Impact of the Quality of Police Stops on the Compliance of Young People: An Empirical Test of Procedural Justice Theory

Abstract

The first encounters that young people have with the criminal justice system are usually police contacts. According to Tyler’s procedural justice theory, the quality of such contacts, especially in terms of fairness and respect practised by police officers, significantly affects young people’s willingness to comply with the law. Based on data from two regionally representative school surveys in the United Kingdom and France (n=2,508), which were collected as part of the third wave of the International Self-Reported Delinquency (ISRD-3) Study, central assumptions of the theory of procedural justice are empirically tested. This study extends previous analyses by including all the main elements of procedural justice theory simultaneously in a single model. The results of multivariate analyses support the mediator model derived from procedural justice theory. Furthermore, the analyses show that young people’s contacts with the police in the context of ‘stop and search’ generally increase intentions to offend. However, the higher the level of fairness and respectfulness shown by police officers, the lower the deviance increasing effect of police controls.