Policing young people at mass events: Does procedural justice foster help-seeking?

Abstract

Young people’s consumption of illicit substances at mass events (e.g., music festivals; school-leaver events) is a major health concern to authorities world-wide. Police are required to enforce laws on illicit substances at such mass events, but critics claim that heavy-handed police enforcement can alienate patrons and reduce their willingness to seek help from police in the event of an adverse reaction or overdose. In recent years, police in Australia have been urged to shift their approach from a ‘law enforcement’ approach to a ‘harm reduction’ approach at these types of events, particularly when dealing with young people. Harm reduction policing approaches focus on supply, demand and harm-minimisation associated with illicit drugs, with recent literature proposing that police discretionary decision-making and interpersonal interactions with users aimed at building trust and respect can contribute toward secondary harm reduction (Stevens, 2013). Despite the call for harm reduction policing approaches at these events, police still use crackdown tactics in Australia. These policing tactics have been linked to excessive consumption of drugs to avoid detection (e.g., Dunn & Degenhardt, 2009; Hickey et al., 2012). To foster young patrons’ help-seeking in illicit substance emergencies at mass events, it is important to better understand how they perceive police at mass events and policing responses that target illicit substances. Research demonstrates that public perceptions of procedural justice policing—fair treatment and fair decision-making—influences a range of attitudes and behaviours in citizens, including: satisfaction with police, compliance with police directives, trust in police, and willingness to cooperate with police (e.g., Hinds & Murphy, 2007; Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). This prior research also shows that relational concerns regarding procedural justice tend to be more important for shaping attitudes and behaviours toward police than instrumental concerns, such as perceived risk of sanction or perceptions that police are effective. Adopting a procedural justice framework, my research explores for the first time how policing approaches at mass events influences young peoples’ trust in police, their willingness to cooperate with police, and their help-seeking behaviours in the event of adverse reactions to illicit substances. A mixed methods approach is adopted across three studies. Study 1 includes observations of two mass events in Queensland (a two-week high-school graduation celebration known as ‘Schoolies’, and a music event known as ‘Stereosonic’) and interviews with 19 Queensland Police Service officers. Study 2 uses the interviews with police officers, while Study 3 includes a survey of 440 youth who attended the Schoolies event during the same years as the observations and interviews. Study 1 found that the policing approach in the first week of Schoolies more closely aligned with a harm minimisation approach than the second week of Schoolies or the Stereosonic music festival. It was also found to demonstrate more characteristics of procedural justice policing compared to Stereosonic (the other mass event studied). Study 2 revealed that police had varied understandings of procedural justice and noted several barriers in its practice but indicated that the principles underlying its framework were important for policing youth at these events. Study 3 indicated that youth’s self-reported help-seeking was driven more by instrumental concerns such as a perceived risk of sanction for wrongdoing than relational factors such as procedural justice. However, perceptions of procedural justice and trust in police dominated young peoples’ willingness to cooperate with police, with procedural justice being very important to fostering trust. Further, young people were more likely to say they would seek help from police at mass events for a friend than themselves, and also when they perceived policing tactics to be less law enforcement focused. This thesis fills several gaps in the literature. It is the first to explore the theoretical link between young people’s perceptions of procedural justice, trust, and willingness to seek help for an adverse consequence associated with illicit substance use. It is also the first to compare policing tactics employed at Schoolies to another youth mass event, and the influence policing tactics at these events have on youth trust in police and willingness to cooperate and seek help. This thesis raises important implications for the widespread applicability of the procedural justice framework, and for how police should best approach policing mass events in the future.