Work in progress
Working papers
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Legal cynicism, intrusive policing, and the dynamics of police legitimacy in Brazil’s largest city
Author: Thiago R. Oliveira
Asked to Revise & Resubmit, now under second review at Law and Society Review
See abstract
Abstract: Public experiences with the law in some neighborhoods are marked by an overwhelming police presence alongside deep-seated beliefs that legal agents are disinterested in ensuring public safety. This mutual experience of intrusive policing and legal cynicism has important implications for people’s recognition of the legitimacy of legal authority. In the context of a global city in the Global South, this study provides a quantitative assessment of the dynamics of perceived police intrusion and cynicism about police protection and the implications of those experiences for beliefs about the legitimacy of legal institutions. Drawing on a three-wave longitudinal survey representative of adult residents of eight neighborhoods in São Paulo, Brazil (N = 1,200), I demonstrate that perceived police intrusion and cynicism about police protection (a) are two sides of the same coin, being produced by similar social forces and dynamically reproducing each other and (b) operate to undermine police legitimacy. Integrating the legal cynicism and procedural justice theoretical frameworks, this study shows that intrusive as well as unheeding and neglectful policing practices can contribute to delegitimizing legal authority. I conclude with a discussion about the distribution of repression and protection and highlight the urgency of exploring public-authority relations in the Global South.
Keywords: legal cynicism, intrusive policing, police legitimacy, procedural justice theory, Brazil.Manuscript available on SocArXiv.
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Police violence, criminal offending, and the legal socialization of adolescents
Authors: Thiago R. Oliveira & Jon Jackson
Under review at the Journal of Quantitative Criminology
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Abstract: Objectives: Test whether exposure to police violence undermines the legal socialization of adolescents and contributes to increase criminal offending by examining the extent to which witnessing different policing practices, including an officer assaulting a member of the public, is associated with changes in beliefs about the legitimacy of the law and self-reported offending behavior among adolescents aged 11 to 14 years in São Paulo, Brazil.
Methods: A cohort-based, four-wave longitudinal survey of 800 2005-born adolescents living in São Paulo was fielded annually between 2016 and 2019. Measures include recent exposure to officers stopping, arresting, and assaulting a suspect, legal legitimacy judgements, and recent self-reported offending behavior. We use a recently developed approach to analyze panel data that augments matching methods with the difference-in-differences estimator to model changes in legitimacy beliefs and a hybrid, longitudinal adaption to a multinomial Rasch model to model self-reported criminal offending.
Results: We find a robust association between witnessing police officers assaulting a suspect and (a) decreased perceptions of legal legitimacy and (b) increased offending behavior over time, as well as a negative association between legitimacy judgements and criminal offending. Results also suggest that undermined beliefs about the legitimacy of the law might mediate the effects of exposure to police violence onto self-reported offending behavior.
Conclusions: Adolescents in São Paulo are socialized through exposure to police violence. Witnessing police officers assaulting a member of the public undermines the development of beliefs about the legitimacy of the law and increases the risk of criminal offending.
Keywords: legal socialization, police violence, legitimacy of the law, offending behavior, Brazil. -
Legal cynicism and the enduring legacy of cumulative exposures to police misconduct
Authors: Thiago R. Oliveira, David S. Kirk, Charles C. Lanfear, & Robert J. Sampson.
See abstract
Pregistration availble at OSF Registries https://osf.io/xgeyn.