The Consequences of Being an Object of Suspicion: Potential Pitfalls of Proactive Police Contact

• Author: Tom R. Tyler,Jonathan Jackson,Avital Mentovich
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12086
• Date: 01 December 2015

The Consequences of Being an Object

of Suspicion: Potential Pitfalls

of Proactive Police Contact

Tom R. Tyler, Jonathan Jackson, and Avital Mentovich*

During the latter half of the 20th century U.S. policing became more professional (Skogan

& Frydl 2004) and the rate of violent crime declined dramatically (Blumstein & Wallman

2000). Yet public trust and confidence in the police increased at best marginally and there

has been a large and continuing racial gap in police legitimacy. This article reviews changes

in police policy and practice to explore the reasons for this seeming paradox. It is argued

that a new model of proactive police stops has increased both the frequency and the range

of police contact with people in the community. Such police contact does not inherently

undermine public trust in the police, but the style of such contact, which involves the

police communicating suspicion of ongoing or future criminal conduct and seeking to

prevent it via the threat or use of coercion, has not increased trust. This article examines

how such policies developed and why they are problematic. The result of a survey of

Americans shows that perceived suspicion damages the social bonds between the police

and the community and undermines trust in the police. The article concludes by arguing

that police contact need not be inherently negative and contact during which the police

use fair procedures can addresses issues of crime and disorder while building trust and

confidence.

I. INTRODUCTION

The recent stop-and-frisk policies of the NYPD have received widespread publicity and,

at least in the public eye, have been consigned to the dustbin of history through a com-

bination of federal court decisions (Floyd et al. v. City of New York 2011) and electoral pol-

itics (the election of New York Mayor DeBlasio), fueled by public anger at the police. In

this article we argue that such tactics in fact continue to reflect the ongoing goals and

*Address correspondence to Tom R. Tyler, Macklin Fleming Professor, Yale Law School, 127 Wall St., New

Haven, CT 06511; email: tom.tyler@yale.edu. Jackson is Professor, London School of Economics; Mentovich is

Assistant Professor of Sociology, Essex University.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies held at Berkeley,

CA. We thank Jonathan Simon and members of the audience for insightful comments on the article. We received

further helpful feedback during presentations at Yale Law School, the University of Indiana Law School, the Law

School at the University of Montreal, Brooklyn Law School, and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Finan-

cial support for this project was provided by Yale Law School and New York University.

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implementation strategies of proactive police-initiated investigatory contacts with the

public and hence that there are likely to be similar policies and practices in the future.

We address the issue of police legitimacy in two ways. We begin by reviewing the

last several decades of U.S. policing practices. Based on that review, we suggest that two

changes have occurred. The first is a change in policing goals toward preventing crime

that has led to an increase in the numerical frequency and breadth of targets of police-

initiated investigatory contacts between members of the public and the police. The sec-

ond is a corresponding change in the interpersonal style of these contacts so that they

have increasingly communicated police suspicion and mistrust of the members of the

public with whom the police are dealing.

We argue that these changing goals and style reflect a fundamental tension

between two models of policing: the currently dominant proactive risk management

model, which focuses on policing to prevent crimes and makes promises of short-term

security through the professional management of crime risks, and a model that focuses

on building popular legitimacy by enhancing the relationship between the police and

the public and thereby promoting the long-term goal of police-community solidarity

and, through that, public-police cooperation in addressing issues of crime and commu-

nity order.

This study compares these two models of policing using the results of a cross-

sectional national survey. This study considers police-citizen contact at one point in

time and does not address the changes in policing over time outlined in our review of

evolving police practices. Rather, it compares two competing models concerning the

impact of suspicion-based styles of contact on people’s views about and behavior

toward the law and legal authorities. The first model is that such stops deter crime by

raising estimates of the risk of breaking laws. The second is that such laws undermine

police legitimacy. Both predictions are tested using the findings of a national survey of

Americans.

The survey is first used to explore the extent to which people feel that they are an

object of police suspicion. Second, the study examines the relationship between feeling

like an object of suspicion, risk estimates, people’s relationship with the police, views

about police legitimacy, and the extent to which people are willing to cooperate with

legal authorities.

Our argument is that it is not contact with the police per se that is problematic.

In fact, the results of the study suggest that when the police deal with people in ways

that they experience as being fair, contact promotes trust and a variety of types of desir-

able public behavior. Rather, it is contact that communicates suspicion and mistrust that

undermines the relationship between the public and the police. Proactive approaches in

which the police work with the community to build legitimacy also increase informal

social control and lead to an overall reduction in crime and disorder (see Tyler &

Jackson 2014). Proactive police approaches can build trust.

We conclude that the manner in which the tension between these two images of

policing is resolved has important implications for the relationship between law and the

public as the United States becomes an increasingly proactive risk-management-oriented

society. These findings also help explain why police actions that were initially motivated

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Potential Pitfalls of Proactive Police Contact

by a desire to address community concerns have not legitimated the police but have

instead produced public anger.

II. CHANGES IN U.S. POLICING

There have been three waves of police reform in policing in the United States (Walker

& Katz 2012). The first involved institutional development and paralleled Robert Peel’s

London model of policing, which emphasized “policing by consent” (Emsley 2013). A

second involved professionalization and is most closely associated with August Vollmer.

The third began in the 1960s and involved efforts to both improve community relation-

ships and be more proactive in dealing with crime. This era reflects conflicting pres-

sures to build community relationships and to manage issues of social order. One

element of this effort was community-oriented policing, which tried to build ties to the

community (Gill et al. 2014). Another involved efforts to control crime.

As the police have tried to control crime, recent decades have seen fundamental

changes in the goals of U.S. policing. The police have moved from a focus on acting

against crime that is in the process of occurring or on solving already committed crimes

to a proactive strategy of preventive measures aimed at deterring future crimes. This

more proactive approach to policing has led to more frequent police-initiated nonvolun-

tary public contacts with the legal system, both through increased stop, question, and

frisk activities, and via zero-tolerance policies that bring more people within the criminal

justice system through arrests, court appearances, and even time in jail.

In addition, there has been a change in the nature of police-public contacts. To

implement their proactive efforts to reduce future crime, the police now more fre-

quently approach members of the public with an attitude of suspicion and distrust as

they search for signs of criminal character and likely future criminal behavior (e.g., “a

regulatory gaze”). Consequently, an increasing number of people are having involuntary

interactions with the police during which they are more likely to be treated as if they

are suspected of having deviant tendencies and suspect character. Rather than commu-

nicating reassurance, trust, and respect, the police communicate suspicion, mistrust,

and fear. This change in tone reflects a managerial model of social order in which the

police have centralized the authority for handling crime and implemented policing poli-

cies and practices using the promise of delivering rewards (safety) and the threat of

imposing sanctions (fines, arrests, incarceration).

This article highlights the tension between the broad communication of messages

of suspicion within communities and people’s social relationship with the police. Our

analysis focuses on the experience of “feeling like a suspect.” Prior analyses have high-

lighted the objective consequences of acting based on estimates of future risk (Harcourt

2007). The analysis here focuses on the additional issue of the psychological consequen-

ces of acting on such suspicions.

We draw on data from a national survey of U.S. citizens. We find that those who

live in disordered neighborhoods and those who are engaged in criminal activity are

more likely to feel suspected by the police. In addition, minorities, the young, and the

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