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The current study assesses the impact of the movement that followed George Floyd’s murder on early adolescent attitudes toward the police (ATP). Using a repeated cross-sectional design, we examine ATP among a Midwestern sample of 5th and 6th grade students before (fall 2018 and fall 2019) and after (fall 2020) Floyd’s murder. Descriptive results reveal that the distributions of ATP were identical during fall 2018 and fall 2019 survey years but shifted during the fall 2020 survey year. Results from mixed effects linear regression models indicate that Black and White girls experienced the largest declines in ATP from fall 2019 to fall 2020. Boys, particularly White boys, were less impacted. While Black boys’ average attitudes did not change in the post-Floyd era, overall, their attitudes were significantly lower than other groups. The findings highlight the need for ongoing measurement of early adolescent perceptions of law enforcement during the post-Floyd era and the current legitimacy crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal socialization is the process by which individuals develop values, attitudes, and behaviors related to the law and legal authorities. Legal socialization also includes beliefs about procedural justice, police legitimacy, and legal cynicism. To date, few studies have examined the legal socialization processes of transgender women, a worrisome omission given high rates of police contact, arrest, harassment, and violence among transgender women, particularly transgender women of color. This study examines transgender women's experiences with and perceptions about the police, including experiences of procedural injustice and how they impact police legitimacy and cynicism, among a racially diverse sample of transgender women living in Chicago. Participants described undergoing a secondary legal socialization process after beginning to transition. The study also documented strategies transgender women use to prevent police contact and arrest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud is the property of Centro de Estudiso Avanzados en Ninez y Juventud alaianza Cinde, Universidad de Manizales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objectives : Judgments about police procedural fairness consistently have a stronger influence on how the public ascribes legitimacy to the police than evaluations of police effectiveness. What remains largely underexplored, however, is the potential moderating effect of procedural justice on the relationship between effectiveness and legitimacy and whether this moderation varies by citizen race. Method: We administered two separate surveys to determine whether procedural justice's moderating effect on the relationship between police ineffectiveness and legitimacy varies by citizen race. The first was a mail survey of a random sample of citizens in a southern US city (N = 1,681) conducted in 2013; the second, a national survey of adults (N = 972) administered via Qualtrics in 2022. Results: We found that procedural justice could help protect against the harmful influence of perceived ineffectiveness on police legitimacy in Study 2. However, contrary to expectations, this moderation effect held only for White Americans. Conclusions: The effect of perceived ineffectiveness on legitimacy evaluations does not vary depending on citizens' perceptions of procedural justice. Yet, police still do have control over how they treat people with whom they interact, which is one mechanism that can improve citizens' views on police legitimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals enter police encounters with expectations about how these interactions will unfold. These expectations are often rooted in racialized personal, vicarious, and collective experiences with the police. Bayesian updating posits that the way youth perceive treatment by the police during stops and arrests combines with prior expectations and perceptions to shape current views of the law, whereas subtyping suggests this process differs by race. This study examines intra‐ and interracial variability in these processes using longitudinal survey data from 3,085 Black and White youth. Regardless of race, youth who indicate they were treated with disrespect during police encounters had lower perceptions of procedural justice than did those with no contact, whereas contact perceived as respectful had no significant effects. For White but not Black youth, police encounters rated as "neutral" are associated with more negative views of the police. Other forms of legal socialization are also racialized, including messages conveyed in the media and by parents. Limited evidence exists that prior views of the police moderate the effect of police encounters on procedural justice or that these conditioning effects vary by race. Findings support updating, but race differences do not neatly align with findings expected with updating or subtyping theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study it is examined if the impact of vicarious and personal perceptions of procedural justice on legal cynicism, legitimacy, and offending across time is invariant across race/ethnicity. Using longitudinal data from a sample of serious juvenile offenders from the Pathways to Desistance, the within- and between-individual associations of procedural justice, legal orientations, and offending were tested. Race/ethnic-specific models were estimated to examine differences across race/ethnicity. Positive personal and vicarious experiences with police had positive effects on legal orientations (i.e., legitimacy and cynicism), while vicarious experiences were more influential on offending compared to personal experiences. These effects were consistent across race/ethnicity. Both changes in legitimacy (positive) and cynicism (negative) were important for understanding changes in offending; however, the effect of cynicism was more consistent across race/ethnicity. The findings suggest that procedurally just treatment of juveniles by police can enhance legal compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police must rely on the public's cooperation; however, youths' views of police are historically low. To understand the dynamics of these intergroup relations, this study integrates two theoretical perspectives: the cognitive developmental perspective, which posits that age-graded cognitive enhancements enable children to begin critically evaluating police; and the group engagement model, which suggests that views of police impact law-related behavior. Utilizing a sample of 424 community youth (37.97% Hispanic/Latinx, 19.81% Native American), this study tested four novel hypotheses: H1: Age is negatively associated with youths' willingness to cooperate (WTC) with police; H2: Age is negatively associated with normative alignment with police; H3: Normative alignment is positively associated with WTC; and H4: Normative alignment is more strongly associated with older youths' WTC. All four hypotheses were supported. The article discusses the implications of both the integration of these theoretical perspectives and the findings for understanding the effects of these intergroup dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additionally, it assumes that each of those behaviors is equally weighted in forming that judgment so that the presence of one behavior is ascribed the same meaning by the actor as any of the other behaviors in the index. Keywords: objective procedural justice; subjective procedural justice; police; measurement EN objective procedural justice subjective procedural justice police measurement 378 392 15 03/24/23 20230501 NES 230501 Introduction I commend [12] for heeding repeated calls ([8]; [17]) for more field work testing procedural justice theory (PJT). Their critique is grounded in the idea that procedural justice scholars have (1) identified the process by which actors transform interactions with police officers into subjective judgments of procedural justice and (2) developed measures to capture this process. If there are a nearly infinite number of behaviors that could be selected in constructing an objective measure of procedural justice, then this suggests PJT (or at least a core aspect of it) is functionally unfalsifiable as one could always argue that any nonsignificant relation between objective and subjective measures is due to the former not containing the "correct" behaviors. [Extracted from the article]

Police-initiated diversion practices allow officers to divert youth away from the justice system. This qualitative study addresses one such Southern California program to understand the subjective experiences of youth and parents through in-depth interviews. Thirty-eight respondents, 19 youth and 19 parents, were interviewed for this study. Results demonstrate how an increase in positive interactions with police officers and diversion program staff can influence how youth comply with the law and legal institutions. Interviews emphasized youths' complex attitudes toward police and the law, highlighting the importance for police and diversion programs to engage in transparent practices to facilitate a greater understanding of diversion and reduce potentially traumatic feelings from initial police contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A popular model of legal socialization contends that interactions with authority figures impact the internalization of pro-social values and beliefs, including authority legitimacy. Simultaneously, subcultural theories, including the code of the street, emphasize that negative contextual and experiential factors promote subcultural beliefs. The current study examines whether legal socialization processes are associated with the development of subcultural beliefs. Using longitudinal data from approximately 1,200 adolescent male offenders, we examined whether social experiences and contextual characteristics influence the development of individual beliefs in the code of the street through police legitimacy and legal cynicism. Consistent with theoretical expectations, the effects of deleterious neighborhood characteristics and negative interactions with authority figures were associated with beliefs in the code of the street through diminished police legitimacy and higher levels of cynicism toward the law. These findings provide evidence of the relevance of legal socialization processes for the development of subcultural norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Examine youths' perceptions of police legitimacy. Study one establishes age-graded trends in perceptions from childhood into adolescence. Study two tests whether a structured, in-school, non-enforcement-related program involving repeated prosocial exposure to police can improve youths' perceptions of police legitimacy. Methods: In study one, a cross-sectional sample (N = 959) of youth ages 7 to 14 was used to assess age-graded perceptions of police legitimacy. In study two, a 4-school, randomized controlled trial was conducted in Compton, California (N = 499). Results: Age-graded differences in police legitimacy perceptions vary by race, but generally begin declining during late childhood. The program significantly improved youths' perceptions of police legitimacy. Conclusion: Racial differences in perceptions of police legitimacy can be traced to childhood, and perceptions of law enforcement appear to begin declining during childhood. Further, repeated exposure to law enforcement officials in a positive, non-enforcement capacity may improve youths' legitimacy perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cadernos de Pesquisa is the property of Fundacao Carlos Chagas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The invariance thesis posits that the effects of procedural justice judgments on police legitimacy beliefs are consistent across a variety of contexts, including urban neighborhoods. An alternative argument, one steeped in the relational model of authority, holds that procedural justice effects are weaker in high-crime communities where residents do not identify with the police and where they place more weight on instrumental concerns. This study used survey data from 1,000 adults in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The regression models showed that the association between procedural justice and police legitimacy was stronger in low-risk neighborhoods. In high-risk areas, distributive justice was a stronger correlate of legitimacy. Overall, the findings highlight how neighborhood context can moderate the influence of fairness judgments on supportive beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescence and later childhood are critical periods for developing attitudes toward legal authorities, a process known as legal socialization. Traditionally, scholars have understood contact with local police officers and experiences with the juvenile justice system to drive legal socialization. These interactions, and in particular how fair they are perceived to be, influence long‐term views about the legitimacy of the legal system and future criminal behavior. In recent years, however, the potential for adolescent contact with police has increased exponentially through their presence in a new context: schools. In a survey of high schoolers, we explored how school‐based police, school resource officers (SROs), function as an emerging nexus of legal socialization. We found that SROs' influence extends beyond school grounds: the more procedurally just students perceived SROs to be, the more they were willing to follow their directives and to obey police outside of school. Further, procedural justice perceptions of SROs were correlated with school climate outcomes, including self‐reported academic success, anxiety, and identification with the school community. Our results speak to the connection between legal socialization and other developmental processes like community engagement and support expanding robust theories of legal socialization to consider arenas that intermingle legal and non‐legal authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research is increasingly focusing on how young people interpret their experiences with the legal system and whether and how this shapes attitudes and beliefs about the system. This study adds to the extant literature by examining the relationship between perceptions of procedural justice and attitudes toward the law and legal system for a sample of youth (N = 227) in residential placements. Specifically, it focuses on how youths' perceptions of their defense attorneys shape their attitudes toward the legal system. Results demonstrate that youth who feel they were treated more fairly by their defense attorneys viewed the police and courts as more legitimate. White youth viewed the police as more legitimate than did youth of color and girls viewed courts as less legitimate than did boys. Attitudes toward the legal system were also related to other contextual characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the emergence of the legal socialization field, the obligation to obey the law was central in theoretical and empirical approaches. Scholars in the last 50 years often noted that the obligation to obey the law (OOL) is vital for compliance, yet studies rarely empirically examined factors that promote the OOL. This study used data from 1000 adults stratified sampled to be nationally representative of the United States to examine how personal characteristics (i.e., impulsivity and morality), perceptions of the nonlegal social context (i.e., social bonds, teacher legitimacy, and parent legitimacy), and perceptions of the legal system context (i.e., deterrence and police procedural justice, distributive justice, bias, and legitimacy) are associated with the OOL. The results indicated that impulsivity, teacher legitimacy, deterrence, and perceptions of police legitimacy and bias were associated with the OOL. Implications for the next 50 years of legal socialization research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Police rely on citizens to report crime and victimization. Yet for many people low levels of trust in police and concerns about unjust police treatment impact their willingness to engage proactively with police. For some, defying police authority is common. This can be particularly so for ethnic, racial, and religious minority groups. The personal and vicarious experiences these groups have with police play an important role in the legal socialization process, shaping how they perceive and behave toward police. As a religious minority group Muslims have experienced intense scrutiny from police. As such, the current study examines how and why Muslims defy police authority. Using survey data from 398 Australian Muslims, this study tests whether Muslims' concerns about procedural justice and bounded‐authority violations (i.e., the belief that police overstep the boundaries of acceptable authority) have differential effects on two types of defiance: resistance and disengagement. Findings show that Muslims' concerns about procedural justice are most important for understanding resistance, while disengagement is dominated by concerns about perceived boundary violations. Further, procedural justice moderates the association between bounded‐authority concerns and resistance, but not disengagement. The implications of these findings for the legal socialization process, theory, and police practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of police legitimacy evaluations is a core component of the legal socialization process. Research has identified many factors that impact peoples' perceptions of legitimacy such as social and ethnic identity, but the role of American identity has yet to be examined. This study attempted to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that impact legal socialization by examining the relationship between American identity and police legitimacy evaluations. Using a sample of 2086 adults from the United States, we found that people with a stronger American identity were more likely to believe the police are a legitimate authority after accounting for other known predictors of legitimacy. The results demonstrate that national identity may be play a key role in the legal socialization process and partially shape peoples' evaluations of police legitimacy regardless of the content and quality of interactions they have with the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The legal socialization framework emphasizes the importance of adolescents' encounters with police. We examine how different types of police contact and neighborhood experiences are linked to the legal socialization process among adolescents living in São Paulo, Brazil. Drawing on 669 participants across three waves of panel data from the São Paulo Legal Socialization Study, results from the multilevel longitudinal model revealed that within‐person increases in vicarious police contact were linked to a decrease in police legitimacy over time. Exploratory analyses using a multilevel mediation model indicated that the observed negative effect of vicarious police contact was mediated by evaluations of police procedural justice. As for the between‐person effects, voluntary police contact positively predicted police legitimacy over time. However, the effects of vicarious police contact and violent police contact were mediated by police procedural justice. Additionally, police legitimacy decreased for people who had more exposure to violence and lower levels of fear of crime. The study revealed that the nature of police contact and levels of exposure to violence can have important effects on adolescents' perceptions of police legitimacy, even after accounting for procedural justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The procedural justice model is a common framework for understanding how and why fair procedures conveyed by legal authorities (such as police officers) shape the legal socialization process. The present contribution draws upon self‐determination theory (SDT) to advance the procedural justice model through its focus on internalization, in terms of identification and external regulation. Study 1 is a questionnaire‐based study conducted among 268 Belgian adolescents that provides initial evidence for the incremental value of the SDT‐based operationalization of internalization, above and beyond the classic operationalization (i.e., obligation to obey), for explaining why perceived procedural justice is linked to more compliance and less defiance. These results are corroborated in Study 2, which involves an experimental, vignette‐based study (N = 210) contrasting a procedurally just versus unjust situation. The discussion focuses on how SDT may inform the legal socialization literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research examining the legal socialisation process continues to be largely focused on US adolescents, calling into question the generalisability of this work. This study tests a popular model of legal socialisation – the procedural justice model – using a sample of youth in São Paulo, Brazil. Approximately, 750 12-year-olds completed a survey assessing their direct and vicarious contact with police, judgements of police procedural justice, crime perceptions, police legitimacy, legal cynicism, and criminal offending. Both direct and indirect experiences with the police were associated with lower procedural justice. Police legitimacy was associated with both procedural justice and crime perceptions; however, legal cynicism was only associated with perceptions of crime. Finally, higher perceptions of police legitimacy, but not legal cynicism, were associated with lower levels of self-reported offending. Overall, this study showed mixed support for the generalisability of the procedural justice model of legal socialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study tests the effects of procedurally unfair treatment by 911 dispatchers on behavioral intentions to cooperate with criminal justice professionals. Methods: A factorial vignette design and a university-based sample (N = 488) were used. This study used two different vignettes, each of which involved a different type of emergency (i.e., a burglary incident and a traffic accident) and two experimental manipulations (i.e., procedural injustice and seriousness). Results: Participants who received the injustice stimuli reported they would be less likely call 911 in the future to report a similar incident, less likely to cooperate with the 911 operator if asked additional questions, and less willing to cooperate with the police once they arrived on the scene. In relative terms, the seriousness of the incident (e.g., amount of property stolen) mattered far less. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that procedural injustice during 911 calls not only adversely affects dispatchers, but also the police when they arrive on the scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The procedural justice model of legal socialization holds that personal fairness judgments influence criminal offending directly and indirectly, via legal orientations (e.g. legitimacy and legal cynicism). This study used longitudinal data to empirically scrutinize these arguments. Methods: Using 11 waves of data from the Pathways to Desistance study (i.e. baseline and 10 follow-up interviews), a series of time-lagged, multi-level longitudinal regression models with time-varying and time-stable measures decomposed into between- and within-individual components were estimated.Results: The estimates from the linear mixed-effects models showed that procedural justice judgments directly influence legitimacy and, though relatively more limited, legal cynicism over time both between- and within-individuals. Test statistics indicated too that positive procedural justice judgments reduce involvement in criminal offending between individuals. However, legitimacy is found to significantly mediate the effect of personal procedural justice judgments. The effect of vicarious procedural justice judgments remained statistically significant in explaining differences in criminal offending. As for the within-individual model, neither procedural justice scale predicted offending. However, legal cynicism did have a direct significant effect in the within-individual offending model.Conclusions: The findings support key elements legal socialization theory, especially the premise that the way in which criminal justice authorities treat the individuals they come into contact with influences (albeit indirectly) subsequent compliance with the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The procedural justice model of legal socialization holds that perceptions of unfair treatment by legal authorities foster cynicism toward the law. Subcultural theories argue negative perceptions of those same authorities, and resulting cynicism toward the law, also foster belief in antisocial norms. The current study considers the overlap of these literatures by exploring the psychometric properties of the core constructs found in both models and the relationships between these constructs. Using a national sample of 702 American adults, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling are used to assess the relationships between perceptions of procedural justice, legal cynicism, and the code of the street. Confirmatory factor analysis indicates legal cynicism and the street code are empirically distinct, but moderately correlated. Structural equation modeling shows that perceptions of procedural justice and legal cynicism are both significantly associated with street code beliefs. Perceptions of procedural justice also have a significant indirect effect on street code beliefs through legal cynicism. Alternative model specifications demonstrate a persisting association between cynicism and the street code, but mixed evidence for relationships between experiences with police and belief in the code. Findings highlight opportunities to better integrate the legal socialization and subcultural literatures. • Theories of legal socialization and subcultural norms have developed independently over the past two decades • Measures of legal cynicism and the code of the street are found to be empirically distinct, but are moderately correlated • Perceptions of procedural justice exert direct and indirect effects on individual belief in the code of the street • Findings highlight opportunities to better understand the overlap and intersection of these literatures [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The empirical evidence on the process-based model of self-regulation shows that procedural justice evaluations and the perceived legitimacy of authorities impact law-abiding behavior. However, few studies analyze this theory from the perspective of adolescent legal socialization. The present study aims to examine the process-based model and other socializing agents such as family, school and peers that may have an effect on it. The sample comprised 2041 youths residing in Spain, aged between 13 and 18 years. The data form part of the Third International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-3). Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to predict police legitimacy and juvenile delinquency. The results reveal that police legitimacy perceptions are not only influenced by procedural justice, but also by parental monitoring, school attachment, and delinquent peers. Moreover, perceptions of police legitimacy, parental monitoring, and delinquent peers predict juvenile delinquency. These findings complement and add new explanatory factors to the process-based model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands previous conceptualizations of appropriate police behavior beyond procedural justice. The focus of the current study is on the notion of bounded authority--that is, acting within the limits of one's rightful authority. According to work on legal socialization, U.S. citizens come to acquire three dimensions of values that determine how authorities ought to behave: (a) neutral, consistent, and transparent decision-making; (b) interpersonal treatment that conveys respect, dignity, and concern; and (c) respecting the limits of one's rightful power. Using survey data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, we show that concerns over bounded authority, respectful treatment, and neutral decision-making combine to form a strong predictor of police and legal legitimacy. We also find that legal legitimacy is associated with greater compliance behavior, controlling for personal morality and perceived likelihood of sanctions. We discuss the implications of a boundary perspective with respect to ongoing debates over the appropriate scope of police power and the utility of concentrated police activities. We also highlight the need for further research specifically focused on the psychological mechanisms underlying the formation of boundaries and why they shape the legitimacy of the police and law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Procedural justice theory increasingly guides policing reforms in the United States and abroad. Yet the primary sources of perceived police procedural justice are still unclear. Building on social schema research, we posit civilians’ perceptions of police procedural justice only partly reflect their personal and vicarious experiences with officers. We theorize perceptions of the police are anchored in a broader “relational justice schema,” composed of views about how respectful, fair, and unbiased most people are in their dealings with others. Individuals’ experiences with certain nonlegal actors and neighborhood environments should directly affect their relational justice schema and indirectly affect their evaluation of police. Nevertheless, experiences with police, especially mistreatment by officers, should also affect perceived police procedural justice and may moderate the effects of relational justice schema endorsement. We test our hypotheses in two studies with national samples. The findings strongly support a social schematic model of perceived police procedural justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined how detained youths’ (N = 98) actual experiences with the law, including frequency of contact with the police and knowledge about the Miranda warning and interrogation practices, relate to their perceptions of support, fairness, and trust toward the police. Results show that more police contacts were associated with lower perceived obligation to obey the law and higher cynicism toward the law and also moderated the relationships between age and police legitimacy and race/ethnicity and police legitimacy and procedural justice. Comprehension of the Miranda warning was associated with lower perceived obligation to obey the law and procedural justice, and knowledge about police interrogation practices was associated with lower perceived police legitimacy. These findings suggest the potential of legal socialization as a mechanism for intervention among offending adolescents; programs that promote positive youth–police interactions may help minimize negative attitudes and foster perceptions of trust and fairness toward the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions of legal actor legitimacy have important implications for criminal behaviour. While the link between perceptions of legitimacy and legal compliance has been well established, the sources of legitimacy evaluations are less clear. Drawing from the literature on legal socialization, we examined whether parents’ perceptions of the legitimacy of criminal justice authority figures influenced those same attitudes in their children. Using three waves of data from the Pathways to Desistance study, we showed that parents’ perceptions of legitimacy significantly predicted perceptions of legitimacy in their children. These effects remained robust across different model and sample specifications. Our findings have important implications for how we think about legal socialization—namely, the importance of fair and respectful legal actor behaviour across generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youth who hold negative attitudes toward the justice system are more likely to engage in crime. It is particularly important to study attitudes early in someone's criminal career when they may still be open to change. To date, however, there has been no empirical test assessing whether the relation between attitudes and behavior changes after a first arrest. Using a sample of 1,216 first-time, male, juvenile offenders from the Crossroads Study, the present study explored: (a) racial/ethnic differences in the longitudinal patterns of youths' attitudes; and (b) reciprocal associations between youths' attitudes and both their offending behavior and rearrests in the 2.5 years after their first arrest. The results indicated that White youths' attitudes remained largely stable, Black youths' attitudes became more negative, and Latino youths' attitudes became more negative but only among Latino youth who reoffended. Although the results indicated that youths' attitudes were related to both offending and rearrest, the bidirectional relation between attitudes and offending weakened across time. After 2.5 years after their first arrest, attitudes no longer predicted offending or rearrests. These novel findings suggest that a youth's first contact is likely the most impactful. When it comes to young offenders' interactions with the justice system, first impressions matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Recognizing that individuals with psychopathic traits are more likely to interact with legal authorities, interact with legal authorities in unique ways, and evaluate these interactions differently from other individuals, we posit that psychopathic personality traits affect the formation of perceptions of procedural justice. Methods Using a sample of adolescent offenders, we use multilevel models to investigate how psychopathy and its various dimensions (i.e., callous-unemotional, grandiose-manipulative, and impulsive-irresponsible) identified through the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI) are related to changes in perceptions of procedural justice. Then, we use within-level interaction terms to analyze how psychopathy and its dimensions condition the effect of involuntary interactions with police and courts on subsequent perceptions of procedural justice. Results Results suggest that psychopathic individuals hold lower perceptions of procedural justice, but they experience greater increases in their perceptions after involuntary contacts with legal authorities. Specifically, individuals who display more psychopathic traits on the impulsive-irresponsible dimension experience a greater increase in perceptions of procedural justice after involuntary encounters with police. Conclusion Future research should continue to acknowledge the importance of personality in formation of perceptions of procedural justice, and legal authorities should use available instruments to identify psychopathic personality traits to inform citizen-justice agent encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During adolescence, youths develop attitudes about the justice system. Although there is consistent evidence that personal experiences with legal actors contribute to attitudes toward the justice system, adolescents' attitudes may also be influenced vicariously through their friends' experiences with the justice system. Using data from a sample of 1,216 first-time male adolescent offenders, the present study examines how attitudes toward the justice system develop over 24 months following the adolescent's first arrest. Even after accounting for personal justice system experiences, including self-reported offending, time on the streets, and contacts with the police, results indicate that adolescents with friends who were arrested report more negative attitudes toward the justice system than those without friends who were arrested. Further, experiencing a friend's arrest has a larger impact on the attitudes of youths who are experiencing it for the first time. We provide evidence that attitudes toward the justice system are a product of accumulated social experiences- both personal and vicarious-with the justice system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: This study evaluates the malleability of judgments of procedural justice. Drawing upon various literatures, five factors are hypothesized to be related to changes in procedural justice: (1) prior judgments of procedural justice, (2) direct experiences of arrest, (3) vicarious experiences of arrest, (4) individual arrest history, and (5) age. Methods: Using 11 waves of data from the Pathways to Desistance Study (N = 1,354), multilevel models relate within-person covariates including individual, family, and peer arrests, and age to changes in procedural justice, controlling for stable, individual characteristics. Results: Judgments of procedural justice are anchored in prior perceptions. They are also a function of direct and vicarious experiences of arrests with the effect of individual arrests varying across individual arrest history. Evidence also suggests a developmental component. Age has a direct effect on judgments of procedural justice and conditions the effect of individual arrests on changes in procedural justice. Conclusions: Judgments of procedural justice are not static. Given these results, future research should continue to investigate the varying effects of other interactions with legal authorities on changes in judgments of procedural justice in order to form stronger policies aimed at increasing citizen cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, legal socialization theory and research has been dominated by a cognitive developmental approach. However, more recent work (e.g., Fagan & Tyler, 2005) has used procedural justice to explain the legal socialization process. This article presents 2 studies that expand this approach by testing a procedural justice model of legal socialization in terms of legal and nonlegal authority. In Study 1, participants completed surveys assessing the degree to which they perceived 3 authorities (police officers, parents, and teachers) as procedurally fair, the degree to which they perceived the authorities as legitimate, how cynical they were about laws, and the extent of their rule violation during the past 6 months. Across all 3 authorities, legitimacy and legal cynicism mediated the relation between procedural justice and rule violation. Study 2 examined the model with the same 3 authority types using experimental methods. Participants read 3 scenarios describing an interaction between an adolescent and an authority figure where a rule is enforced. Within each scenario, we manipulated whether the adolescent had a voice and whether the authority enforced the rule impartially. After reading each scenario, participants rated the authority's legitimacy, their cynicism toward the authority's rule, and the likelihood they would violate the rule. Again, legitimacy and rule cynicism mediated the relation between impartiality, voice, and rule violation. In addition, impartiality had a stronger effect in the parent and teacher scenarios, whereas voice had a stronger effect in the police scenario. Results are discussed in terms of expanding legal socialization to nonlegal contexts and applying legal socialization research to prevention and intervention strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]