SEMINAR: 'Why do People Comply with the Law and Cooperate with the Police? Legitimacy and the Influence of Legal Institutions'
- When?
- Wednesday 17 October 2012, 16.00 to 17.00
- Where?
- 08 AC 03
- Open to:
- Public, Staff, Students
- Speaker:
- Jon Jackson, LSE
'Why do People Comply with the Law and Cooperate with the Police? Legitimacy and the Influence of Legal Institutions'
This paper extends Tyler's procedural justice model of public compliance with the law and cooperation with the police. Analysing data from a national probability sample of adults in England and Wales -- and a separate survey of Londoners -- I present a new conceptualisation of legitimacy based not just on the recognition of power but also the justification of power. I find that people accept the police's right to dictate appropriate behaviour, not only when they feel a duty to obey officers, but also when they believe that the institution acts according to a shared moral purpose with citizens. Highlighting a number of different routes by which institutions can influence citizen behaviour, my broader normative model provides a better framework for explaining why people are willing to comply with the law and cooperate with the police.
Bio
Jonathan Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in Research Methodology in the Department of Methodology and member of the LSE's Mannheim Centre for Criminology. In the past couple of years he has held visiting scholar appotntments in the Department of Psychology at John Jay College, the Department of Psychology at New York University, and the Institute of Criminology, Cambridge. In 2013 he will be a Visiting Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School, and a Visiting Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security at Griffith University.