Objectives

The invariance thesis suggests the effectiveness of procedural fairness in enhancing citizens’ views of police is not conditioned by individual differences. In this study, we used data collected from a randomized controlled trial testing the effects of procedural justice on driver perceptions of the police during traffic stops to explore whether perceptions of procedural fairness varied across subjects of differing socioeconomic backgrounds.

Methods

Confirmatory principal components analysis was used to generate a latent variable measuring driver socioeconomic status by income, education, and occupation variables for procedural justice treatment group drivers and ‘routine policing’ control group drivers. OLS regressions tested whether socioeconomic status moderated the relationship between procedural justice and trust, as well as between procedural justice and perceptions of police.

Results

The analyses found that procedural justice intervention improved citizen perceptions of trust and procedural fairness in the police during traffic stop encounters, and these positive impacts did not vary across drivers from differing socioeconomic backgrounds.

Conclusions

These findings support the invariance thesis and suggest that the police can expect universal benefits to their legitimacy during traffic stops of drivers of varying backgrounds by ensuring procedurally just encounters.

中文翻译：

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程序公平、社会经济地位和司机在交通停车期间对警察的看法：对不变性论点的检验

目标

不变性理论表明，程序公平在提高公民对警察的看法方面的有效性不受个体差异的制约。在这项研究中，我们使用从一项随机对照试验中收集的数据来测试程序正义对司机在交通停车期间对警察的看法的影响，以探讨程序公平的看法是否因不同社会经济背景的受试者而异。

方法

验证性主成分分析用于通过收入、教育和职业变量为程序正义治疗组驱动程序和“常规警务”控制组驱动程序生成一个潜在变量来衡量驱动程序的社会经济地位。OLS 回归测试了社会经济地位是否调节了程序正义与信任之间的关系，以及程序正义与警察的看法之间的关系。

结果

分析发现，程序正义干预改善了公民在遇到交通拦截时对警察的信任和程序公平的看法，并且这些积极影响在不同社会经济背景的司机之间没有差异。

结论

这些发现支持不变性论点，并表明警察可以通过确保程序公正的遭遇，在不同背景的司机的交通停车期间期望他们的合法性普遍受益。