Factors associated with encounter-specific police procedural justice perceptions among Dutch detainees

Abstract

ABSTRACT Previous research on police procedural justice shows that observed assessments of police behaviour, for example through systematic social observation, are not strongly correlated with citizen perceptions of the same police behaviour. There is a growing body of knowledge about how people form their perceptions of police behaviour and how personal and situational characteristics are associated with specific judgements about procedural justice. However, we know little about how this works for people who most frequently interact with the police and criminal justice system, such as offenders or arrestees. The present study uses data from the Prison Project to examine to what extent individual and situational characteristics relate to perceptions of encounter-specific police procedural justice among Dutch detainees. Male adults in pre-trial detention (N = 1380) were surveyed on how they perceived procedural justice during their arrest, which occurred approximately three weeks prior. In addition to individual characteristics (demographics, attitudes, psychosocial characteristics and criminal history), we measured characteristics that reflect the situation during arrest, such as location, police verbal abuse and unnecessary use of force. This allowed us to examine the relationship between situational factors and detainee perceptions, net of individual characteristics. Regression analyses show that next to pre-existing general attitudes towards the police, several situational characteristics (i.e. perceptions of use of force and verbal abuse, anger and outcome fairness) were strongly associated with encounter-specific procedural justice perceptions. Our results indicate that, beyond (pre-existing) individual characteristics, situational factors of the arrest play an important role in forming specific procedural justice perceptions of the police.