Prying open the black box of causality: a causal mediation analysis test of procedural justice policing

Objectives: Review causal mediation analysis as a method for estimating and assessing direct and indirect effects. Re-examine a field experiment with an apparent implementation failure. Test procedural justice theory by examining to which extent procedural justice mediates the impact of contact with the police on police legitimacy and social identity. Methods: Data from a block-randomised controlled trial of procedural justice policing (the Scottish Community Engagement Trial) were analysed. All constructs were measured using surveys distributed during roadside police checks. Treatment implementation was assessed by analysing the treatment effect’s consistency and heterogeneity. Causal mediation analysis, which can derive the indirect effect even in the presence of a treatment–mediator interaction, was used as a versatile technique of effect decomposition. Sensitivity analysis was carried out to assess the robustness of the mediating role of procedural justice. Results: First, the treatment effect was fairly consistent and homogeneous, indicating that the treatment’s effect is attributable to the design. Second, there is evidence that procedural justice channels the treatment’s effect towards normative alignment (NIE = − 0.207), duty to obey (NIE = − 0.153), and social identity (NIE = − 0.052), all of which are moderately robust to unmeasured confounding (ρ = 0.3–0.6, LOVE = 0.5–0.7). Conclusions: The effect’s consistency and homogeneity should be examined in future block-randomised designs. Causal mediation analysis is a versatile tool that can salvage experiments with systematic yet ambiguous treatment effects by allowing researchers to “pry open” the black box of causality. The theoretical propositions of procedural justice policing were supported. Future studies are needed with more discernible causal mediation effects

Precarious work and labour market abuses: mapping the UK landscape

A new study into the scale and nature of labour market non-compliance in the UK will generate the first representative assessment of the extent of labour market abuses faced by people in precarious work in the UK. Ella Cockbain and Krisztián Pósch write that the study will provide in-depth insights into workers’ and employers’ lived experiences

A street corner education: stop and search, trust, and gendered norms among adolescent males

Police stop and search activity has consistently been shown to affect the opinions, attitudes and behaviours of those subject to it. For young people in particular, this can be an important moment in which they learn about and orientate themselves towards law, authority, and the exercise of power. Drawing on work into procedural justice and legal socialisation, we build on the premise that stop and search has, in practice, more to do with the imposition of authority on the streets than the accurate 20 targeting tool of crime-control activity. We consider the link between experiences of stop and search, trust in the police, exposure to or involvement in gangs and violence, and the extent to which male adolescents hold abusive and controlling gendered beliefs regarding sexuality and intimate partner relations. Using data from a survey of Londoners aged 14-16, we find support for the notion that adolescent males’ procedurally unjust stop and search experiences are associated with lower levels of trust in the police, higher levels of involvement in and exposure to gang-related activities, and believing it is acceptable to harass females in public space and control intimate partners. We conclude with the idea that unfair stop/searches can signal that it is ‘OK’ to abuse power

Relational and instrumental perspectives on compliance with the law among people experiencing homelessness

Objective: We conducted an exploratory study testing procedural justice theory with a novel population. We assessed the extent to which police procedural justice, effectiveness, legitimacy, and perceived risk of sanction predict compliance with the law among people experiencing homelessness. Hypotheses: We did not develop formal a priori hypotheses but examined five general research questions. First, are there positive associations between police procedural justice, police legitimacy, and compliance? Second, do procedural justice and legitimacy differentially predict compliance, depending on the particular type of offending? Third, are there positive associations between police effectiveness, perceived risk of sanction, and compliance? Fourth, does the perceived risk of sanction differentially predict compliance, depending on the particular type of offending? And fifth, are there positive associations between moral judgments about different offending behaviors and compliance? Method: Two hundred people (87% male, 49% aged 45–64, 37% White British) experiencing homelessness on the streets of an inner London borough completed a survey that included measures of procedural justice, police legitimacy, perceived risk of sanction, morality, and compliance with the law. Results: Procedural justice and police legitimacy were only weakly (and not significantly) associated with any of the three types of compliance (compliance with laws prohibiting low-level crimes, behaviors specific to the street population, and high-level crimes). Police effectiveness positively predicted compliance via perceived risk of sanction, but only for street-populationspecific offenses that can be important for survival on the streets, such as begging and sleeping in certain localities. Morality was positively associated with all three types of compliance behaviors. Supplementary analyses suggested a small amount of instability in the results, however, possibly because of the relatively small sample size. Conclusions: The lack of relevant relational connections to legal authority may explain why procedural fairness and perceptions of police legitimacy were not particularly important predictors of compliance in this context. More research is needed into the types of marginalized communities for whom structural factors of alienation and lack of access to resources may serve to reduce normative group connections. Future work should test whether the need to survive on the streets leads people to discount some social and relational constraints to behavior, making people (almost by definition) more instrumental in relation to law and law enforcement

What makes Britons trust police to enforce the lockdown fairly?

What do people think about pandemic policing? Should the police get extra powers to enforce the lockdown? A survey by Krisztián Pósch (LSE), Julia Yesberg (UCL), Jonathan Jackson (LSE), Ben Bradford (UCL), Arabella Kyprianides (UCL) and Zoe Hobson (UCL) found some measures (such as checkpoints and issuing fines) are much more popular than others (like mobile phone and facial recognition tracking). Importantly, people’s perception of the legitimacy of the police is crucial in establishing public consent for enhanced police powers. In turn, legitimacy is rooted in people’s experience of everyday policing

The lockdown and social norms: why the UK is complying by consent rather than compulsion

The belief that ‘we are all in it together’ is more important than other factors in explaining why the UK public has complied with lockdown measures so far, early data suggests. Jonathan Jackson, Chris Posch, Ben Bradford, Zoe Hobson, Arabella Kyprianides, and Julia Yesberg discuss the first findings of a survey on lockdown compliance in ten UK cities

Functional and dysfunctional fear of COVID-19: a classification scheme

Worry about COVID-19 is a central topic of research into the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we present a new way of measuring worry about catching COVID-19 that distinguishes between worry as a negative experience that damages people’s quality of life (dysfunctional) and worry as an adaptive experience that directs people’s attention to potential problems (functional). Drawing on work into fear of crime, our classification divides people into three groups: (1) the unworried, (2) the functionally worried (where worry motivates proactive behaviours that help people to manage their sense of risk) and (3) the dysfunctionally worried (where quality of life is damaged by worry and/or precautionary behaviour). Analysing data from two waves of a longitudinal panel study of over 1000 individuals living in ten cities in England, Scotland and Wales, we find differing levels of negative anxiety, anger, loneliness, unhappiness and life satisfaction for each of the three groups, with the dysfunctionally worried experiencing the most negative outcomes and the functionally worried experiencing less negative outcomes than unworried. We find no difference between groups in compliance and willingness to re-engage in social life. Finally, we show a difference between the dysfunctionally worried compared with functional and unworried groups in perceptions of risk (differentiating between likelihood, control and consequence). This finding informs what sort of content-targeted messaging aimed at reducing dysfunctional worry might wish to promote. We conclude with some thoughts on the applicability of our measurement scheme for future research

Policing the lockdown: compliance, enforcement and procedural justice

The problem Compliance with lockdown restrictions (e.g. social distancing) is important if the Covid-19 pandemic is to be brought under control. In a liberal democratic state,the bulk of such compliance has to be voluntary and consensual. Thus far, this seems to havebeen the case in the UK, with police intervention rarely necessary. However, police are needed in a minority of cases, and lockdown fatigue and the easing of restrictions over the coming weeks and months may pose significant challenges to police organisations tasked with both enforcement and maintaining widespread voluntary compliance

The Cummings row undermines the sense of collective solidarity on which the lockdown relies

The so-far widespread compliance with lockdown measures is driven by social identity and collective responsibility, new data confirms. This substantiates further the argument that by defending Dominic Cummings, the government risks undermining the fight against the virus, write Jonathan Jackson, Reka Solymosi, Chris Posch, Ben Bradford, Zoe Hobson, Arabella Kyprianides, and Julia Yesberg