Building Police-Youth Relationships: The Importance of Procedural Justice

A consistent body of research shows that a key reason that adults support police is that they view them as legitimate. This paper adds to the small number of studies to explore factors that influence young people's judgments of police legitimacy. Using data from a written survey of 14 to 16 year-old high school students, findings show that young people's attitudes toward police legitimacy are positively linked to police use of procedural justice. Prior negative contact with police is significantly associated with young people's judgments of lower police legitimacy. Implications for building better police-youth relationships are discussed.