The Importance Of Procedural Justice

Procedural justice and legitimacy in America is the hottest topic of the last couple of years. The justice system and policing are changing for the better. Unfortunately, there is a learning curve that needs to be hurdled before far sweeping changes are made. Studies show that simple communication and listening skills, along with neutrality and consistency, can influence people into believing in the system again. The key concepts of showing respect, fairness, and trustworthiness have been shown to be effective techniques for building legitimacy (QIdeas.org, 2015). There are many ways for administrators to start building legitimacy within the communities they serve, such as community policing, open forums, citizens on patrol, Clergy and Police …show more content…
There are minorities who feel that the policing and justice systems in their respective areas do not have procedural justice. Therefore, these minorities do not believe in the legitimacy of the police. This is compounded by the media and its sensationalization and use of inflammatory reporting. When a police officer uses deadly force and the suspect is a minority, one may read the news headline “Unarmed black teenager shot dead by white police officer”. This headline is meant to grab the attention of the public and sell the news. Although this is an effective technique for attracting attention, this is inflammatory enough to cause some to believe that there is far too much injustice to fight the perceived injustice. In a 2009 survey, it was discovered that a mere 14 percent of African Americans said they had a significant amount of confidence in police officers to treat black and white people equally. This is in contrast to the 38 percent of white respondents who had a great deal of confidence that local police treat people equally. Almost four times as many black persons as whites had “very little” confidence in their local police to treat different races the same (Pew Research Center, …show more content…
Chief Windham wanted to find out what the city needed and expected from the police and city leaders. In 1991 the Fort Worth City Council created another related program called Citizens on Patrol or C.O.P. This program trains citizens to patrol their own neighborhoods and be the eyes and ears of law enforcement. The C.O.P. program works with a Neighborhood Police Officer, assigned to a specific area. This gives citizens direct communication, input, and education into law enforcement efforts. Citizens were able to take ownership which created legitimacy and trust with officers. By the end of 1993 crime rates had dropped 24% and it was obvious that community policing was working. The city has continued to have significant decreases to the crime rate over the last decade. (FortWorthPD.com, The History of the Fort Worth Police Department). These results show that when a community has open communication with the administration and police, it creates a cooperative partnership. This provides the ability to address crime trends together. It has been shown that when the police and citizens work together, crime