Scrutiny, legal socialization, and defiance: Understanding how procedural justice and bounded-authority concerns shape Muslims’ defiance toward police

Abstract

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 and vicarious experiences these groups have with police play an important role in the legal socialization process, shaping how they perceive and behave toward police. As a religious minority group Muslims have experienced intense scrutiny from police. As such, the current study examines how and why Muslims defy police authority. Using survey data from 398 Australian Muslims, this study tests whether Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice and bounded-authority violations (i.e., the belief that police overstep the boundaries of acceptable authority) have differential effects on two types of defiance: resistance and disengagement. Findings show that Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice are most important for understanding resistance, while disengagement is dominated by concerns about perceived boundary violations. Further, procedural justice moderates the association between bounded-authority concerns and resistance, but not disengagement. The implications of these findings for the legal socialization process, theory, and police practice are discussed.