Mirage of Police Reform: Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy

The exercise of police authority, and public trust that police authority is used properly, are recurring issues in the U.S.  Contemporary prescriptions for police reform hold that the public would better trust the police, and feel a greater obligation to comply and cooperate with police, if police-citizen interactions were marked by higher levels of procedural justice by police.  Based on our study of measuring and managing procedural justice in two upstate New York police departments, we conclude that the procedural justice model of reform is a mirage, appearing from a distance to offer relief from strained police-community relations, but at close proximity to police organizations and police-citizen interactions, the relief offered by such reform proves illusory.Professor Robert Worden will be discussing the promises and pitfalls of procedural justice. There will be about 45 minutes of lecture followed by discussion until about 6:30pm.Robert E. Worden is the director of the John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, Inc., and associate professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Professor Worden’s interests revolve around questions about the accountability and responsiveness of criminal justice institutions to the public. His scholarship has appeared in Justice Quarterly, Criminology, Law & Society Review, and other academic journals, and his research has been funded by the National Institute of Justice, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, and other sponsors.