Criminology & Criminal Justice
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Item UNDERSTANDING THE PROCEDURAL JUSTICE IMPLICATIONS OF MACRO-LEVEL POLICE POLICIES: EVIDENCE FROM LONGITUDINAL POLICE AND JUVENILE OFFENDER DATA(2016) Collins, Megan Eileen; Loughran, Thomas A; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In response to a series of high profile conflicts between police and the communities they serve, President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recommended that law enforcement agencies adopt procedural justice as a guiding principle to inform their policies. While there is general agreement about the importance of procedural justice in shaping an individual’s view of their encounters with police, it remains unclear how the many police policies that are already in place affect citizens’ perceptions of police procedural justice. This dissertation seeks to understand how a common police policy—sending more officers to the areas with the most crime—impacts perceptions of procedural justice, so that policies formed with the goal of enhancing perceptions of procedural justice might be better informed. This study exploits quasi-experimental conditions that resulted from the selective implementation of the Philadelphia Police Department’s 2008 Crime Fighting Strategy (CFS) in only nine of their twenty-three police districts. In doing so, the effect of sending more police officers to high crime areas on perceptions of police procedural justice can be estimated. While many have sought to estimate the impact of more police on offending and delinquency externalities, this particular question has not yet been researched. Further, this research focuses specifically on the perceptions of serious adolescent offenders; this is critical, as offenders were ostensibly the intended target of the CFS, many of whom experience frequent and high stakes interactions with police. Findings indicate that serious adolescent offenders’ perceptions of procedural justice based on personal experiences do not operate in tandem with perceptions based on vicarious experiences, with the two measures displaying opposite signs when correlations with district level crime and socio-economic factors were estimated. The CFS did not appear to influence significant changes in adolescents’ perceptions of procedural justice when the treatment and control districts were compared, or when within-individual changes were estimated. Further, perceptions did not necessarily update as a function of moving from one district to another, as many of the individuals who remained in a single district also updated their perceptions. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.Item Examining the Meaning of Procedural Justice among Serious Adolescent Offenders(2013) Augustyn, Megan Bears; Paternoster, Raymond; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Attempts to reduce delinquent/criminal behavior among juveniles tend to operate outside of the criminal justice system. Part of this emphasis is due to the fact that the criminal justice system has long prescribed to a control/deterrence framework in order to reduce juvenile delinquency even though this perspective has not been shown to be overly effective. However, a growing body of literature has begun to realize the importance of "process" over "control" within the criminal justice system; thus demonstrating that increasing perceptions of procedural justice and legitimacy can increase compliant behavior and reduce offending. This investigation seeks to add to the growing body of literature examining the normative perspective of compliance through the examination of the role of procedural justice and legitimacy among serious adolescent offenders. The value of this work is in its contribution to important gaps in the extant literature. Although the expansion of outcomes of interest to include official measures of recidivism and substance use is worthy of note, the main value of this research is the examination of the relevance of Procedural Justice Theory as a potential guide for the reduction of recidivism rates among serious juvenile offenders. Furthermore, this research will examine how perceptions of legitimacy are formed through variable experiences of procedural justice among adolescent offenders. The ambiguity surrounding the formation of perceptions of legitimacy will be addressed through the examination of the importance of varying sources of experiences of procedural justice. In addition, analyses also will discern the varying importance of the different elements of treatment that make up the concept of procedural justice (e.g. representation, impartiality, consistency, accuracy, correctability and ethical treatment), which, in turn, are predicted to inhibit criminal behavior through the formation of positive perceptions of legitimacy. Finally, this dissertation adopts examines whether or not the relevance and meaning of procedural justice varies among males of different race/ethnicity. This line of inquiry has rarely been applied to normative perspective of compliance and never applied among adolescent populations. Using a sample of 1,353 serious adolescent offenders from the Pathways to Desistance Study, this research examines the theoretical and empirical implications of various means used to determine what is "fair" and "just" among the adolescent population. Among serious adolescent offenders, weak evidence exists regarding the applicability of Procedural Justice Theory as a means to reduce recidivism. However, subsequent analyses reveal that the theory is better at predicting the relative frequency of criminal acts as well as overall recidivism among novice offenders. In the end, this dissertation speaks to the importance of personal interactions with the police in the formation of perceptions of legitimacy and the reduction of recidivism rates among some serious adolescent offenders. Not only does this work have important implications for the generality of Procedural Justice Theory, but it also speaks to the need to continue to examine the relevance of the normative perspective of compliance among adolescents in general in order to determine if this population actually appeals to morality when making decisions to engage in criminal behavior.Item Using Procedural Justice to Explore the Relationship betweeen Victim Satisfaction with Police and Victim Participation in Prosecution(2010) Greenman, Sarah; Dugan, Laura; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis uses procedural justice to explore the relationship between victim satisfaction with the police and victim participation in prosecution. Prior procedural justice research has focused either on offenders or on limited sections of the criminal justice process. Expanding upon prior research by using victims and the entire criminal justice process, this thesis hypothesizes that increased victim satisfaction with the police leads to increased victim participation in prosecution and that this effect weakens throughout the prosecution process. Conversely, this thesis hypothesizes that increased victim satisfaction with the prosecutor leads to increased participation in prosecution and that this effect strengthens throughout the prosecution process. Using logistic and Tobit regressions this thesis finds some support for the hypotheses of this thesis: procedural fairness, police, and prosecutors all have an impact on victim participation. Future research can further delineate the questions that remain: when, how, and for whom satisfaction has the largest impact.