The book explores police legitimacy and crime control, with a focus on the European region. Using comparative case studies, the contributions to this timely volume examine the effects of a transition to democracy on policing, public attitudes towards police legitimacy, and the ways in which perceptions of police legitimacy relate to compliance with the law. Following these case studies, the authors provide recommendations for improving police legitimacy and controlling crime, in these particular sociopolitical environments, where the police are often associated with previous military or paramilitary roles. The techniques used by these researchers may be applied to studies for policing in other regions, with potential applications within Europe and beyond. Chapters present topical issues of crime, crime control and human emotions regarding crime, criminals, law enforcement and punishment in contemporary societies. This book will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, as well as political science and public policy. This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in procedural justice and legitimacy, encounters between citizens and the state, the effectiveness of governmental institutions, and democratic development. It stands alone in its broad, cross-national contributions to understanding these issues. -Wesley G. Skogan, PhD, Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

Renowned criminologist Mike Hough illuminates the principles and practices of good policing in this important analysis of the police service’s legitimacy and the factors, such as public trust, that drive it. As concern grows at the growth in crimes of serious violence, he challenges conventional political and public thinking on crime and scrutinises strategies and tactics like deterrence and stop-and-search. Contrasting ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ approaches to policing and punishment, he offers a fresh perspective that stresses the importance of securing normative compliance. For officers, students, policy makers and anyone who has an interest in the police force, this is a valuable roadmap for ethical policing.

The police and the courts depend on the cooperation of communities to keep order. But large numbers of urban poor distrust law enforcement officials. Legitimacy and Criminal Justice explores the reasons that legal authorities are or are not seen as legitimate and trustworthy by many citizens. Legitimacy and Criminal Justice is the first study of the perceived legitimacy of legal institutions outside the U.S. The authors investigate relations between courts, the police, and communities in the U.K., Western Europe, South Africa, Slovenia, South America, and Mexico, demonstrating the importance of social context in shaping those relations. Gorazd Meško and Goran Klemencic examine Slovenia's adoption of Western-style "community policing" during its transition to democracy. In the context of Slovenia's recent Communist past—when "community policing" entailed omnipresent social and political control—citizens regarded these efforts with great suspicion, and offered little cooperation to the police. When states fail to control crime, informal methods of law can gain legitimacy. Jennifer Johnson discusses an extra-legal policing system carried out by farmers in Guerrero, Mexico—complete with sentencing guidelines and initiatives to reintegrate offenders into the community. Feeling that federal authorities were not prosecuting the crimes that plagued their province, the citizens of Guerrero strongly supported this extra-legal arrangement, and engaged in massive protests when the central government tried to suppress it. Several of the authors examine how the perceived legitimacy of the police and courts varies across social groups. Graziella Da Silva, Ignacio Cano, and Hugo Frühling show that attitudes toward the police vary greatly across social classes in harshly unequal societies like Brazil and Chile. And many of the authors find that ethnic minorities often display greater distrust toward the police, and perceive themselves to be targets of police discrimination. Indeed, Hans-Jöerg Albrecht finds evidence of bias in arrests of the foreign born in Germany, which has fueled discontent among Berlin's Turkish youth. Sophie Body-Gendrot points out that mutual hostility between police and minority communities can lead to large-scale violence, as the Parisian banlieu riots underscored. The case studies presented in this important new book show that fostering cooperation between law enforcement and communities requires the former to pay careful attention to the needs and attitudes of the latter. Forging a new field of comparative research, Legitimacy and Criminal Justice brings to light many of the reasons the law's representatives succeed—or fail—in winning citizens' hearts and minds. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust

Brings together internationally renowned scholars from a range of disciplines, including criminology, international relations, sociology and political science, to examine the meaning of legitimacy and the implications for its future empirical analysis in the context of criminal justice.

This book aims to explore a number of connected themes relating to compliance, legitimacy and trust in different areas of criminal justice and socio-legal regulation.

Just Authority? provides the most authoritative and comprehensive analysis thus far of the meaning, distribution and significance of trust in the police and the legitimacy of legal authorities. Drawing on psychological and sociological explanatory paradigms, Just Authority? presents a cutting-edge empirical study into public trust, police legitimacy, and people's readiness to cooperate with officers. It represents, first, the most detailed test to date of Tom Tyler's procedural justice model attempted outside the United States. Second, it uncovers the social ecology of trust and legitimacy and, third, it describes the relationships between trust, legitimacy and cooperation.This book contains many important lessons for practitioners, policy-makers and academics.

The police are perhaps the most visible representation of government. They are charged with what has been characterized as an "impossible" mandate -- control and prevent crime, keep the peace, provide public services -- and do so within the constraints of democratic principles. The police are trusted to use deadly force when it is called for and are allowed access to our homes in cases of emergency. In fact, police departments are one of the few government agencies that can be mobilized by a simple phone call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are ubiquitous within our society, but their actions are often not well understood. The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing brings together research on the development and operation of policing in the United States and elsewhere. Accomplished policing researchers Michael D. Reisig and Robert J. Kane have assembled a cast of renowned scholars to provide an authoritative and comprehensive overview of the institution of policing. The different sections of the Handbook explore policing contexts, strategies, authority, and issues relating to race and ethnicity. The Handbook also includes reviews of the research methodologies used by policing scholars and considerations of the factors that will ultimately shape the future of policing, thus providing persuasive insights into why and how policing has developed, what it is today, and what to expect in the future. Aimed at a wide audience of scholars and students in criminology and criminal justice, as well as police professionals, the Handbook serves as the definitive resource for information on this important institution.