Kristina Murphy

Griffith University · Griffith Criminology Institute

Research shows that discriminatory policing can erode public trust in police. Yet, little research has examined the role that contempt can play in explaining this relationship. Focusing on Muslims in Australia, we test whether procedural justice and police effectiveness are associated with enhanced trust in police across two policing contexts (gene...

How police and citizens behave during encounters can influence public perceptions of the deservingness of treatment citizens receive from police. Yet perceiving another citizen as deserving of police treatment may be explained by other factors. This study tests if minority observers’ identity with police and identity with the citizen in the encount...

Defiance can be a powerful mechanism of protest against police oppression. At the same time, citizen defiance to police authority is problematic for police and can cause injury to both police officers and the public. Research shows that some groups of people defy police more than others, and that defiance often represents a reaction to disenfranchi...

Research regularly finds significant variation in the perceived trustworthiness of police across different social groups. For example, studies from a number of different countries have shown that people from particular ethnic and racial minority groups tend to have less positive evaluations and lower expectations of police effectiveness, benevolenc...

Studies of immigrant populations point to numerous immigrant-specific factors that may explain their level of trust in police. Yet research on immigrants’ trust in police remains sparse, and available studies present contradictory findings. Some studies find that immigrants are more trusting of police than non-immigrants, while other studies find i...

Objectives We apply Unnever and Cullen’s (2010) Racial Animus Model to examine support for punitive counter-terrorism policies before and after the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack. Methods We utilize a natural experiment of survey data from Australians before (n = 1191) and after (n = 1344) the attack. Both surveys included a between-groups vig...

This article seeks to test the police ‘empowerment hypothesis’ to better understand public support for police powers during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, we draw on Australian survey data to compare the efficacy of the instrumental and normative models of police empowerment to enforce social distancing regulations. We find that instrumental conc...

Objectives This study examines how stigma moderates the effect of procedurally just and unjust treatment on Muslims’ trust in police. Methods Survey participants were randomly assigned to receive one of two vignettes describing a traffic stop where officer treatment was manipulated (procedurally just/unjust). Muslims’ feelings of stigma were measu...

For decades, Muslims living in Western countries have experienced disproportionate scrutiny from police. Such scrutiny can result in relative deprivation; the feeling that they or their group is unfairly disenfranchised compared to others. Scholars have theorized that relatively deprived individuals may assess police-citizen interactions as more bi...

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the introduction of extra-ordinary restrictions to mitigate its spread. Authorities rely on the public’s voluntary willingness to obey these restrictions, yet the intrusive nature of these measures may lead some people to believe that authorities are overstepping the limits of their rightful power (i.e., bound...

Police have been criticized for their biased treatment of minorities. While many officers do not hold prejudicial attitudes toward minorities, discrimination continues. Stereotype threat research offers one possible explanation for why this is so. Paradoxically, studies reveal that officers who feel more threatened by the ‘racist cop’ stereotype re...

Minority groups can be highly distrustful of police. This is problematic because it can lead to a reluctance to seek help from police when needed. As a stigmatized minority group, Muslims pose unique challenges for police engagement. This paper explores the importance of both police effectiveness and procedural justice for promoting Muslims’ trust...

In 2020 governments worldwide implemented various laws and social distancing restrictions to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. At the same time, conspiracy theories emerged purporting that authorities were using the COVID-19 pandemic to permanently control or harm citizens. These conspiracies undermined government responses to the pandemic...

The private security industry has expanded rapidly in recent decades. Yet the sector has been plagued by suggestions that its personnel lack the professionalism, skills, effectiveness and legitimacy to perform many of the tasks they are employed to do. This raises questions of how the sector has or should attempt to enhance their perceived legitima...

Objectives Test the asymmetry thesis of police-citizen contact that police trustworthiness and legitimacy are affected more by negative than by positive experiences of interactions with legal agents by analyzing changes in attitudes towards the police after an encounter with the police. Test whether prior attitudes moderate the impact of contact on...

The COVID‐19 pandemic has led to an upswing in conspiracy theory beliefs, which creates challenges for effectively countering the pandemic, with higher rates of COVID‐19 vaccine hesitancy found among conspiracy theorists. Research suggests health risk perceptions, trust in government and anomie may mediate the relationship between COVID‐19 conspira...

Engaging Muslims in counter-terrorism (CT) has proved challenging for police worldwide. Some research has focussed on the utility of police being procedurally just in their CT strategies to enhance their legitimacy and subsequent cooperation from Muslims. Despite the efficacy of procedural justice, however, some have argued that procedural justice...

Purpose Since 9/11, Muslims have experienced discrimination and scrutiny from authorities. For many, this experience has damaged their trust in law enforcement and left them with the impression that they are viewed as suspect. This study seeks to better understand the relationship between Muslims' perceived police bias and trust, and how procedural...

Some immigrants can be reluctant to cooperate with the police due to experiences of social exclusion and discrimination. Procedural justice scholars argue that people cooperate with police when they feel the police are just and fair because such treatment motivates identification with social categories that police represent. In this paper, we consi...

Police rely on citizens to report crime and victimization. Yet for many people low levels of trust in police and concerns about unjust police treatment impact their willingness to engage proactively with police. For some, defying police authority is common. This can be particularly so for ethnic, racial, and religious minority groups. The personal...

The public rely on the police to enforce the law, and the police rely on the public to report crime and assist them with their enquiries. Police action or inaction can also impact on public willingness to informally intervene in community problems. In this paper we examine the formal-informal control nexus in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. D...

Physical distancing measures have become the first line of defence for slowing COVID-19 virus transmission. However, studies have demonstrated that compliance with physical distancing restrictions has not been uniform. Police have also encountered widespread resentment of the restrictions, defiance, and people purposefully flouting restrictions. In...

Abstract The public rely on the police to enforce the law, and the police rely on the public to report crime and assist them with their enquiries. Police action or inaction can also impact on public willingness to informally intervene in community problems. In this paper we examine the formal-informal control nexus in the context of the COVID-19 pa...

This paper examines how when police are perceived to be procedurally just it can enhance immigrants' identification and solidarity with police as well as their identification with their adopted nation. This in turn has a positive effect on their willingness to cooperate and engage with police.

On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) a global pandemic. At the time of writing, over 16 million cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed worldwide, and more than 650,000 people had died from the virus. A priority amongst governments globally is limiting the spread of the virus. In Australia,...

Believing that terrorist grievances are valid can strengthen the legitimacy of a terrorist organisation. As countering terrorism is high on political agendas worldwide, understanding the antecedents of such beliefs may spotlight how some terrorist ideals come to be validated. Using survey data from 800 Muslims living in Australia, this study discer...

This report details the findings of a nationwide survey of Australians during the initial lockdown period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The document details the survey methodology and main findings and presents the survey instrument. Topics in the survey include compliance with COVID-19 restrictions; attitudes to authority; trust in authority and polic...

Studies find that immigrants can be less trusting of police than non-immigrants, with immigrants’ views deteriorating as their length of residence in a host country increases (VanCraen 2012; Van Craen and Skogan 2014). However, existing research has failed to consider different dimensions of trust. This study applies different trust measures (singl...

compliance; social distancing restrictions; COVID-19 This paper uses survey data from 1595 Australians to identify factors that predict their compliance with COVID-19 social distancing restrictions.

Understanding public dispositions to defy police is important for police practice. Citizen defiance can result in arrest, injury or even death. The current study examines the antecedents of ‘defiant’ and ‘compliant’ motivational postures among a sample of 1,480 ethnic minority group members. Developing a better understanding of defiant and complian...

Are trust and legitimacy hard to win and easy to lose? In this paper, we revisit the relationship between police-citizen encounters and attitudes towards the police and test the asymmetry thesis using panel data. Despite some evidence from cross-sectional studies indicating that attitudes ‘arrive on foot’ but ‘leave on horseback’, we suggest otherw...

Are trust and legitimacy hard to win and easy to lose? In this paper, we revisit the relationship between police-citizen encounters and attitudes towards the police and test the asymmetry thesis using panel data. Despite some evidence from cross-sectional studies indicating that attitudes 'arrive on foot' but 'leave on horseback', we suggest otherw...

Prison staff are vital for enforcing order in prisons. However, order is not only maintained by what prison staff do, but also relies on prisoners willingly following the directives of prison staff and complying with prison rules and procedures. This article puts forward the idea that how prison staff treat prisoners can affect the social distancin...

This technical report describes the methodology used to field a community survey of immigrants living in Sydney, Australia. It also presents the summary findings of the survey. The research was funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Program.

The increase in Islamic-inspired terrorism on Western soil has led governments around the world to introduce new counter-terrorism laws and more intrusive police practices aimed at countering the threat of terrorism. This has had a profound negative impact on Muslim communities living in the West who have expressed feeling stigmatised by institutio...

Full Text: Contemporary police agencies face complex challenges. Technological, social and economic changes are driving new crime problems, while there remains an expectation that police will continue to perform traditional roles. The Queensland Police Service's Serious and Organised Crime group, for instance, has responsibility for homicides, orga...

This technical report overviews the findings of a nationwide survey that examines Australians' attitudes towards crime control and counter-terrorism policies. This document presents the survey instrument and outlines the survey methodology and key findings. The survey benchmarked public attitudes towards counter-terrorism measures and forms of puni...

In this paper we consider whether pre-existing defiant postures shape citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice and satisfaction in police-citizen encounters. Utilizing longitudinal survey data we examine 440 people who reported having personal contact with police in the 12-month period preceding the second survey. We find defiance at Time 1 resu...

Do people living in societies rife with police corruption comply with the law because they perceive police as legitimate or because of their feelings of endemic powerlessness (i.e., what Tankebe (2009) refers to as dull compulsion)? Prior studies have shown that compliance is driven primarily by perceptions that authorities and their laws are legit...

The heightened threat of terrorism in the West has resulted in more power being granted to police. However, new anti-terror laws and heavy-handed policing practices can stigmatize Muslim communities. Using survey data from 800 Australian Muslims this paper examines whether procedural justice policing in counter-terrorism enhances Muslims’ feelings...

Objectives This paper examines the effects of a procedural justice policing intervention on citizens’ feelings of obligation to obey police. It examines whether the efficacy of procedural justice on citizens’ obligation to obey police may be contingent on citizens’ level of trust in police during a police–citizen encounter. Methods This research d...

The present study uses Social Identity Theory as a framework to investigate the collective effects of perceived police bias, ethnicity and self-identification with different groups on respondents’ intentions to cooperate with police in general crime control efforts and in counter-terrorism policing. Drawing on survey data collected from 1,272 indiv...

In this paper we examine the community- and individual-level characteristics associated with individuals’ perceptions of violence. We use data collected in the Australian Community Capacity Study Wave 3 survey of over 4000 individuals living in 148 local residential communities in Brisbane and employ multilevel models to examine the association bet...

Purpose Procedural justice is important for fostering peoples’ willingness to cooperate with police. Theorizing suggests this relationship results because procedural justice enhances perceptions that the police are legitimate and entitled to be supported. This paper examines how legitimacy perceptions moderate the effect of procedural justice poli...

Existing research has explored the ways the mainstream news media covers Muslims and Islam, but few studies have examined Muslims’ reactions to this reporting. Studies that have investigated this issue have identified that the responses of Muslims to news media coverage tend to be largely negative because of the lack of Muslim news sources, the ste...

Passive support for terrorism refers to expressions of sympathy for acts of terrorism and/or the justifications (ideology) used by terrorist groups to legitimise their beliefs and actions. One form of passive support is whether Muslims feel terrorists have valid grievances. Appealing to a sense of grievance is a key way that violent Islamists attem...

Procedural justice is known to enhance perceptions of police legitimacy. Studies show that procedural justice may be less effective for some individuals and groups, while others show it to be more effective. This study investigates the contingency of the procedural justice effect and considers the effectiveness of procedural justice for certain ind...

With the increased focus on applying procedural justice into policing practice, a small number of studies have examined officer attitudes to procedural justice. These studies have measured a diverse range of attitudinal concepts – from officers’ alignment to procedural justice principles, to the perceived effectiveness of the principles in obtainin...

Effectively engaging the Muslim community is a challenge for police given many Muslims feel unfairly targeted by counter-terrorism policies and laws because of their faith. This paper explores how such perceptions influence the willingness of Muslims to voluntarily cooperate in counter-terrorism efforts, drawing on data collected from Muslims livin...

Immigrants are often less trusting of police than non-immigrants because they can feel ill-served by police and the laws they enforce. Procedural justice policing has been regarded as central to improving public trust and confidence in police. Using survey data from citizens exposed to the world’s first randomized field trial of procedural justice...

The present study examines whether procedural justice policing can promote Muslims’ willingness to cooperate with police in terrorism prevention. Using survey data from 800 Australian Muslims, we show that Muslims value procedural justice when it comes to working with police to prevent terrorism. We also examine whether social identification proces...

Victims of crime often feel re-victimised when they come into contact with criminal justice professionals. Police, as first responders to many victimisation experiences, therefore need to be particularly sensitive to the way in which they treat victims if they wish to reduce the occurrence of such secondary victimisation. The present study seeks to...

The rhetorical use of labels in the war on terror has become an important tactic post 9/11. One such example is the deployment of the categories of “moderate” and “extremist” within counterterrorism discourse, with Muslims distinguished as either friend or foe based on this dichotomy. The moderate Muslim label is a relational term, only making sens...

It is often assumed that immigrants in countries such as the United Kingdom will report lower levels of trust in the police. Immigrant communities are thought ‘difficult to police’, and minority groups frequently experience problematic relationships with police. Yet, there has been little empirical investigation of this issue in the United Kingdom....

Despite the prominent role that procedural justice has taken in policing research, we know surprisingly little about police perceptions of procedural justice as an effective tool in their encounters with members of the public. In this study, we start with a focus on the perceptions of police recruits in a major police service, exploring their perce...

Graduated driver licensing (GDL) is designed to reduce young driver injuries and fatalities on the road. While GDL systems impose additional restrictions on new drivers to reduce this crash risk, compliance with these restrictions and other licensing requirements can be low for young drivers. This research examines the influence of informal and for...

Research shows that procedural justice can motivate compliance behavior through the mediating influence of either legitimacy or social identity. Yet few studies examine the relative importance of these two mediators in the same analysis. Using three waves of longitudinal survey data collected from 359 tax offenders we examine: (a) whether procedura...

Research consistently reveals that public perceptions of procedural justice and police performance are important for fostering citizens’ willingness to cooperate with police, with procedural justice being more important than police performance. Identifying factors that motivate people’s intentions to cooperate with police is the focus of the presen...

The suspect community thesis has been used to explain how and why Muslims have become a stigmatised minority, subject to increased state surveillance and public discourse that constructs Muslims as a potential terrorist threat. Breen-Smyth (2014) argues that a suspect community is generated through national or state security policies and reproduced...

A significant body of research has demonstrated the importance of procedurally fair policing in fostering citizens’ feelings of obligation to obey the police. A handful of recent studies have begun to explore the role of community processes within this relationship. They show perceptions of police use of procedural justice, and their consequences c...

Cite as: Murphy, K. Cherney, A. and Barkworth, J. (2015) Avoiding community backlash in the fight against terrorism: Research report. Australian Research Council (Grant No. DP130100392) March 2015. University of Queensland, Griffith University. Acknowledgements: this research would have not been possible without the assistance provided by a numbe...

This paper uses Braithwaite's motivational posturing framework to explain how individuals react to encounters with regulatory authorities. Of interest is whether procedural justice can reduce defiance and improve self-reported compliance among individuals who are either resistant or dismissive of regulatory authority. Using longitudinal survey data...

Research consistently finds that if authorities use procedural justice in encounters with the public then this will promote citizen cooperation and compliance with the law. Recently, the importance of people's emotional reactions in response to procedural justice and injustice, and the subsequent effect this has on behaviour have been examined. Thi...

Working paper 1: Nov 2014 Avoiding community backlash in the fight against terrorism ARC Discovery Project 130100392 The impact of the war on terror on Muslim communities in Australia. Please do not cite without permission.

This paper reports findings from the world's first randomised experimental field trial of procedural justice policing. We tested whether or not procedural justice could be used by police agencies during short, routine traffic stops to increase public trust and confidence in police. Using survey data from 2762 Australian drivers who had been exposed...

Encounters with the criminal justice system shape people's perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities, and the dominant explanatory framework for this relationship revolves around the idea that procedurally just practice increases people's positive connections to justice institutions. But there have been few assessments of the idea-central...

Research consistently finds that people from ethnic or racial minority backgrounds tend to view police more negatively than those from nonminority backgrounds. Some studies, however, have questioned such findings by showing that race-based effects disappear once other factors are considered. For example, Weitzer showed that racial minorities from m...

The role of social identity in shaping citizen views of police is central to the group-value model (GVM). The GVM suggests that the relationship between public perceptions of fair treatment and views of police legitimacy will be tempered by social identity. Our paper employs a randomised field trial of procedural justice dialogue - the Queensland C...

Research has shown that procedural justice is an important predictor of victims' satisfaction with the criminal justice system. What remains relatively unclear, however, is whether procedural justice is more important to victims than other instrumental factors, such as the outcome favorability of their encounters with police. Some studies find that...

Encounters with the criminal justice system shape people's perceptions of the legitimacy of legal authorities, and the dominant explanatory framework for this relationship revolves around the idea that procedurally just practice increases people's positive connections to justice institutions. But there have been few assessments of the idea – centra...

In previous chapters we have shown how procedural justice (PJ) is a key antecedent of legitimacy. In this chapter, we examine the difficulties that can arise when integrating PJ into police policy and practice. Drawing on survey data of all police who participated in the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET), as well as in-depth interviews w...

Police across the world are generally familiar with the concepts of procedural justice (PJ) and police legitimacy. Academy training, promotion courses, in-service training, and university or college education of police contain modules and classes that explicate the principles of PJ and describe the importance of legitimate authority. However, we su...

In the previous chapter, we demonstrated how important it is that the public believe the police are legitimate, and we identified procedural justice (PJ) as the key antecedent of legitimacy. Many different types of police tactics, interventions, and approaches could incorporate elements of PJ and improve public perceptions of legitimacy, but what e...

In this monograph, we have outlined the merits of police legitimacy and its key antecedent: procedural justice (PJ). It is clear that there are aspects of police policy and practice where this approach can be integrated, such as community policing and problem-oriented policing. The experience of the Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET) show...

In the previous chapter, we examined the challenges of encouraging the police to innovate and adopt practices based on the principles of procedural justice (PJ) and brought to light various contingencies that make the integration of PJ dialogue into police practice less than straightforward. Future efforts to transform police policy and practice in...

In the previous chapter we explored the range of different ways police can get a little more procedural justice (PJ) into their various modes of service delivery. The studies presented provide many ideas for policing with more PJ across a wide range of interventions. Yet the body of literature is limited in two significant ways: First, we do not kn...

Doing procedural justice (PJ) is largely about dialogue: The spoken word during police encounters with citizens is what doing PJ is all about. What police say, how they say it, and the manner in which people interpret the language of the encounter lie at the heart of the PJ dialogue. Regardless of the vehicle in which PJ policing is delivered, the...