Improving Police-Citizen Interactions: Novel Approaches to the Intersection of Procedural Justice and Language

Research in procedural justice has found that citizens report increased trust, willingness to cooperate, and obligation to obey law enforcement when they consider themselves to have been treated fairly and respectfully by police (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003; Tyler & Huo, 2002). Although procedurally fair policing is often cited as a way to improve police-citizen relationships, its linguistic mechanics have rarely been investigated. In order to address this gap, this dissertation consists of three papers synthesizing procedural justice and communication accommodation theory (CAT). CAT, a theory from the field of communications, is based on the premise that speakers unconsciously shift their language in accordance with their social group (Giles, 2016). The first paper examines linguistic strategies that Spokane, Washington police officers use in traffic stops. This analysis found that officers use both deferential linguistic strategies as well as rapport-building strategies in delivering the resolution to a traffic violation. Building off this descriptive study, the second paper uses a laboratory-style experiment to compare the effects of deferential and rapport-building communication styles on attitudes toward the police, finding that rapport-building communication leads to more positive perceptions of an officer than a deferential or neutral communication style. The third paper experimentally tests the effects of procedural justice and overaccommodation, an excessively accommodative communication style, on perceptions of officers’ authority and professionalism. Participants reported greater perceived authority and professionalism of the officer in the procedural justice condition than the officer in the control condition or the overaccommodation condition. On the other hand, overaccommodation caused the officer to be perceived as having less authority and professionalism than the officer in the control condition. Together, these three studies integrate procedural justice theory and CAT in order to better understand the communicative dynamics underlying procedurally just policing. On a theoretical level, the findings suggest that theories from communications and linguistics can help construct a valid operationalization of the concept of respect in procedural justice theory. Moreover, the results presented here are consistent with the idea that when law enforcement officers communicate with citizens in a way that reflects social solidarity they can improve their relationship with the community.