Keywords
Police Legitimacy; Police; Procedural Justice; Legitimacy
Abstract
Legitimacy in law enforcement can be defined as the perception of the police as an appropriate and respected source of power and authority. United States law enforcement is facing a legitimacy crisis stemming from a growing distrust in the police and decreased police community relationships. In order to address this problem, solutions are being sought in both police agencies and by researchers in the field. This systematic review aims to compile all relevant experiments and analyze the findings to create a comprehensive list of policy implications that most effectively improve police legitimacy. For experiments to be included in this review, studies must have police legitimacy as the dependent variable. The study must also be experimental or quasi-experimental. Finally, all included literature must be published in a peer-reviewed journal. There are no exclusion criteria regarding the geographical location of the experiment, but it must be written in English. The analysis showed that procedural justice is the highest predictor of police legitimacy improvements. This includes variables such as high-quality decision making, respectful and fair treatment, among other procedural justice variables. Police interventions, including hot spots policing or problem-oriented policing among others, showed no influence on police legitimacy. Group identity had no effect on police legitimacy, and court intervention had an improvement in only property crime offenders. To improve police legitimacy, police agencies should include procedural justice as a main focus in training, officer education, community outreach programs, and more.
Thesis Completion Year
2025
Thesis Completion Semester
Spring
Thesis Chair
Paul, Nicholas
College
College of Community Innovation and Education
Department
Department of Criminal Justice
Thesis Discipline
Criminal Justice
Language
English
Access Status
Open Access
Length of Campus Access
None
Campus Location
Orlando (Main) Campus
STARS Citation
Powers, Nyomi, "What Factors Improve Police Legitimacy?" (2025). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 353.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/hut2024/353
Rights Statement
