2005; Tyler & Blader,

2003; Tyler & Huo, 2002), concerns the impact of fair treatment and decision

making on legitimacy perceptions. If potential police applicants encounter a

department that emphasizes egalitarian tenets, this messaging may communicate

that the department is legitimate, and worthy of continued effort. Past research

focuses on how citizens perceive their respective police forces (Aiello, 2020;

Tyler & Fagan, 2008), and other contemporary scholarship engages in random-

ized controlled trial designs to study how PJ training influences subsequent

police behavior (Antrobus et al., 2019; Rosenbaum & Lawrence, 2017;

Wheller et al., 2013). An unstudied facet of PJ theory is the impact of PJ policing

on recruitment. This study examined how manipulating whether respondents

experienced stimuli promoting PJ policing in recruitment materials (PJ content)

operated in similar ways across sample groups, or differentially impacted under-

represented groups.