Evidence based approaches to youth justice

This monograph was originally prepared as part of a review of services and programs offered in youth justice facilities in South Australia for the Office of the Guardian for Children andYoung People.

Public satisfaction with police : the importance of procedural justice and police performance in police-citizen encounters

A large body of literature has demonstrated that when authorities use procedural justice with those they regulate, people will be more satisfied with those authorities and will be more willing to cooperate and comply with their directions and rules. In the context of policing, procedural justice has also been shown to be important for shaping citizens’ views about police legitimacy, their satisfaction with police and also in fostering cooperation with police. What remains largely unexamined, however, is whether the positive effect of procedural justice varies across different types of police–citizen encounters. Using survey data collected from a national sample of 1,462 Australians, the present study will examine the relative importance of procedural justice on overall ratings of police satisfaction across two types of police–citizen encounters (citizen-initiated contacts and police-initiated contacts). It will be shown that procedural justice is most important in police-initiated contacts, while police performance is most important in citizen-initiated contacts.

Procedural justice and affect intensity : understanding reactions to regulatory authorities

Why is it that some people respond in a more negative way to procedural injustice than do others, and why is it that some people go on to defy authority while others in the same situation do not? Personality theorists suggest that the psychological effect of a situation depends on how a person interprets the situation and that such differences in interpretation can vary as a function of individual difference factors. For example, affect intensity—one’s predisposition to react more or less emotionally to an event—is one such individual difference factor that has been shown to influence people’s reactions to events. Cross-sectional survey data collected from (a) 652 tax offenders who have been through a serious law enforcement experience (Study 1), and (b) 672 citizens with recent personal contact with a police officer (Study 2), showed that individual differences in ‘affect intensity’ moderate the effect of procedural justice on both affective reactions and compliance behavior. Specifically, perceptions of procedural justice had a greater effect in reducing anger and reports of non-compliance among those lower in affect intensity than those higher in affect intensity. Both methodological and theoretical explanations are offered to explain the results, including the suggestion that emotions of shame may play a role in the observed interaction.

Nurturing regulatory compliance: Is procedural justice effective when people question the legitimacy of the law?

Procedural justice generally enhances an authority's legitimacy and encourages people to comply with an authority's decisions and rules. We argue, however, that previous research on procedural justice and legitimacy has examined legitimacy in a limited way by focusing solely on the perceived legitimacy of authorities and ignoring how people may perceive the legitimacy of the laws and rules they enforce. In addition, no research to date has examined how such perceptions of legitimacy may moderate the effect of procedural justice on compliance behavior. Using survey data collected across three different regulatory contexts – taxation (Study 1), social security (Study 2), and law enforcement (Study 3) – the findings suggest that one's perceptions of the legitimacy of the law moderates the effect of procedural justice on compliance behaviors; procedural justice is more important for shaping compliance behaviors when people question the legitimacy of the laws than when they accept them as legitimate. An explanation of these findings using a social distancing framework is offered, along with a discussion of the implications the findings have on enforcement.

Justice, gender and employee cognitive outcomes

This study used the four factor model of organizational justice to investigate gender differences in the employee outcome cognitive variables of job satisfaction,commitment and turnover intentions. Survey respondents were 301 male and 147 female currently working employees in a variety of occupations. Structural equation modeling was used for the analyses. There were significant relationships from distributive justice to job satisfaction and commitment for both men and women. Informational justice significantly predicted job satisfaction. For women, informational justice predicted commitment and turnover intentions. Procedural justice predicted turnover intentions and interpersonal justice predicted commitment for men. Gender differences were found for procedural, interpersonal and informational justices. Men and women gave differing responses to justice perceptions, implying consideration of a range of views when allocation decisions are made and communicated. For both genders, distributive and informational justices play a central role in predicting employee outcomes, although the other justice types also have an effect for males. Justice had a diffuse effect for males, but not females.