The Public and the Justice System: Attitudes, Drivers and Behaviour - A Literature Review

5 Ways to increase positive attitudes and behaviour

Key Findings

• There are four types of activity that have been shown to improve attitudes to the justice system:
• Direct Contact - improving encounters between the justice system and the public in line with the tenets of procedural justice theory.
• Visibility and Engagement - including both police visibility and direct engagement with the public
• Improving Neighbourhood Conditions - reducing signals of crime and ASB and improving cohesion
• Communication - including newsletters, emails, etc. appropriately designed with the needs and priorities of the audience in mind.
• All of these types of activity can form part of community policing, which has been implemented across the UK in recent years. It appears that key to its success is reflexive engagement between the police and the community, characterised by open, honest, and inclusive communication and activity, which is tailored to specific local needs.
• Much if not all of this evidence has focused specifically on the police. It is possible some of these activities may be transferable to other parts of the justice system, such as courts, but more research is required to explore this.

Introduction

5.1 The evidence reviewed has enabled us to construct a picture of what drives people's attitudes to the justice system, and the impact of such attitudes on people's behaviour. This final section will look at the potential application of this evidence, by exploring the evidence around what improves attitudes to the justice system. Looking back at evidence outlined above, and at experimental interventions, we will discuss four broad types of activity that have been shown to improve public attitudes.

Direct Contact

5.1.1 Those who have had contact with the justice system are likely to draw on this contact when forming their attitudes to the justice system, and making decisions about how to engage with the system in the future, as well as when communicating this experience to those around them. Therefore, if it is seen to be important for people to have positive attitudes to the justice system, it is clearly vital that personal encounters with the system are positively evaluated.

5.2 We have seen that direct contact with the justice system has a large impact on people's attitudes to the system, and that such contact, and the system itself, is more likely to be evaluated positively if system professionals (police, court staff, judges and so on) are perceived to operate in a procedurally fair manner. We have also seen that there is debate as to whether and to what extent positively evaluated contacts can improve attitudes, but there is consensus that negatively evaluated contact with the system can have a large negative impact on attitudes.

5.2.1 The evidence thus suggests that one way to improve public attitudes to the justice system would be to ensure that professionals in the justice system behave fairly, respectfully and transparently in any interaction with a system 'user', whoever they may be, and allow them to have their say in the process. This focus on procedural justice can be enacted both through system processes (for example processes around information provision to system users, and users' roles in justice processes) and through system cultures (for example around how professionals are trained and expected to behave).

Visibility and Engagement

5.3 We have seen above that there is a proven relationship between perceived visibility and accessibility of local police, and attitudes towards the police. The 'what works' policing literature tends to expand on simple visibility to broader examination of the impact of police engagement, i.e. routine interaction with members of the public about their concerns and expectations, often as part of community policing. Other aspects of community policing examined in the literature cover activities we will examine separately (communication and improving neighbourhood conditions are covered below), but in this context the literature shows that both visibility of police in a neighbourhood (see above and Rix et al 2009, Smith 2007, Dalgleish & Myhill 2004, Bradford, Jackson & Stanko 2009, Charlton 2010, Jackson Et Al 2009, Mawby 2004, Mackenzie & Henry 2009), and engagement with communities (see Rix et al 2009, Dalgleish & Myhill 2004, Hohl et al 2010, Quinton 2011, Myhill & Beak 2008) have a positive impact on people's attitudes to the police.

5.3.1 There is some disagreement in the literature as to the relative importance of simple visibility of police officers to the community, and actual interaction and engagement between officers and the community, with some saying visibility alone is sufficient (Mackenzie & Henry 2009), while others finding that visibility only has a marked impact on attitudes when it is accompanied by interacting with the public, and becoming a familiar and responsive part of the community (Rix et al 2009, Mawby 2004, Jackson et al 2009). This may reflect differences in the needs and expectations of different communities.

Improving Neighbourhood Conditions

5.4 Equally important to engaging communities is acting on their concerns. Thus our third area of activity is around reducing ASB and signs of crime in neighbourhoods, and improving perceived community cohesion. We have seen that perceptions of ASB and disorder in a neighbourhood are related to attitudes to the police, and literature on what works in regards to community policing, and dealing with ASB, identify making physical improvements to an area (Dalgleish & Myhill 2004, Rix et al 2009), dealing with ASB, and signal crimes (Mackenzie & Henry 2009, Jackson et al 2009, Myhill & Beak 2008, Rix et al 2009), and dealing with things that concern local people (Hohl et al 2010, Mackenzie et al 2010) as activities that both reduce concern about crime and local cohesion, and improve confidence in the police.

5.4.1 These issues are not, however, necessarily tackled solely (or at all) by the police, and there is a role for Local Authorities and multi agency working here (see Rix et al 2009).

Communication

5.5 The final area of activity which is shown in the literature to improve public attitudes to the justice system is communication. We saw in the drivers chapter of this report that indirect communication from the police, such as newsletters, can improve attitudes to the police, especially when the content of such communication meets the needs of the audience.

5.5.1 From the literature, we can identify three key elements to be considered when designing communication about or from the justice system:

1. Source of communication - We have seen that people are most likely to trust communication from the police, or independent sources, and least likely to trust anything perceived to be from 'the government'. Experiments which have explored the impact of newspaper columns or ongoing newspaper stories have found these to have little impact (Feilzer 2007, Elffers et al 2007, see also Gies & Mawby 2009), while more direct communication using newsletters or interactive events have been shown to have more of an effect on attitudes. This is due, among other things, to low readership of individual stories in a paper compared to newsletters, low level of authorial control of newspaper articles, and relative perceived trustworthiness of sources.

2. Purpose of communication - We have also seen that some experiments designed to improve knowledge about the justice system, and thereby improve confidence, have shown some small improvements in confidence. However, there is also evidence that this boost in confidence is due not to improved knowledge, but to the engagement involved in being communicated with. On the other hand, communication activity designed as a method of engagement, specifically tailored to what the audience wants from such communication, has been shown to directly improve attitudes. Communication that is not reflexive in this way "run the risk not only of appearing to the public as missives from a remote power, but actually being so" (Hohl et al 2010: 496)

3. Content of communication - it is crucial that the content of any communication is seen to be relevant, trustworthy and interesting by its audience. So some consultation as to contents is always useful. Generally, communication should not be overly reliant on statistics, which can be dismissed as 'spin', should as far as possible chime with people's lived experience, should cover the issues most important to people, and should operate on a moral/emotional level, not simply on a factual level. It is also helpful for communication to be in some way interactive, in the least by supplying contact details for local agencies and a method for providing feedback on both the system's performance, and on the communication itself.

Application of these activities

5.6 Throughout this section we have made reference to community policing, and indeed all four of the activities outlined above can be utilised as part of a community policing approach. The effect of community policing as an approach on attitudes to the police has been well demonstrated, with pilot areas in England and Wales experiencing a 15% increase in those saying the police were doing a good or excellent job, compared to a 3% rise in the control areas (Tuffin et al 2006). A 2009 poll in England also found that 51% of those who had heard of community policing said it had made them more confident that crime and anti-social behaviour were being tackled in their local area (Charlton 2010).

5.6.1 One exception to the positive findings in regards to community policing is an evaluation of a pilot in North England, which found a rise in people feeling unsafe, and a drop in confidence. This was felt to be due to unrealistic expectations raised by the scheme, and an inability of the police to deal with the root causes of the community's fear (Jokinen et al 2009). Similarly, Rix et al have outlined four potential pitfalls for reassurance and confidence building interventions - not achieving representation from the community as a whole in consultation; highlighting crime and ASB too much; negative talk from justice professionals about their organisation; and community engagement not being perceived throughout the police as important work (Rix et al 2009).

5.6.2 A central theme, therefore, of both the community policing literature, and the evidence reviewed above, is the importance of a reflexive relationship between the justice system and the public, where, the police (for example) listen to the public's concerns, act upon them, and communicate openly and honestly about what they are doing. It follows, and is of central importance, then, that the differing contexts and needs of different communities and groups are taken into account when designing a strategy to building or maintaining confidence (see Rix et al 2009). This is in line with the findings of the previous chapter, that groups with different relationships to society at large may respond in different ways to contact with legal authorities.

5.6.3 So, for example, the Metropolitan Police in London have used analysis of their own survey and the BCS to define four distinct groups of Londoners who have different needs, and have tailored their policing approached to these needs (Bradford et al 2008). Similarly, Innes and Roberts have argued that in areas with high crime and high disorder, improving neighbourhood conditions, i.e. targeting signal crimes and disorder, is most effective at improving attitudes, while in areas with low levels of ASB, engaging with the community and taking their concerns seriously is sufficient to improve attitudes (Innes & Roberts 2007).

5.6.4 Now, the evidence base on what works as it stands is primarily focused on the police. We do not know to what extent these kinds of activities could also foster more positive attitudes towards other parts of the justice system, such as courts. There are some studies showing that procedural justice theory holds for courts as it does for police, but there appears to have been no attempt to date to explore the possible link between courts and local communities, and the effect of communication from or about courts on attitudes to courts and the justice system. This is a fertile area for research and experimentation in the future.