Reducing the gap in perceptions of legitimacy of victims and non-victims

Abstract

Crime victims are a unique subgroup who evaluate the police and police legitimacy more harshly than those who have not been victimized. This could be explained by their victimization, and their special needs from and expectations of the police. Due to the importance of crime victims for the criminal justice system, the current study examines the mechanisms underlying differences in legitimacy evaluations of victims and non-victims. We focus on the two main antecedents of legitimacy: procedural justice and police performance. We find that procedural justice operates similarly for victims and non-victims, but that police performance plays a much more important role as an antecedent for victims. These findings suggest that managing perceptions of police performance may be key to closing the gap in legitimacy evaluations between victims and non-victims.

Keywords

Crime victims evaluations of the police police legitimacy police performance

Introduction

Disparity in policing often focuses on differences in attitudes between majorities and minorities, and has come to be a central theme in policing research. In our paper, we focus on a different type of disparity that has important implications for the criminal justice system: the disparity between crime victims and the non-victimized population. Studies have found that victims show significantly more negative attitudes toward the police than those who have not been victimized (Ashworth and Feldman-Summers, 1978; Aviv, 2014; Koenig, 1980; Percy, 1980; Van Dijk et al., 2007).¹ This finding is robust across a variety of contexts, among them geographical location, aspects of policing, policing practices, and programs (Aviv, 2014; Brown and Benedict, 2002; Flatley et al., 2010; Friedmann, 1987; Maxson et al., 2003; O’Connor, 2008; Orr and West, 2007; Percy, 1980; Van Dijk, et al., 2007). Not only are their evaluations lower than those of the general population, but studies have also shown that these evaluations have been declining since the beginning of the twenty-first century (Allen et al., 2006; Van Dijk et al., 2007). It is also interesting to note that victims have not been found to hold more punitive attitudes than those who have not been victimized (Costelloe et al., 2009; Frost, 2010; Hartnagel and Templeton, 2012).

It is troubling that within the criminal justice system, those who often have the most contact with the police, and are critical to its operation, have more negative perceptions of them. This is also an issue of concern because crime victims are the main reporters of criminal activity and the main providers of crucial information that assists the police in the identification and apprehension of criminals. Without their cooperation and assistance, the police’s ability to accurately gauge criminal activity would diminish, affecting not only the police but the criminal justice system as a whole (Black, 1970; Brandl and Horvath, 1991; Herman et al., 2003; Hickman and Simpson, 2003; Hindelang and Gottfredson, 1976; JUSTICE, 1998; NIJ, 2006; Shapland, 1984; Walklate, 2007).

Our paper is one of the first studies to attempt to identify why crime victims have more negative evaluations of the police than the general public. In understanding these differences we focus in particular on the question of evaluations of ‘police legitimacy’ (National Research Council, 2004; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). Two main antecedents, police performance and procedural justice, have been identified in the literature. Our analyses suggest that these factors are also important for victims, but that police performance plays a more central role in victim evaluations than those of non-victims. The study was conducted in the context of an Israeli sample of victims and non-victims. The data were analyzed by using multiple regression techniques, including interaction terms between victimization and these antecedents. In our discussion and conclusions we consider the implications of our work as well as the limitations of our study.

Disparity between victim and non-victim perceptions of police legitimacy

The literature on victim evaluations of the police does not focus in detail on the mechanisms underlying these negative attitudes and the disparity between victims and non-victims, with only a few studies providing initial explanations (Ashworth and Feldman-Summers, 1978; Brandl and Horvath, 1991; Percy, 1980). One explanation can be found in the theoretical framework of consumer psychology. In this context, researchers have applied the expectancy disconfirmation model with regard to crime victim evaluations. In accordance with this model, satisfaction is reliant on the extent to which victims’ expectations (at times silent expectations) regarding police behavior (e.g. courtesy, respect, nurture, comfort, and non-blaming) and the actions they took in their specific case (e.g. investigative efforts, arrests, and response time) are met (Chandek, 1999; Chandek and Porter, 1998; Coupe and Griffiths, 1999; Folger, 1977; Percy, 1980; Robinson and Stroshine, 2005; Symonds, 2010; Van den Bos et al., 1996; Yegidis and Renzy, 1994).

Indeed, direct encounters with the police can also serve as an explanation for the differences in victim and non-victim evaluations. Since the general public only has contact with the police on rare occasions, when forming their opinions of the police, they base them on vicarious experience, societal norms, and the media (Brandl et al., 1994; Orr and West, 2007; Rosenbaum et al., 2005). Victims, prior to their victimization, also form their attitudes based on the same vicarious experiences. However, once victimized they have the opportunity, if they choose to take it, for first-hand experience with the police, which may affect these basic evaluations.

Drawing from the psychological literature on crime victims, the inevitable trauma of victimization can serve as another part of the explanation. Victimization has been found to impact the victim psychologically, emotionally, behaviorally, financially, and physically (Bard and Sangrey, 1979; Janoff-Bulman and Frieze, 1983; Maguire, 1982; Shapland et al., 1985; Skogan, 1987). While some effects are more confined to the immediate aftermath of the crime, such as various physical and emotional effects, psychological and social effects are more persistent and often lead to changes in the victims’ behavior and social life (Herman, 2010; Shapland et al., 1985; Spalek, 2006). The role of this trauma in the formation of attitudes toward the police is a key element toward understanding the impact of police sensitivity on the victim’s ability to cope with his/her victimization. Negative interactions with the police have been found to exacerbate the initial trauma from the offense and can even be a traumatic experience on their own (Campbell et al., 1999, 2001; Campbell and Raja, 1999, 2005; Herman, 2003; Parsons and Bergin, 2010).² Symonds (2010) refers to this traumatic experience as a ‘second injury’. While it is important to take into account the effect of the trauma and the encounter with the police separately, in the case of multiple interactions with the police, it would be beneficial to also take into account the interaction effect of these two explanations. In this case, the experience of the victim in his or her first encounter with the police might affect expectations of the following encounters.

In accordance with the development of several programs and services aimed at helping victims cope with their victimization,³ a variety of organizational changes within the police began to develop in the 1970s that sought to improve the crime victim’s experience with the police. These included the establishment of general and specialized victim assistance units, victim service coordinators, and victim contact officers within police departments (e.g. see Ekman and Seng, 2009; Herman, 2010; IACP, 2002, 2007; Ready et al., 2002; Wilson and Segrave, 2011), victim integration into community policing activities (e.g. see Herman et al., 2003), and the development of programs such as ‘second responders’⁴ (e.g. see Davis et al., 2008). Nonetheless, these programs are not aimed at decreasing the gap between victim and non-victim evaluations of the police, and thus do not supply us with practical implications for this issue.

Police legitimacy, performance, and procedural justice

Police legitimacy is generally defined as ‘a property of an authority or institution that leads people to feel that that authority or institution is entitled to be deferred to and obeyed’ (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003: 514). When authorities are considered legitimate, they are perceived as representing and embodying group values of which citizens feel a part (Bradford, 2010). Once this is the case, citizen deference is no longer dependent on sanctions or incentives provided by the authorities, but rather based on internal feelings of responsibility and obligation (Tyler, 2004, 2009). Police legitimacy has been found to be central to our understanding of policing, the success of legal authorities, and the origins of obedience, compliance, and cooperation with the police (National Research Council, 2004; Tyler, 2004, 2006; Weber, 1968). Studies have consistently shown that citizens are more likely to cooperate with the police, comply with their directives, accept their authority, empower them, report crime, and provide the police with information when they view them as legitimate (e.g. see Mazerolle et al., 2013; Murphy et al., 2009; National Research Council, 2004; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 1990, 2004).

The legitimacy literature has pointed to two key factors in improving public evaluations: police performance and procedural justice. ‘Police performance’ has been referred to by scholars as assessments regarding police effectiveness in fighting crime and disorder in the community and bringing rule-breakers to justice (Hinds, 2009; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2004, 2009). Performance relates to the instrumental aspects of legitimacy. It is one of three components of the instrumental perspective, while deterrence and fair distribution of police services are the other two (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). When detailing ‘procedural justice’, also known as ‘procedural fairness’, scholars have generally defined it as ‘public judgments regarding the fairness of the processes through which the police make decisions and exercise authority’ (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003: 514; for similar definitions see Hinds and Murphy 2007; Thibaut and Walker, 1975; Tyler, 2004, 2009). Thus, procedural justice relates to the normative aspect of legitimacy and focuses on how police treat individuals as a determinant of their views on police legitimacy. Procedural justice is composed of two key elements: the quality of decision-making and the quality of treatment given by the police (Reisig et al., 2007; Reisig and Mesko, 2009; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2004, 2009; Tyler and Fagan, 2006). Citizens were found to be more satisfied with procedures during which they felt that they were treated with politeness, dignity, and respect (treatment), and when they were allowed to both explain their situation and communicate their views to the legal authorities with whom they came into contact (decision making; Tyler 2004, 2009).

In studies over the past decade, procedural justice has been identified as the key feature in increasing perceptions of police legitimacy for both victims (Bradford, 2010, 2011; Elliot et al., 2011) and non-victims (e.g. see Hinds and Murphy, 2007; Jonathan-Zamir and Weisburd, 2013; Reisig et al., 2007; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003; Tyler, 2004). In a systematic review by Mazerolle and colleagues (2013), empirical evidence on the impact of police-led interventions aimed at improving police legitimacy found that when these interventions included aspects of procedural justice, there was an increase in satisfaction with the police, compliance, and cooperation. This was true for a variety of police interventions such as community policing, foot and bike patrols, alternative complaint procedures, informal contact interventions, restorative justice conferencing, reassurance policing, problem-oriented policing strategies, and neighborhood watch strategies (for further details of these studies see Mazerolle et al., 2013). This has also been found during routine encounters (Mazerolle et al., 2012) and traffic stops (Engel, 2005). Generally, the conclusion of these studies is that the outcomes of the police–citizen interaction are less important in predicting legitimacy than whether procedurally just methods are used.

Only a handful of studies, to our knowledge, have specifically examined the relationship between victimization and evaluations of police legitimacy and/or its antecedents (Bradford, 2010, 2011; Elliott et al., 2011; Kochel et al., 2011; Murphy and Barkworth, 2014; Wemmers, 1998; Wemmers et al., 1995). Some of these studies have focused on the definition of procedural justice for crime victims (Elliott et al., 2011; Wemmers, 1995, 1998; Wemmers et al., 1995), while others have examined the impact of procedural justice on victims’ attitudes toward legal authorities (Bradford, 2010, 2011; Elliott et al., 2011; Kochel et al., 2011; Murphy and Barkworth, 2014).

Studies on evaluations of the police and police legitimacy also note the importance of police performance. Performance has generally been seen as secondary in predictions of legitimacy (Jackson et al., 2010; Jonathan-Zamir and Weisburd, 2013; Murphy and Cherney, 2011; Murphy et al., 2008; Reisig et al., 2007; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). In recent years some scholars have even begun to view performance as a non-consequential variable in the formation of legitimacy evaluations, thus ignoring its potential role in this process (Gau, 2010; Reisig and Lloyd, 2009; Reisig and Mesko, 2009). Although this is the case, some studies have found that performance plays a more definitive role in the prediction of legitimacy attitudes.

In a study conducted in Israel which compared respondents who live in cities that face different levels of terrorism threat, Jonathan-Zamir and Weisburd (2013) found that for those who were continuously affected by terrorism, police performance, although second to procedural justice, played a more significant role in the formation of legitimacy evaluations in comparison with those who were not affected by terrorism. Some studies have also found police performance to be more important than procedural justice. A study conducted in Ghana showed the pre-eminence of performance over procedural justice when the Ghanaian public were asked to evaluate police legitimacy (Tankebe, 2009). In this survey, 374 households were asked to evaluate police legitimacy. Procedural justice was found to be a significant predictor of cooperation with the police. However, once police performance was added to the analysis, procedural justice lost its significance, showing that performance played a more significant role in this unique context. These findings were explained by differences in the moral values and normative commitments of the police and the Ghanaian population. In another study conducted on adolescent evaluations of police legitimacy and cooperation in Australia, Hinds (2009) found that performance was a more significant predictor of young people’s views about police legitimacy than procedural justice.

Similar results were found in studies that examined the effects of these antecedents on victim willingness to cooperate with the police, one of the main outcomes of legitimacy (Hickman and Simpson, 2003; Murphy and Barkworth, 2014). All of these studies show that under unique situations and among special populations, the roles of the two main predictors might change in their importance. However, none of these studies have compared the evaluations of victims and non-victims.

Although victims are a unique population and are crucial to the criminal justice system, the role performance plays for them in the prediction of legitimacy evaluations has not been examined. We think it is reasonable to hypothesize that victims will be particularly concerned with the performance of the police, in comparison with those who were not victimized. It is only natural that those who have suffered victimization would want to see the police perform well, solve the crime, and apprehend offenders, since they have a personal stake in police effectiveness. Furthermore, victimization has been found to change the basic assumptions people hold regarding their invulnerability, safety, and belief in a just world (Bard and Sangrey, 1979; Janoff-Bulman and Frieze, 1983; Lerner, 1980; Perloff, 1983; Skogan, 1987). If the police are effective and use procedurally just approaches, they will help victims regain some sense of safety and justice following their victimization.

While we examine this assumption in regard to crime victims, our question is more nuanced—whether victims and non-victims experience these antecedents differently, and whether these differences are meaningful enough to account for gaps in victim and non-victim perceptions of police legitimacy. Even if procedural justice is a more important predictor of legitimacy than performance, performance can still have, among victims, a stronger effect than for non-victims. If this is true, it has important implications for the criminal justice system, for it can provide an opportunity for narrowing the gap in perceptions of legitimacy that has been observed. This is the focus of our research, which examines both procedural justice and performance evaluations of legitimacy perceptions.

Method

This study utilized a large-scale community survey carried out as part of a larger project on policing in Israel (Weisburd and Jonathan-Zamir, 2011). The survey was administered between October and December 2008.⁵ A random sample of Israelis of 18 years or older was surveyed to obtain information concerning attitudes toward the police in general, and perceptions of police legitimacy in particular. ⁶ The overall response rate for the survey was 58%.⁷ The sampling frame consisted of close to a third of the Israeli population (31.2%), with over 1.7 million Israeli citizens with similar characteristics to those of the general Israeli population.⁸

In all, 12.3% of the sample reported being victimized in the year prior to the survey (469 respondents).⁹ The majority of the victims (62.1%) were victims of property crime; 15.3% were victims of violence (13.8% were victims of violent crimes and 1.5% were victims of violence within the family); 12.5% were victims of traffic offenses; 4.8% of respondents were victims of fraud and embezzlement; 3.1% were victims of public order offenses; and 0.4% were victims of sexual crimes. With regard to crime reporting, 72% of victims stated that they had reported their victimization to the police.¹⁰

The main characteristics of both crime victims and non-victims were examined and significant differences were found with regard to several characteristics, such as income, education, ethnicity, and gender (for additional information see Aviv, 2014). Therefore, we controlled for demographic characteristics in the subsequent analyses (see below).

Measures

Our study examines survey responses to procedural justice, police performance, police legitimacy, and control variables (demographic variables, prior contact with the police, distributive fairness, and deterrence). The means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for the study variables are displayed in Appendix 1. For all questions in the survey, respondents were asked to rank these statements according to their level of agreement, ranging from 1 (highly disagree) to 5 (highly agree).

Legitimacy

The legitimacy of the police was assessed by inquiring about two issues—obligation to obey and trust—creating a five-item legitimacy scale. These items were based on operational definitions commonly used in the literature (Hinds, 2009; Huq et al., 2011; Jackson et al., 2012; Murphy and Cherney, 2012; Sunshine and Tyler 2003; Tyler 2011).¹¹ This approach views the latent construct of legitimacy as being composed of two separate factors, each representing a separate content area, even if a statistical correlation between them does not exist (such as the SES measure; see Heise, 1972, and other researchers that discuss the use of formative indexes instead of reflective indices: Diamantopoulos and Winklhofer, 2001; Podsakoff et al., 2003).¹²

Some of the statements were modified to better meet the local context and language. Three of the statements incorporated in this variable relate to trust in the police: ‘The police are guided by the public’s needs and well-being’, ‘If a relative/friend was a victim of a crime, I would encourage them to turn to the police’, and ‘I have trust in the Israeli police’; two additional statements tap obligation to obey: ‘I always try to obey the law, even if I find it unfair’ and ‘The police should be obeyed, even if we are not pleased with the way they treat citizens’. A higher score on the scale reflects greater perceived legitimacy (Cronbach’s α = 0.64; N = 3,832; Range = 1–5; M = 3.70; SD = 0.79).

Procedural justice

A four-item procedural justice scale was incorporated in the analysis, including the following statements: ‘Officers treat the citizens they encounter with respect’; ‘The police explain their activities well to the people they encounter’; ‘The police allow citizens to express their position before they come to a decision regarding their case’; and ‘The police treat all citizens equally’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.770; N = 3,826; Range = 1–5; M = 2.70; SD = 0.98). This scale consists of statements regarding quality of treatment and the quality of decision making, as has been examined in the previous literature (Reisig et al., 2007; Tankebe, 2009; Tyler, 2004, 2009).

Police performance/effectiveness

A three-item performance scale designed to tap police ability to control crime was included in the analysis using the following three statements: ‘The police perform their job well’; ‘The police are efficient in dealing with crime in my area of residence’; and ‘Police presence in my area is adequate’ (Cronbach’s α = 0.775; N = 3,827; Range = 1–5; M = 2.67; SD = 1.11).

Criminal victimization

Victimization was measured using respondents’ answers to one question, asking whether they were victimized in the year prior to the survey (Yes/No).

Control variables

A number of control variables were also included in the analysis to control for demographic differences that have been found between victims and non-victims. In the survey, respondents were asked to indicate their gender, age, ethnicity, education, household income, marital status, religiosity,¹³ and country of origin.¹⁴ Also controlled for was contact with the police,¹⁵ deterrence (the likelihood of being caught by the police and punished for wrongdoing), and the crime victim sample—type of victimization. See Appendix 2 for more details on these control variables.

Results

We begin by looking at victim and non-victim evaluations not only of police legitimacy, but also of procedural justice and police performance (see Table 1). These data are presented for descriptive purposes only, since we recognize that there is possible confounding between these measures and control variables we have noted. A controlled multivariate model is presented next.

Table 1.

Statistical t-tests.

	Means		N	T	df	P
	Victim	Non-victim
Legitimacy	3.45	3.73	3,813	7.21	3,811	0.000
Procedural justice	2.45	2.73	3,807	5.93	3,805	0.000
Police performance	2.22	2.74	3,808	10.30	3,806	0.000

From this table we can see that the legitimacy levels for non-victims (M = 3.7; 74 on a 0–100 scale) are higher than those of crime victims (M = 3.4; 68 on a 0–100 scale). We see similar results when examining the antecedents of legitimacy. With regard to the levels of procedural justice, we see that crime victims (M = 2.4; 48 on a 0–100 scale) evaluate the procedural justice of police actions lower than those who have not been victimized (M = 2.7; 54 on a 0–100 scale). The gap is somewhat larger for police performance: the performance levels of non-victims (M = 2.7; 54 on a 0–100 scale) are higher than those of victims (M = 2.2; 44 on a 0–100 scale).

In Table 2 we present an overall model of legitimacy evaluations, separating out the victim and non-victim samples. Ordinary Least Squares Regressions, in which police legitimacy is the dependent variable, were used in both models. Model 1 presents the results of the victim sample, while Model 2 presents the results of the non-victim sample. Both models include the indexes of procedural justice and police performance and all control variables that were mentioned above.

Table 2.

The effects of the main antecedents on police legitimacy for victims and non-victims.²⁰

Variables	Model 1 – Victim sample		Model 2 – Non-victim sample
Variables	B (SE)	β	B (SE)	β
Test variables
Procedural justice	0.30 (0.04)***	0.36	0.33 (0.01)***	0.41
Police performance	0.26 (0.04)***	0.33	0.18 (0.01)***	0.25
Control variables
Attitudes toward police
Deterrence index	0.09 (0.04)*	0.09	0.04 (0.01)**	0.05
Experience with police
Encounter with police	0.07 (0.06)	0.04	−0.04 (0.03)	−0.02
Demographic variables
Gender	−0.07 (0.06)	−0.04	−0.04 (0.02)	−0.03
Married	0.07 (0.07)	0.04	0.14 (0.02)***	0.08
Age	0.00 (0.00)	0.08	0.00 (0.00)***	0.08
Education	0.06 (0.02)	0.11	0.02 (0.01)**	0.03
Religiosity	−0.01 (0.04)	−0.01	−0.01 (0.01)	−0.01
Income	0.03 (0.02)	0.06	0.02 (0.01)*	0.04
Ethnicity	−0.53 (0.02)	0.06	−0.31 (0.04)***	−0.11
Born in Israel	−0.00 (0.07)	−0.00	0.10 (0.02)***	0.06
Type of victimization (property crime)
Violent crime	−0.09 (0.09)	−0.04	-	-
Other	0.14 (0.09)	0.06	-	-
R ² (adjusted R ²)	0.419 (0.400)***		0.393 (0.390)***
N	454		3275

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Both regression models are statistically significant (p<0.001) and explain a considerable percentage of the variance in evaluations of police legitimacy (adjusted R² of 0.40 and 0.39 respectively), suggesting that the models overall are doing a good job of explaining the variability in legitimacy evaluations.

From these models we see that the two main predictors of legitimacy evaluation, following other studies, for victims and non-victims are procedural justice and police performance. Procedural justice is found to be the main predictor of legitimacy evaluations in both models (β = 0.36 for crime victims and β = 0.41 for non-victims), followed by police performance (β = 0.33 for crime victims and β = 0.25 for non-victims). If we were to focus only on the importance of these antecedents in the prediction of legitimacy evaluations, we would stop here and say that crime victims form their evaluations in a similar manner to non-victims.

When we examine differences between the roles of procedural justice and performance perceptions more carefully, however, an interesting finding emerges. We compared the relative impacts of performance and procedural justice on legitimacy for victims and non-victims, using the equality of regression coefficients approach (Paternoster et al., 1998).¹⁶ When making this comparison we focused on the unstandardized coefficients of both models, since standardized regression coefficients are affected by the specific sample standard deviations (Weisburd and Britt, 2007). Taking this approach, significant differences are not found in the effect of perceptions of procedural justice on perceptions of police legitimacy (b = 0.30 for the crime victim and b = 0.33 for non-victims; z = 0.83, p = ns). However, significant differences (z = 2.08, p<0.01, two-tailed test) are found between victims and non-victims on the role evaluations of police accomplishments play when evaluating police legitimacy. These accomplishments play a significantly more important role for victims (b = 0.26; SE = 0.04) than for non-victims (b = 0.18; SE = 0.01).

Having found that police performance influences victims significantly differently from non-victims, we next sought to ask how important this was for evaluations of legitimacy. In order to examine this question more directly, we combined the two samples and ran a regression model in which an interaction term was included for the relationship between victim and police performance (see Table 3). As one would expect from the results reported in Table 2, the interaction term was statistically significant.¹⁷

Table 3.

OLS regression model including interaction term victimization×performance.

Variables	B (SE)	β
Test variables
Victimization	−0.22 (0.08)**	−0.09
Procedural justice index	0.33 (0.01)***	0.41
Performance index	0.18 (0.01)***	0.25
Victimization* performance index	0.07 (0.03)*	0.07
Control variables
Attitudes towards police
Deterrence index	0.04 (0.01)***	0.05
Experience with police
Encounter with police	−0.02 (0.02)	−0.01
Demographic variables
Gender	−0.05 (0.02)*	−0.03
Married	0.14 (0.02)***	0.08
Age	0.00 (0.00)***	0.08
Education	0.02 (0.01)**	0.04
Religiosity	−0.01 (0.01)	−0.01
Income	0.03 (0.01)**	0.04
Ethnicity	−0.33 (0.04)***	−0.12
Born in Israel	−0.09 (0.02)***	−0.01
R ² (adjusted R ²)	0.398 (0.400)***
N	3,729

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

By using the results of this regression we are able to provide a direct test of our question regarding the mechanisms underlying the gap between victims and non-victims. To do this, we calculated the predicted regression results for legitimacy evaluations for victims and non-victims. All other variables are kept at their means, allowing victimization and performance evaluations to vary. As reported in Figure 1, an interesting and important pattern emerges. As performance evaluations increase, the gap in evaluations of legitimacy between victims and non-victims decreases. Indeed, the line crosses in the graph, suggesting that when evaluations of performance are high, perceptions of police legitimacy (all else being equal) will be higher for victims than for non-victims. The disparity between victims and non-victims is thus reversed.

Figure 1.

Evaluations of police performance and police legitimacy among victims and non-victims.¹⁹

Discussion

In recent years, scholars and practitioners have come to focus more and more on perceptions of procedural justice in their efforts to increase the public’s legitimacy evaluations. Our work does not contradict that approach, which has been supported by more than two decades of observational studies of attitudes toward the police (Carr et al., 2007; Hinds and Murphy, 2007; Jackson et al., 2010; Jonathan-Zamir and Weisburd, 2013; Meares, 2009; Reisig and Lloyd, 2009; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). However, it does suggest that the potential for performance evaluations to increase legitimacy should not be forgotten, and indeed, in the case of victim evaluations of the police, it may be a particularly important factor to take into account. Our study suggests that increasing evaluations of police performance can close the gap in legitimacy evaluations between victims and non-victims. Indeed, when performance evaluations are high, all else being equal, victim evaluations of police legitimacy will be higher than non-victim evaluations. Although the absolute differences found in this sample are relatively small, they are significant, and the trend they present has substantial potential to influence police work. The potential for practical implications is what provides this finding with its importance and warrants further investigation.

This does not mean that victims of crime are not concerned about just/fair procedures. Our research suggests, in accordance with other studies, that citizens value procedural justice even when they are highly concerned about performance (see Jonathan-Zamir and Weisburd, 2013). Only in very specific circumstances has police performance been found to be a more important antecedent of legitimacy than procedural justice (Hinds, 2009; Tankebe, 2009). But recognizing the importance of procedural justice for victims does not mean that performance may not provide specific and important opportunities for improving attitudes toward the police.

We have already noted that victims, though a minority of citizens, are particularly important for the police and criminal justice more generally. They are a key consumer of criminal justice services, and a key aid to the police and the criminal justice system in catching offenders and prosecuting them. Our findings suggest that increasing victim perceptions of performance may play a critical role in reducing or even overcoming the gap between victims and non-victims in their evaluations of the police. Most studies show that victims have lower evaluations of police legitimacy, as does our study (Allen et al., 2006; Aviv, 2014; Dull and Wint, 1997; Flatley et al., 2010; Maxson et al., 2003; O’Connor, 2008; Van Dijk, 2011; Van Dijk et al., 2007). However, our analyses suggest that such disparities can be overcome if performance evaluations are increased. While increasing evaluations of procedural justice can also increase perceptions of legitimacy, the rate of benefit for victims and non-victims is suggested to be similar in our analyses (as has been found by Bradford, 2011). Accordingly, programs that generally increase perceptions of procedural justice will simply maintain the gap between victims and non-victims. Programs that increase general evaluations of performance of the police will lead to higher levels of legitimacy for victims and non-victims, but will reduce and at very high levels overcome the gap that has been generally observed.

In order to develop such programs, police officials should find ways to map victims’ expectations and needs (using surveys, focus groups, and community forums) while addressing the needs and expectations discussed in the victimization literature (e.g. see Strang and Sherman, 2003). Van den Bos et al. (1996) put an emphasis on the need to manage public expectations of the police, since the gap between victim expectations of the police and their fulfilment leads to feelings of frustration on the part of the victim (Folger, 1977). The expectations that the police feel they can meet should be translated into work protocols and training for police when encountering victims. On the other hand, when victim expectations exceed their ability to be met by the police, the police should try to improve their communication with this population and to initiate an information campaign and public debate that will enable the public and the police to formulate more applicable expectations.

Managing victim expectations and improving communication between police and victims should be based on evidence found in the legitimacy literature in general and the procedural justice/fairness literature in particular. As has been detailed above, procedural justice is composed of two factors-decision making and interpersonal treatment (Tyler, 2004, 2009). Participation and transparency, the two components of the decision-making factor, have the ability to both manage victim expectations and improve police–victim communications. Letting victims ‘voice’ their views (participation) and providing them with information regarding their case and its progress (transparency) might improve the way the victim views the police. These factors, as well as trust and respect (the two components of the interpersonal treatment factor), affect the way victims view the fairness and the legitimacy of the police (e.g. see Bradford, 2011; Wemmers and Cyr, 2006). These observations are particularly important when considering the hesitancy of the police to apply crime prevention programs specifically to victims. In a study on community policing partnerships, Ready et al. (2002) interviewed 423 police officials and found that the majority of police executives thought it was not useful to give special attention to crime victims when interacting with community members on issues concerning crime prevention and solving crimes.

While police agencies have long recognized the importance of increasing their sensitivity to victims and reinforcing procedural justice evaluations of victims (e.g. see Bradford, 2011; Davis et al., 2008; Herman, 2010; Ekman and Seng, 2009; Wilson and Segrave, 2011; Winkel, 1991), they seem reluctant to focus efforts at increasing performance evaluations specifically for victims. Nonetheless, our research suggests that more generally applied approaches toward increasing evaluations of police performance will be effective even if they do not specifically focus on crime victims.

While we think that our findings raise new and important issues regarding the problem of disparity in attitudes toward the police among victims and non-victims, before concluding we want to note some specific limitations of our work. Perhaps most important is the context of our study. While Israel is a democracy with similar rules regarding police activities to the US and Europe (see Weisburd et al., 2009), there are nonetheless factors that distinguish the Israeli case from the US or other nations. For example, Israel has a national police force, different from the very diffused and local nature of US policing. The Israeli police also have a much greater role in homeland security than is the case in the US. Furthermore, reporting rates are higher than in other western countries.¹⁸ Nonetheless, the overall results of our survey suggest many similarities between evaluations of legitimacy in Israel and the US, Australia, and the UK (e.g. see Hinds and Murphy, 2007; Jackson et al., 2012; Jonathan-Zamir and Weisburd, 2013; Tyler, 2004). We think it likely that our observations would hold true for other democratic police agencies. But, of course, that must be examined through empirical studies.

We also recognize that the concept of legitimacy and how it is defined has begun to be examined critically in recent years (Gau, 2011; Reisig et al., 2007; Hawdon, 2008; Tankebe, 2009). While there is no consensus on the technical definition of legitimacy (Gau, 2011), current research tends to examine either trust or obligation to obey when examining police legitimacy (for more detail see footnote 13). The operational definition used here has been applied in a number of key studies of police legitimacy (Sunshine and Tyler, 2003; Tankebe, 2009; Tyler, 2004; Tyler and Huo, 2002). Thus, in order to gauge the extent to which our findings can be replicated using different variable definitions, and not simply in different contexts, future studies will want to subject the critical new definitions of legitimacy to the questions we have raised.

Furthermore, the current study was based on general evaluations of procedural justice and police performance when predicting evaluations of police legitimacy. In future studies, researchers might consider adding questions relating to the specific experience of the crime victim regarding these issues and the way they would define each of these legitimacy predictors. Recent developments in the area of police legitimacy argue that when examining special populations, the first step is to understand how they define legitimacy and its main components. Furthering our knowledge on the way crime victims define legitimacy, procedural justice, and performance will not only contribute to the legitimacy literature, but also supply the police with a better understanding of the needs and expectations of crime victims.

Lastly, since this study was based on secondary data compiled from a general survey on citizen evaluations of the police and police legitimacy, it did not focus on all issues important to our understanding of the effect of victimization on legitimacy evaluations. Future studies should address issues such as the type of victimization, repeat victimization, and the interaction between the victim and the police. In this context, secondary victimization, which has been detailed above, should also be addressed.

Conclusions

We began this article by noting the consistent disparity that has been observed in victim and non-victim perceptions of the police. It is a significant dilemma for the police that, irrespective of context, victims consistently have lower perceptions of police legitimacy than others. Such perceptions have the ability to hinder the willingness and ability of victims to cooperate with the police or to utilize police services in a way that will reduce the negative impacts of victimization on victims. Our paper provides some insight into the mechanisms underlying the gap between victim and non-victim perceptions of the police, and how that gap can be reduced or even overcome. The key may not lie in what has become the traditional focus of legitimacy evaluations, which is concerned primarily with evaluations of procedural justice for victims and non-victims; rather, our study identifies the potential of police performance to close the gap in legitimacy evaluations.

Why is it important to close that gap? Or, more directly, why is it critical to improve evaluations of police legitimacy on the part of victims? Victims are a key player in crime prevention because they can identify offenders. Given the fact that a very large proportion of crime is committed by a relatively small proportion of high-rate offenders (Tracy et al., 1990; Wolfgang et al., 1987), the information victims have on their own victimization can be critical in reducing crime in the future. Such information, and the fact that victims are more likely than others to be victimized in the future (Ellingworth et al., 1995; Ewart and Oatley, 2003; Pease, 1998; Weisel, 2005), means that victim cooperation is critical for crime prevention generally and reducing repeat victimization specifically. What our study brings to this equation that is new is a recognition that police have to work harder to show victims that they will be effective in responding to their problems, and to crime more generally.

Footnotes

Appendix 1. Means,standard deviations and intercorrelations (Pearson’s R ) for all measures

	Mean (SD)	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1. Legitimacy	21.30 (4.69)	1
2. Procedural justice	8.19 (3.07)	0.56***	1
3. Police performance	5.18 (2.50)	0.48***	0.55***	1
4. Deterrence	2.58 (0.97)	0.21***	0.26***	0.37***	1
5. Encounter		−0.08***	−0.08***	−0.11***	−0.12***	1
6. Gender		−0.08***	−0.05**	−0.12***	−0.17***	0.11***	1
7. Married		0.09***	0.01	−0.06***	−0.04**	−0.04**	0.03*	1
8. Age	43.9 (15.67)	0.08***	0.02	−0.08***	−0.09***	−0.09***	0.04**	0.25***	1
9. Education	4.84 (1.47)	0.02	−0.08***	−0.09***	−0.20***	0.08***	−0.05**	0.08***	0.05**	1
10. Religiosity	1.83 (0.92)	−0.01	0.01	0.07***	0.14***	−0.03*	−0.05***	0.17***	−0.11***	−0.20***	1
11. Income	2.61 (1.31)	0.02	−0.05**	−0.11***	−0.18***	0.08***	0.11***	0.16***	−0.05**	0.34***	−0.20***	1
12. Ethnicity		−0.10***	0.00	0.05***	0.22***	−0.05***	−0.03	0.01	−0.14***	−0.15***	0.20***	−0.11***	1
13. Country of origin		−0.03*	−0.05**	−0.02	−0.02	0.04**	−0.03*	−0.01	−0.38***	−0.05**	0.15***	0.11***	0.20***	1
14. Crime victim		−0.11***	−0.09***	−0.15***	−0.09***	0.32***	0.05**	−0.03*	−0.07***	0.06***	−0.02	0.04**	0.00	0.06****	1

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.

Appendix 2. Control variables

Variable	Description
Attitudes toward the police
Deterrence index	Measured by asking respondents to state how likely it is, in their view, to get caught by the police for each of the following behaviors: violating a traffic regulation; breaking and entering; dealing drugs; and vandalizing public property [on a scale ranging from very unlikely (1) to very likely (5)] (Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.71)
Experience with the police
Encounter with police	Coded as 1 = Yes; 0 = No (‘No encounter’ as the reference category)
Demographic characteristics
Gender	Coded as 0 = Female; 1 = Male (‘Female’ as the reference category)
Ethnicity	Coded as 0 = Jewish; 1 = Arab (‘Jewish’ as the reference category)
Age	Measured as a continuous variable. Ages of respondents ranged from 18 to 98 years.
Education	Measured as an ordinal variable ranging from 1 (no education) to 8 (completed Ph.D.) but was treated as a continuous variable for the data analysis
Income	Measured as an ordinal variable ranging from 1 (much below average) to 5 (much above average) but was treated as a continuous variable for the data analysis
Religiosity	Measured as an ordinal variable ranging from 1 (secular) to 4 (very religious) but was treated as a continuous variable for the data analysis
Marital status	Coded as 0 = Not married; 1 = Married (‘Not married’ as the reference category)

Country of origin	Coded as 0 = Born outside of Israel; 1 = Born in Israel (‘Born outside of Israel’ as the reference category)
Type of victimization
Violent crime	Coded as 0 = Property crime; 1 = Violent crime (‘Property’ as the reference category)
Other crime	Coded as 0 = Property crime; 1 = Other crime (‘Property’ as the reference category)

Notes

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