Professor Mike Hough President BSC Police Legitimacy and Trust in Justice: the EU JUSTIS Project

Police legitimacy and trust in justice: The EU JUSTIS project Professor Mike Hough SIPR/BSC/Strathclyde Police Conference 28 November 2008

What I want to do Describe the JUSTIS project On Trust in Justice Discuss the emergence of ‘confidence’ as an issue Talk about the wrong route to take And the right route to take For policing and justice…. As we face a really difficult decade

An introduction to JUSTIS Nine academic partners Seven countries –England –Italy –Bulgaria –Hungary –France –Lithuania –Finland Three years – report in 2011 € 1.5m from the EC

An introduction to JUSTIS Nine academic partners Seven countries –England –Italy –Bulgaria –Hungary –France –Lithuania –Finland Three years – report in 2011 € 1.5m from the EC

Aims and methods Aim: to devise a suite of survey-based indicators to measure trust in justice and insecurity Methods –Review conceptual & empirical literature [in progress] –Assess of state of art and perceived need [in progress] –Conceptualisation of indicators –Develop survey-based indicators –Trial indicators (in new accession countries) –Promote approach across member states

Ideas An increasingly uncertain world…. Makes industrialised countries prone to penal populism Simple, attractive, ineffective and costly, solutions to complex problems of order The example of mass incarceration The criminal justice system construed in narrow terms Compliance secured simply through deterrence, incapacitation…. ….is a bad thing

The procedural justice perspective Important to salvage the normative Why do people comply with the law? –To avoid the costs of punishment? –Or because they share the values of the CJS –And trust in its institutions –Procedural Justice theory (Tom Tyler et al) Justice as the primary product of the CJS? Crime control as a secondary product?

Confidence in justice An idea whose time has come The Green Paper on policing –Responsiveness to local needs –Local autonomy –End to central government targets???? A real opportunity? That could go pear-shaped

Engaging Communities in Fighting Crime “Crime is tackled most effectively when the law-abiding majority stand together against the minority who commit it.” “The ability of the law-abiding public to make that stand is dependent on their trust, faith and confidence in the the Criminal Justice System”

Us, the law-abiding majority: do we….. Never nick stuff from the office? Never break the speed limit? Never pad insurance claims? Never slip a few hundred past the taxman? Never drive ‘just over the limit’? Never use illicit drugs? Never hit our partners?

The law-abiding majority Why does New Labour persist with this dishonest rhetoric? “Putting the law-abiding majority first” It flatters It plays well in the press It facilitates an instrumentalism about crime But is it counterproductive? Isn’t everyone’s consent to the law fragile?

Why does the system need ‘confidence’? 1.To win votes? 2.To win cooperation? 3.To win compliance? (consent to the rule of law) New Labour Manichaeanism squeezes out No. 3. A serious mistake?

Conceptualising ‘confidence’ Confidence = trust …trust in fair and respectful treatment …trust in competence …trust in shared values CJS needs trust because trust yields legitimacy Legitimacy yields authority Authority yields compliance (and cooperation) Whose trust is it most important to buy? The parallel with “the war on terror”

The costs of getting it wrong Repressive, not inclusive, justice Dilution of due process, distain for talk of rights Unsustainable expenditure Coerced compliance…’keeping the lid’ on is not a stable solution to crime Losing the trust of the socially marginal Is a high risk in the times ahead

What would success look like for JUSTIS? Greater awareness of procedural justice perspectives at political level Better conceptualisaton of ‘confidence’ More priority to justice criteria in policy Member states adopting our indicators Or cherry-picking them To make the world a slightly better place