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

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

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

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  1. Professor Mike Hough President BSCPolice Legitimacy and Trust in Justice:the EU JUSTIS Project

  2. Police legitimacy and trust in justice:The EU JUSTIS projectProfessor Mike HoughSIPR/BSC/Strathclyde Police Conference28 November 2008

  3. 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

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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?

  9. 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

  10. 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”

  11. 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?

  12. 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?

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

  14. 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”

  15. 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

  16. 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

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