The Blurred ‘Blue line’: a cross-national comparison of the sources of public support for extralegal policing

Prior research addressing extralegal policing has focussed on the types of individuals most affected by these practices (i.e. disadvantaged minorities and police officers) as a means to improve conditions for these populations. Although these studies are critical for educating the public and informi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Walzak, Jessica (Author)
Contributors: Chouhy, Cecilia ; Singer, Alexa ; Lehmann, Peter S. ; Gertz, Marc
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
In: Policing and society
Year: 2021, Volume: 31, Issue: 8, Pages: 919-935
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Keywords:
Public Opinion
Comparative criminology
Procedural Justice
extralegal justice
Social Control
Police
Description
Summary:Prior research addressing extralegal policing has focussed on the types of individuals most affected by these practices (i.e. disadvantaged minorities and police officers) as a means to improve conditions for these populations. Although these studies are critical for educating the public and informing criminal justice policy, there remains a noteworthy gap in the literature related to the types of political and sociocultural circumstances under which extralegal policing practices endure. The current study will mitigate this gap by addressing two theoretically-informed sources of public support (i.e. conflict and procedural justice theories) for police misconduct within the United States and Latin America. Analyses of three countries from the 2012 AmericasBarometer survey revealed a strong, ongoing presence of support for extralegal policing, with approximately one quarter of U.S. and Brazilian respondents and nearly half of Argentinian respondents expressing favourable views. While the analyses illustrated varying levels of support for conflict and procedural justice theory mechanisms, these findings highlight the importance of working to improve empirical understandings of public support for extralegal policing as a means to identify the contexts in which support is generated for both violent and non-violent police misconduct internationally.
ISSN:1477-2728
DOI:10.1080/10439463.2020.1798954