Reconciling Police and Communities with Apologies, Acknowledgements, or Both: A Controlled Experiment

Date01 January 2020
Published date01 January 2020
DOI10.1177/0002716220904659
Subject MatterPreventing Avoidable Fatalities
/tmp/tmp-17YItfA53AzmAp/input 904659ANN
The Annals of the American AcademyReconciling Police and Communities
research-article2020
When police officers harm civilians, police leadership
almost invariably makes a public statement about the
incident, and these communications usually address issues
of public mistrust in the police. In addressing public mis
trust, political pressures may motivate police leadership to
avoid acknowledging the role of police in creating that
distrust. The study reported in this article examines the
consequences of avoiding versus acknowledging responsi
bility for the role of police in creating mistrust, along with
Reconciling
issuing an apology or not issuing an apology, in public
statements. How do these various kinds of gestures shape
Police and
public cooperation with police? This study reports on an
experiment designed to answer that question, with our
analysis focusing on the impact of these various kinds of
Communities statements on the people who are least likely to trust
police. The evidence suggests that police leaders should
with Apologies, combine acknowledgement of responsibility for the mis
trust with an apology if they want to enlist the cooperation
of people who are least likely to trust the police.
Acknowledge Keywords: legitimacy; trust; intergroup apologies; conflict
ments, or Both:
resolution; reconciliation; procedural justice
A Controlled
Experiment
One way to address violence between police
and civilians is to ask why some interac
tions between police and members of the public
ever escalate into violence. This is an important
question regardless of whether one determines
that an officer in the particular incident used
By
force that ultimately is determined to be legally
THOMAS C. O’BRIEN,
TRACEY L. MEARES
Thomas C. O’Brien is a psychologist and a postdoctoral
and
research associate in the Department of Psychology at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an
TOM R. TYLER
affiliated scholar of the Justice Collaboratory. His
research examines strategies that authorities can take to
build legitimacy with communities.
Tracey L. Meares is Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of
Law at Yale Law School, where she cofounded the
Justice Collaboratory. In addition to her research and
teaching, and her career as a federal prosecutor, she has
served on national committees including President
Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.
Correspondence: tcobrien@illinois.edu
DOI: 10.1177/0002716220904659
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ANNALS, AAPSS, 687, January 2020

RECONCILINg POLICE AND COMMuNITIES
203
acceptable. As Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive
Research Forum (PERF) explains, this issue is “about the sanctity of all human
life—the lives of police officers and the lives of the people they serve and protect”
(PERF 2016, 4). Reducing harm to members of the public is an important goal
regardless of whether that harm ultimately is found to be legally justifiable, and in
recognition of this, policing agencies across the country have undertaken efforts
to address such harms. For example, agencies have invested in new policies and
added training on how officers can deescalate incidents that put both officers and
members of the public at risk of injury and death. Some agencies have even insti
tuted awards to recognize efforts that officers take to avoid tragic consequences
(Chang 2018). But few have focused on broader factors of community perception
of the police, factors that contribute to the risk of fatal incidents in the first place.
Nor have scholars focused on what steps police leaders can take with members of
the public that might disrupt the dynamics that contribute to these fatal incidents.
Promoting perceptions of police legitimacy by enhancing procedural justice might
be helpful in this regard because people who view the police as legitimate are
more willing to accept police authority and cooperate in police efforts to maintain
order in their communities.
Research demonstrates that when people view authorities as procedurally just,
they view them as more legitimate. This includes three defining components of
legitimacy: a basic obligation to obey, trust and confidence, and a sense that
authorities share values with the community (Tyler and Jackson 2014). These
three components of legitimacy enable a betterfunctioning system, as people
become more likely to comply with the law (Tyler 2005) and more likely to go out
of their way to cooperate with authorities by reporting or discussing crime (Tyler
and Huo 2002). Procedural justice is a key part of people’s psychological connec
tion to their communities (Bradford 2014) and of community members’ collec
tive willingness to help each other (Jackson et al. 2012). A consensual relationship
between authorities and communities helps to guard against the situations that
lead to violent incidents between police and members of the public. Conversely,
a lack of trust exacerbates the dynamics that escalate situations to violence in the
first place.
Research supports the conclusion that a climate of illegitimacy and distrust
leads to situations in which police are more likely to use potentially fatal force in
ways that are highly contested (Trinkner, Tyler, and goff 2016). Surveys show a
large trust gap in the level of trust that whites on one hand have in police com
pared to nonwhites (gallup 2017; Tyler 2005). With the vast racial disparities in
the u.S. criminal justice system (Alexander 2010) and evidence of racial differ
ences in how policing is carried out, especially differences that include disre
spectful treatment of young men of color by police in particular, this trust gap is
not especially surprising (Fagan et al. 2009; Voight et al. 2017). There is research
Tom R. Tyler is Macklin Fleming Professor of Law and a professor of psychology at Yale Law
School, where he cofounded the Justice Collaboratory. He is the author of several books on how
people make decisions about legal authorities, including Why People Obey the Law (Princeton
University Press 2006) and Why People Cooperate (Princeton University Press 2011).

204
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
demonstrating that there is a lack of trust in police especially on the part of non
whites, and that this lack of trust is foundationally related to interactions that
individuals have with particular officers. Yet these more general findings do not
necessarily lead to the conclusion that distrust inflames particular incidents of
policecitizen violence, though such an outcome is plausible.
For example, Trinkner and goff (2016) have provided a review of relevant
psychological research interpreting social psychological studies pertinent to
“identity threats.” They note that when police engage with people they consider
to be disrespectful or when people do not comply with their instructions, some
police interpret these actions as challenges to their masculine identity. uses of
violence, Trinkner and goff suggest, are a method that officers use to address
masculine identity threat. Further empirical work by Trinkner, Kerrison, and
goff supports the finding that officers’ fear of being perceived as racist motivates
them to use violence. When police believe that the person they are dealing with
believes they are acting out of illegitimate motives, their propensity to use force
increases (Trinkner, Kerrison, and goff 2019). In this way, an officer’s awareness
of the public’s perception of her or his lack of legitimacy can be directly linked to
uses of force in particular incidents. From this, it follows that repeated and fre
quent incidents of violence between police and community members can fuel
perceptions of illegitimacy, leading to a spiraling cycle of declining legitimacy.
A consensual authoritycommunity relationship may guard against this nega
tive spiral. In a community where people feel that authorities ensure their secu
rity, want to help them, and do so through fair processes, people feel more
secure. under such conditions, people approach interactions with police with
more trust. Yet building this relationship with police in communities with a long
history—or even recent history—of negative policecitizens interactions is a
challenge.
Reconciliation as a Process to Build Consensus
If law enforcement were beginning a new relationship with communities
devoid of historical context, demonstrating procedural justice would likely be
sufficient to earn public trust. As many in law enforcement know, however,
legal authorities in America are not operating outside of a historical context.
There is a historical context in North America and other parts of the world that
makes clear why many communities would not view criminal justice authorities
as a source of security and help (Kendi 2016). The lessons of this history are
reinforced through extreme incidents of abusive authority that affect the men
tal health of...

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