What is Procedural Justice?: Criteria Used by Citizens to Assess the Fairness of Legal Procedures
Abstract
This paper examines procedural justice in the context of citizen experiences with the police and courts. It is based on interviews of 652 citizens with recent personal experiences involving those authorities. I will consider two issues: first, whether the justice of the procedures involved influences citizen satisfaction with outcomes and evaluations of legal authorities; and second, how citizens define “fair process” in such settings. The results replicate those of past studies, which found that procedural justice has a major influence on both satisfaction and evaluation. They further suggest that such procedural justice judgments are complex and multifaceted. Seven issues make independent contributions to citizen judgments about whether the legal authorities acted fairly: (1) the degree to which those authorities were motivated to be fair; (2) judgments of their honesty; (3) the degree to which the authorities followed ethical principles of conduct; (4) the extent to which opportunities for representation were provided; (5) the quality of the decisions made; (6) the opportunities for error correction; and (7) whether the authorities behaved in a biased fashion. I found that the meaning of procedural justice varied according to the nature of the situation, not the characteristics of the people involved.
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Citizens are more likely to comply with police directives when they view the police as legitimate.
“Contemporary research continues to show that citizens are more likely to comply with police directives when they view the police as legitimate (Tyler, 1990”
From Legitimacy in Policing: A Systematic Review (2013) · cites this paper as Tyler, 1988
Police legitimacy-public trust in and a felt obligation to obey the police-forms the fulcrum of the procedural justice model of policing.
“Police legitimacy—that is, public trust in and a felt obligation to obey the police—forms the fulcrum of the procedural justice model of policing.”
From Mirage of Police Reform: Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy (2017) · cites this paper as Tyler 1988
Tyler's model of process-based regulation holds that trust is influenced by the procedural justice with which authorities are perceived to wield their powers.
“Tom Tyler's model of process-based regulation (Tyler 1988, 1990, 2003, 2004; Tyler, Goff, and MacCoun, 2015) holds that trust is influenced by the procedural justice with which authorities are perceived to wield their powers”
From Mirage of Police Reform: Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy (2017) · cites this paper as Tyler 1988
In Tyler's model, procedural justice is the central antecedent of legitimacy.
“In this model, procedural justice is the central antecedent of legitimacy”
From Mirage of Police Reform: Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy (2017) · cites this paper as Tyler 1988
Cites
A theory of social comparison processes
Festinger, L. (1954) · Human Relations · doi:10.1177/001872675400700202 · Cited by 20,926 · see citing works
The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice
Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988) · Critical Issues in Social Justice · doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-2115-4 · Cited by 6,585 · see citing works
Self-citationWhat Should Be Done with Equity Theory?
Leventhal, G. S. (1980) · Social Exchange · doi:10.1007/978-1-4613-3087-5_2 · Cited by 3,010 · see citing works
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A Relational Model of Authority in Groups
Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. A. (1992) · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60283-x · Cited by 2,977 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Group Engagement Model: Procedural Justice, Social Identity, and Cooperative Behavior
Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2003) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0704_07 · Cited by 2,118 · see citing works
Self-citationProcedural Justice, Legitimacy, and the Effective Rule of Law
Tyler, T. R. (2003) · Crime and Justice · doi:10.1086/652233 · Cited by 1,432 · see citing works
Self-citationTyler, T. R. (2004) · The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · doi:10.1177/0002716203262627 · Cited by 1,282 · see citing works
Self-citationViewing Things Differently: The Dimensions of Public Perceptions of Police Legitimacy
Tankebe, J. (2013) · Criminology · doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.2012.00291.x · Cited by 890 · see citing works
Tyler, T. R., & Jackson, J. (2014) · Psychology, Public Policy, and Law · doi:10.1037/a0034514 · Cited by 716 · see citing works
Self-citationProcedural Justice and Legal Compliance
Nagin, D. S., & Telep, C. W. (2017) · Annual Review of Law and Social Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110316-113310 · Cited by 409 · see citing works
VOICE, CONTROL, AND BELONGING: The Double-Edged Sword of Procedural Fairness
MacCoun, R. J. (2005) · Annual Review of Law and Social Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.1.041604.115958 · Cited by 343 · see citing works
“MacCoun and Tyler (1988) found that citizens strongly preferred trial by jury to trial by judge, and the traditional 12-person unanimous jury to smaller or non-unanimous juries.”
BackgroundInfluentialTyler, T. R., Goff, P. A., & MacCoun, R. J. (2015) · Psychological Science in the Public Interest · doi:10.1177/1529100615617791 · Cited by 280 · see citing works
Self-citationLegitimacy in Policing: A Systematic Review
Mazerolle, L., Bennett, S., Davis, J., Sargeant, E., & Manning, M. (2013) · Campbell Systematic Reviews: Better Evidence for a Better World · doi:10.4073/csr.2013.1 · Cited by 224 · see citing works
“18 The Campbell Collaboration | www.campbellcollaboration.org police legitimacy may vary across cultural contexts. For example, Hinds and Murphy (2007) examined perceptions of procedural justice, police effectiveness, police legitimacy and satisfaction with police among 2,611 Australians.”
BackgroundInfluentialProcedural justice and legal compliance: A revisionist perspective
Nagin, D. S., & Telep, C. W. (2020) · Criminology & Public Policy · doi:10.1111/1745-9133.12499 · Cited by 155 · see citing works
DOES WHAT POLICE DO AT HOT SPOTS MATTER? THE PHILADELPHIA POLICING TACTICS EXPERIMENT*
GROFF, E. R., RATCLIFFE, J. H., HABERMAN, C. P., SORG, E. T., JOYCE, N. M., & TAYLOR, R. B. (2015) · Criminology · doi:10.1111/1745-9125.12055 · Cited by 202 · see citing works
“When community members perceive that police actions are fair, they are more likely to be more satisfied with and have confidence in police services, follow the law, and help police fight crime (Reisig and Lloyd, 2009; Taylor and Lawton, 2014; Tyler, 1988, 2004).”
BackgroundMirage of Police Reform: Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy
University at Albany, S., Worden, R. E., McLean, S. J., & John F. Finn Institute for Public Safety, U. (2017) · Luminos · doi:10.1525/luminos.30 · Cited by 141 · see citing works
Owens, E., Weisburd, D., Amendola, K. L., & Alpert, G. P. (2018) · Criminology & Public Policy · doi:10.1111/1745-9133.12337 · Cited by 111 · see citing works
Yurrita, M., Draws, T., Balayn, A., Murray-Rust, D., Tintarev, N., & Bozzon, A. (2023) · Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3544548.3581161 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
“Drawing from literature in legal and organizational psychology for human decision-making [8, 13, 15, 16, 38, 40, 90] and studies on perceptions of fairness in algorithmic systems [9, 41, 58, 72, 80, 83, 93, 96, 103], we formulated eleven hypotheses (Figure 1).”
What’s the Appeal? Perceptions of Review Processes for Algorithmic Decisions
Lyons, H., Wijenayake, S., Miller, T., & Velloso, E. (2022) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3491102.3517606 · Cited by 27 · see citing works
Brummel, L., & de Blok, L. (2024) · Public Management Review · doi:10.1080/14719037.2024.2337843 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
- Authors
- Tyler, T. R.
- Corresponding author
- Tyler, Tom R.
- ORCID
- Tyler, Tom R.
- Venue
- Law & Society Review
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 1988
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 103-135
- ISSN
- 0023-9216 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-5893
- OpenAlex
- W2331211957
- Cited by
- 912
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 79 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 48 · 2017: 46 · 2016: 40 · 2015: 34 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 89.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Law & Society Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Social Sciences › Law › Legal processes and jurisprudence
- Social Sciences › Law › Judicial and Constitutional Studies
- Keywords
- procedural justice, police, courts, citizen satisfaction, perceived fairness, police ethics, error correction, bias
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