Criminological Analysis Of Police Legitimacy

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Legitimacy has become an established concept in the criminological analysis, especially within the field of policing. A police officer is granted legitimacy or the right to exercise power by the role they fulfill as the agents of the state, responsible for maintaining order and enforcing rules and regulations with the community. Police legitimacy is a social value-based motivation, a normative feeling to obey a particular authority. Tyler (2006) defines legitimacy as “the belief that authorities, institutions, and social arrangements are appropriate, proper, and just” (p. 376). Applied to policing, the concept of legitimacy encapsulates terms such as; confidence, accountability, and trust towards the police as held by the public. As a result, …show more content…

It is understood to be the most basic level of legitimacy. Lawfulness is concerned with the question of whether power and authority have been acquired and exercised in accordance with established rules on a given society (Beetham, 1991, p. 16). Beetham’s legality condition, therefore, implies that powers that allow police officers - for example, to stop and search citizens, to use force against suspects under specific circumstances or to interrogate suspects in absence of his or her attorney - are powers which must be exercised in accordance with the principles of rule of law and due process. In the 21st century, within contemporary nations, it is expected that police powers be exercised in a manner that is “unbiased, free of passion, prejudice, and arbitrariness, loyal to the law alone” (Tamanaha, 2004, p. 123). What Tamanaha is referring to is when engaging with citizens, it should be respectful of their legal rights and treat all parties involved fairly. The biased and unfair treatment of certain segments of the populations is what leads to low levels of perceived police legitimacy amongst that of the population. Practices such as racial profiling, over-policing and heavy reliance on use-of-force tactics have real implication on the perceived police legitimacy and are correlated with lack of reporting crime and victimization, calling the police and a general lack of cooperation with the police due to …show more content…

Racial profiling is understood to be any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security or public protection that relies on stereotypes about race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin, or a combination of these, rather than on a reasonable suspicion, to single out an individual for greater scrutiny or differential treatment (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2003). Racial profiling occurs when the police treats people differently on account of their racial background based on stereotypical assumptions because of one’s race, color, ethnicity and so on. Official statistics collected by the police make clear that in Britain, the United States and Canada black people experience the highest level of racial profiling as opposed to other groups (Hayle, Wortley, and Tanner, 2016). Within the Canadian context, there is strong empirical support for racial profiling as a method of policing within policing services, especially when black Canadians are

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