INTRODUCTION
New data indicate that the public security situation in Brazil is devastating (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública [Brazilian Forum on Public Safety] (FBSP) Reference Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança2019). Although official homicide rates have registered a decline in the last year, Brazil achieved nearly 60,000 violent deaths, averaging 27.5 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Moreover, police have played a key role in increasing people’s disbelief in public safety. Out of every 100 violent deaths in the country, 11 happen due to police intervention. In total, Brazilian police killed 6,220 people in 2018, which gives an average of 17 people each day. These people, moreover, have a particular profile: 99.3% are male, 77.9% are between 15 and 29 years old, and 75.4% are black.
Brazil is a country of continental dimensions, with striking cultural, economic, and regional differences. Regardless of its internal diversity, throughout the territory, public security policies are heavily based on unqualified repression. Such “deterrence” rationalities (Garland Reference Garland2008; Zanetic et al. Reference Zanetic, Manso, Natal and Oliveira2016), which means nothing but constant vigilance and intensive population control, are translated into police officers patrolling streets after “criminals in potential” and “risk situations”. In this context, likewise other Western democracies, Brazilian police enforcement relies on widespread usage of “stop and frisk” of its population in urban areas.
There is a lack of official and qualified data on police enforcement in Brazil. Data on police lethality and incarcerations rates may function as proxies of police activity. On the one hand, the data allow us to glimpse how police enforcement effectively reinforces social inequalities based on race (Sinhoretto, Silvestre, and Schlittler Reference Sinhoretto, Silvestre and Schlittler2014). On the other hand, the data tell us nothing about the actual impact of such police operations to produce public safety. Moreover, Brazilian institutions seem unwilling to consider the backlash of deterrence rationality. This is because, first, such an approach to public safety expects to generate “law-abiding” citizens based on their fear of being punished. In that sense, people obey the rule for instrumental reasons, because they fear the law, not because they recognize it. However, once such constraints are absent, nothing ensures that people will voluntarily embrace the law (Trinkner and Tyler Reference Trinkner and Tyler2016). Second, and more importantly, the coercive approach may undermine public confidence and the legitimacy of the laws and of the authorities responsible for enforcing the law.
Legitimacy is a key factor in understanding citizens’ behaviors toward social rules and the law in modern societies. As early thought by Max Weber, an authority (including the authority of the law) is legitimate when those under its rules “act as if they had made the content of the command the maxim of their conduct for its very own sake” (Weber Reference Weber1922:191). In that sense, people follow the rules voluntarily because they believe it is the right and proper thing to do due to the recognition of the law as legitimate. This conception is put forward by researchers such as Tom Tyler, who have been demonstrating with several empirical studies that the lack of legitimacy is one of the main predictors of rule-violating behavior. In essence, the more people believe the police authority is legitimate, the more they believe they must obey them and, consequently, the more they will be willing to respect those authorities, and even to cooperate with daily police work (Fagan and Tyler Reference Fagan and Tom2005; Trinkner et al. Reference Trinkner, Rodrigues, Piccirillo, Gifford and Gomes2019).
Researchers have also been highlighting how police legitimacy is strengthened or jeopardized. As an expression of individuals’ values and beliefs, legitimacy is a product of multiple socializing processes. Legal socialization demonstrates how individuals develop their expectations about police in formal and informal settings, within family relations, in conversations with peers, and at school (Cohn and White Reference Cohn and White1990; Trinkner and Cohn Reference Trinkner and Cohn2014; Tyler and Trinkner Reference Tyler and Rick2017). Researchers have found that one of the most important predictors of legitimacy is the experiences that people have when in contact with law enforcement agents. Police–citizen contacts work as teachable moments, which means opportunities that people have to develop or update their attitudes toward police by comparing if officers behave according to what individuals expect or not (Tyler, Fagan, and Geller Reference Tyler, Jeffrey and Amanda2014). In general, every experience with institutions of the criminal justice system potentially educates citizens – for the good or bad (Justice and Meares Reference Justice and Meares2014).
That is how more proactive policing based on recurrent contacts among police citizens may be counterproductive to public safety and crime control, as it potentially diminishes the legitimacy of authorities. Several studies demonstrate how damaging frequent or negative experiences are to police legitimacy. Tyler et al. (Reference Tyler, Jeffrey and Amanda2014) draw similar conclusions from an empirical study with young males in New York City. They have found evidence that more intrusive police stops erode public acceptance of police authority. Likewise, the study indicates that the number of street stops matters, and repeated experiences with police stops influence individuals to negatively evaluate their encounters, as citizens question the reasonableness of police actions, which in turn implicates legitimacy decline. Skogan (Reference Skogan2006) has demonstrated something similar using cross-sectional data from US and Russian Federation cities. He postulated the asymmetric impact of police encounters: the negative effect of having a bad experience with police is considerably greater than the positive effect of a good experience may have on appraisals of police activity. Recently, Oliveira et al. (Reference Oliveira, Jonathan, Ben and Kristina2019) tested the limits of Skogan’s “asymmetry thesis” with longitudinal data from Australia. Among other tests, they compared individuals with some history of police contact with others with no contact, in order to identify if people change attitudes toward police after their encounters. They indicate that researchers should consider how the asymmetric effects of police contact affect different attitudes and opinions about the police, differentiating, for example, evaluations about police effectiveness and police fairness, both predictors of police legitimacy.
In sum, the international literature on policing is gathering evidence on how police behavior damages its own image and trust. However, there are few studies considering the impact of recurrent and negative police–citizen contact to police legitimacy altogether. Also, the majority of studies were conducted in northern countries, and little is known about such associations in highly unequal settings, marked by high rates of criminal violence, including police lethality, as is the Brazilian case. Moreover, as far as we know, there is no research on that issue among early adolescent populations. The investigations should especially consider this period because that is when socialization processes outside the family begin to intensify. Adolescence is a relevant period of life for the development of norms, values, beliefs, and expectations related to the legal world due to a set of reasons, including maturation of legal reasoning abilities (Tapp and Levine Reference Tapp and Levine1974) and the fact that young people are more likely to be exposed to police contact (Tyler et al. Reference Tyler, Jeffrey and Amanda2014).
The current study seeks to fill some of those gaps in the literature. The present study aims to estimate the effect of negative contact with police officers on adolescents’ perceptions about the legitimacy of police authority over time. The hypotheses are:
Hypothesis 1 (H1): the group of adolescents who have never had negative contact with the police will agree with the legitimacy of the police authority in greater proportions than the group that had negative contact in the three waves.
Hypothesis 2 (H2): the proportion of adolescents who agree with the legitimacy of the police authority will decrease among groups of adolescents who, in a previous period, had no adverse/negative contact and later did.
Hypothesis 3 (H3): the proportion of adolescents who agree with the legitimacy of the police authority will increase among groups of adolescents who, in a previous period, had adverse/negative contact but who subsequently ceased to have it.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): the proportion of adolescents who agree with the legitimacy of the police authority will be in decreasing order according to the number of periods in which some adverse/negative contact occurred: (1) no negative contact; (2) negative contact in only one wave: (3) negative contact in two waves; and (4) negative contact in three waves.
METHOD
Data came from the São Paulo Legal Socialization Study (SPLSS), a longitudinal study which interviewed participants once a year from 2016 to 2019. SPLSS focuses on early adolescents, investigating how young people develop expectations, attitudes, and behaviors towards the law in Brazilian society. SPLSS is a cohort study with all participants born in 2005, with ages ranging from 11 years (2016) to 13 years (2018). All participants are students enrolled in the sixth grade of elementary school at public or private schools in the city of São Paulo, the biggest, most productive, and one of the most unequal cities in Brazil (Oxfam Brasil 2017).
The data collection for the first wave (W1) took the following steps: we randomly selected a list of 112 public and private schools from the 2014 National School Census. Then we contacted schools’ principals about the research interests by telephone, and after their allowance, a research team visited schools to invite eligible participants and to distribute parent’s consent forms. Only students with consent forms regularly signed by their parents could participate in the study. For later waves, researchers conducted the interviews mainly at schools, with a minor proportion of interviews at students’ houses, with no significant differences registered. Participants received approximately US$12.00 as an incentive. The Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics (IBOPE) was responsible for the data collection. For further information on SPLSS design, sampling, and administration, see Trinkner et al. (Reference Trinkner, Rodrigues, Piccirillo, Gifford and Gomes2019).
Considering the purposes of the present study, we excluded adolescents who were not present in one or more waves from the analysis. The final sample consisted of 684 adolescents who participated in the three completed waves so far. The proportion of participants by sex (49% female), race (48% white, 35% brown, 11% black, 3% yellow, 3% indigenous), and public (61%) and private (39%) schools remained virtually the same as in the original sample.
Measures
The measures used in this study consist of two sets of categorical variables related to negative contacts with the police (independent variables) and police legitimacy (dependent variable).
Negative Contact with the Police
The SPLSS survey asks participants about a set of direct and vicarious experiences with police officers. The situations measured by police contact variables were defined after pilot studies designed to identify the most frequent types of experiences among adolescents (see Trinkner et al. Reference Trinkner, Rodrigues, Piccirillo, Gifford and Gomes2019). For the present study, we considered only direct and vicarious negative contacts, which means intrusive or violent interactions. At W1, adolescents answered if they have had any of the following contacts: “Have you seen the police beating anyone up?”; “Have you been stopped by police?”; “Have you been frisked by police?”; “Have you been taken to a police station?”. To further measure experiences with police violence and intrusiveness, the W3 questionnaire added four new questions: “Have you seen the police humiliating someone (e.g., cursing, tearing documents)?”; “Have you been cursed by a police officer?”; “Have any police beaten you (e.g., slapped in the face)?”; “Have a police officer pointed a gun at you?”. At W1, participants answered if those situations happened at any point in their lifetime, and for W2 onwards, the questionnaire considered only experiences that happened in time-lapse between waves. Answers were captured in frequency scales ranging from 0 = never, 1 = once, 2 = few times and 3 = many times. Due to overall low frequencies of negative contacts with police, we recoded the answers into dichotomous scales (0 = never and 1 = at least one time). Table 1 summarizes negative police contact items.
Table 1. Negative Police Contact Items for Each Wave
Police Legitimacy
The measure captures the respondent’s personal beliefs that policies are normatively appropriate authorities that must be obeyed. The survey questions follow prior work on police legitimacy and legal socialization (Sunshine and Tyler Reference Sunshine and Tom2003; Trinkner and Cohn Reference Trinkner and Cohn2014; Trinkner et al. Reference Trinkner, Rodrigues, Piccirillo, Gifford and Gomes2019). The SPLSS initially measured essential police legitimacy dimensions: recognition of police “right to rule” and an individual’s feelings of a “duty to obey” (Fagan and Tyler Reference Fagan and Tom2005; Jeleniewski Reference Jeleniewski2014). At W2, the SPLSS survey included five questions covering other legitimacy dimensions, such as “normative alignment” with police (Fagan and Tyler Reference Fagan and Tom2005). Moreover, tracking theoretical discussions about the appropriateness of legitimacy measures to Brazilian context, considering the tradition of authoritarianism in this society (Pinheiro Reference Pinheiro1991), at W3, one question was included to explore if adolescents would justify obedience based on fear of punishment. Table 2 lists the eight statements of the police legitimacy measure. Adolescents’ answers were recorded at W1 on a dichotomous scale (0 = disagree, 1 = agree). Answers could vary on a four-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree; 2 = disagree; 3 = agree; 4 = completely agree). For the current study, given the overall distribution of the answers’ frequencies, we recoded all measures into a dichotomous scale (0 = disagree; 1 = agree).
Table 2. Police Legitimacy Items for Each Wave
Plan of Analysis
In each of the three waves, we classified the adolescents according to whether or not they had witnessed or experienced at least one negative contact with the police during the last year. Thus, regarding W1, adolescents were classified in the following trajectories (Traj.): non-contact (Traj. [0]) and contact (Traj. [1]). Next, at W2, the trajectory possibilities were: no contact in both periods (Traj. [0-0]), with contact only at W1 (Traj. [1-0]), with contact only at W2 (Traj. [0-1]), and with contact at W1 and W2 (Traj. [1-1]). Finally, at W3, it was possible to find eight trajectories regarding negative contact with the police, summarized in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Eight group trajectories of negative contact with police identified in the sample. Note: Numbers 0 inside brackets mean no negative contact in the period preceding the interview; numbers 1 inside brackets mean negative contact. For example, Traj. [0-0-1] = trajectory with no negative contact in 2016, no negative contact in 2017, and negative contact in 2018
Based on the trajectories identified, we performed the χ
2 test to assess the relationship between negative contact with the police and adolescents’ opinions regarding each of the eight items about the legitimacy of the police authority. Statistical significance was set at two-sided p < .05. We estimated the magnitude of the effect by the difference h between the observed proportion (op) and expected proportion (ep) formed as follows: h = φ1 – φ2, where φ1 = 2*arcsin(
$\sqrt {op} $
) and φ1 = 2*arcsin(
$\sqrt {ep} $
) as stated by Cohen (1998). To interpret the effect size, values near .2 were considered small, values near .5 as medium, and values near .8 as large (Cohen Reference Cohen1988).
RESULTS
Table 3 shows the percentage and 95% confidence interval of adolescents in each trajectory group who agreed with the sentences about police legitimacy at W1. Initially, 497 (73%) of adolescents had not had negative contact with police until 2016. Regarding the perception of police legitimacy, adolescents who reported some negative contact with police by 2016 did not differ from adolescents who did not witness or have had a negative experience with the police. The proportion of respondents who agreed to the duty to obey police officers and the right of police officers to stop and frisk people did not differ significantly between groups (χ 2 1(2) = .21; χ 2 2(2) = .43). It is important to remember that, at this point, the issue of contact with the police covered the entire lifespan up to W1, not taking into account the recency of the event, which may have mitigated the effect of negative contact.
Table 3. Proportion and 95% Confidence Interval of adolescents, from Each Trajectory (Traj.) Group, that Agrees with Each Statement About the Police (2016)
Note: Traj. [0] = no negative contacts until 2016; Traj. [1] = had negative contact until 2016.
In 2017, group Traj. [0] branched into Traj. [0-0] and Traj. [0-1], and group Traj. [1] branched into Traj. [1-0] and Traj. [1-1]. Table 4 shows the percentage of each trajectory group that agreed with each statement about the police, including the five new statements added from that wave. The perception of the legitimacy of adolescents who had not had negative contact with the police before (Traj. [0-1]) approached adolescents who had negative contact in both periods (Traj. [1-1]) mainly in issues of duty to obey, but not so much concerning normative alignment. Also, adolescents who reported negative experiences with police in W1 but not in W2 (Traj. [1-0]) agreed to a duty to obey the police in similar proportions to those who had no negative contact to date (Traj. [0-0]).
Table 4. Proportion and 95% Confidence Interval of Adolescents, from Each Trajectory Group, that Agrees with Each Statement About the Police (2017)
Note: Values above or below expectations, considering the average proportion identified in the data, were highlighted in bold. * Small effect size; ** medium effect size.
In 2018, each group identified in 2017 branched into two new groups. Table 5 shows the proportion of respondents in each trajectory group that agreed with the statements about the police. These results show how negative contacts with the police over time sharpen adolescents’ attitudes towards each statement about the police. Adolescents with trajectories that no longer have negative contact (Traj. [1-1-0]) began to legitimize the police authority in greater proportions than adolescents who never had contact (Traj. [0-0-0]). This is especially noticeable regarding the police officer’s right to stop and frisk people on the street, the police right to say what people should do, as well as in matters of regulatory alignment such as realizing that the police acts following what they believe to be right, that the city works better when people listen to the police, and disagree that sometimes it is good to ignore what the police say. The opposite also occurs, that is, adolescents who until W1 had no negative contact but now have this contact at W2 and W3 (Traj. [0-1-1]) agree to a lesser extent with the police authority than adolescents whose trajectory is marked by negative contact at all three waves.
Table 5. Proportion and 95% Confidence Interval of Adolescents, from Each Trajectory Group, that Agrees with Each Statement About the Police (2018)
Note: Values above or below expectations, considering the average proportion identified in the data, were highlighted in bold. * Small effect size; ** medium effect size; *** large effect size.
Finally, Figure 2 illustrates how trajectory groups change over time regarding the opinion of obeying the police. The magnitude of the difference h shows how much the proportions in each trajectory group were below (minus sign) or above expectations, concerning the previous period. From 2016 to 2017, Traj. [0-1] was the one that presented the largest downward variation (h = –.46). Also, from 2017 to 2018, one branch of that group, Traj. [0-1-1], was also the one with the largest downward variation (h = –.48). When observing the difference between the proportions of two branches that came from the same root, it is possible to note the effect of the negative contact with the police. In all cases, the branch trajectories in which adolescents had negative contact with the police showed lower percentages of agreement with the police authority, compared with their counterparts.
Figure 2. Developmental trajectories of adolescents who agree with the police authority, as a function of having had negative contact with the police in the period preceding the interview. For example, trajectories Traj. [0-1-1] and Traj. [0-1-0] are branches of trajectory [0-1], which, as well as Traj. [0-0], is a branch of Traj. [0]. Note 1: Gray cells indicate negative contact during the previous period. Note 2: The effect size h indicates how much the percentage of adolescents who agree with police authority has decreased compared with the previous period, in which values near |0.2| = small effect; |0.5| = medium effect; |0.8| = large effect
DISCUSSION
The present study identified eight possible trajectories of negative contact with the police marked by relevant differences regarding the perception of police legitimacy. Based on the differences across the groups, it was possible to measure the effect of negative contacts on the police legitimacy. The results support the hypothesis (H1) that adolescents who have never had negative contact with the police agree with the legitimacy of the police authority in greater proportions than the group that had negative contact in the three waves. This means that adolescents with consecutive negative experiences with the police legitimates that authority to a lesser degree than those who have never had a negative encounter. This finding corroborates what has been found by studies conducted in different populations (Fagan and Piquero Reference Fagan and Alex2007; Oliveira et al. Reference Oliveira, Jonathan, Ben and Kristina2019; Tyler and Fagan 2008). It seems clear that the interactions of police and youth on the streets can shape the perceptions of these youth about the legitimacy of the police and influence law-related behaviors, as stated by Tyler et al. (Reference Tyler, Jeffrey and Amanda2014). Then, given the potential negative impact of these interactions in people’s willingness to accept police decisions and cooperate with police, police must consider (or (re)think about) the effectiveness of street stops in shaping the rate of crime and violence in society.
Besides these differences between these two extreme groups, the results also corroborate the hypothesis (H2) that the proportion of adolescents who agree with the legitimacy of the police authority will decrease among groups of adolescents who, in a previous period, had no negative contact and later did, and, inversely, that (H2) the proportion of adolescents who agree with the legitimacy of the police authority will increase among groups of adolescents who in a previous period had negative contact but who subsequently ceased to have. As expected, results show that, in all trajectories, adolescents who have negative contact with the police tend to agree less with police legitimacy. In contrast, adolescents who no longer have negative contact tend to agree more. However, it is noteworthy that, for some legitimacy issues, adolescents who had negative contact and no longer have this contact agree with the legitimacy of the police authority in greater proportions than adolescents who never had. This finding suggests that negative contact with police until W1 moderates the “effect” of not having negative contact in the following periods. It is possible to assume that after a negative contact, adolescents start to pay more attention to the police and to think more about their actions, and this may be related to future change of opinion. It may also indicate that the effect of contact may not be so lasting among very young people, an issue that has not been tested by other studies.
In this way, we could only partially confirm the hypothesis (H4) that the proportion of adolescents who agree with the legitimacy of the police authority will be in decreasing order according to the number of periods in which some adverse/negative contact occurred: (1) no negative contact; (2) negative contact in only one wave; (3) negative contact in two waves; and (4) negative contact in three waves. There are cases where two negative contacts impact more than three negative contacts and cases where two negative contacts followed by a contactless period increase legitimacy more intensely than never having had negative contact. Thus, it is possible to speculate that the timing and order in which contacts with the police take place is a relevant factor for the subjective experience of adolescents. Thus, the findings suggest that trajectory shifting may be more impactful for some adolescents than the constancy or absence of negative contact at all three waves. Skogan (Reference Skogan2006) and Oliveira et al. (Reference Oliveira, Jonathan, Ben and Kristina2019) also bring evidence in this direction. Also, at this point, it is pertinent to note that groups whose trajectory was accompanied by changes in the increase or decrease in the acceptance of police legitimacy also presented higher proportions of affirmative response in which the duty to obey the police only occurs for fear of punishment. In this sense, perhaps such attitudinal change may be explained more by fear of punishment than by legitimate acceptance of police authority.
In sum, the present study examined how some of the main tests in the field of police legitimacy would apply to a sample of 11- to 13-year-old adolescents in São Paulo, Brazil. We confirmed some hypotheses, while other findings indicate an original contribution of this work. In the same sense of studies as that of Skogan (Reference Skogan2006), Tyler et al. (Reference Tyler, Jeffrey and Amanda2014), and Oliveira et al. (Reference Oliveira, Jonathan, Ben and Kristina2019), we identified that recent negative contacts with the police negatively affect their attitudes towards its authority, specifically regarding legitimacy. Similarly, more recent negative contacts yield lower levels of police legitimacy. Also, broadening the findings of Tyler et al. (Reference Tyler, Jeffrey and Amanda2014), we showed evidence, through a longitudinal analysis, that the accumulation of negative contacts is detrimental to the legitimacy of the police authority. Finally, this study brought innovative contributions to the literature. In addition to quality and frequency, the results gathered here indicate that, at least among adolescents, the temporality and order of these negative experiences over time also impact their legitimacy perceptions. On the one hand, this is worrisome because coexistence with violent and intrusive policing standards can normalize the acceptance of ineffective, untruthful, and undemocratic patterns of police action. On the other hand, changes in the way police act can help regain the legitimacy of this authority among adolescents.
Lastly, we need to consider some limitations of the present study. The first of these is the lack of control over the possible differences between indirect contact and direct contact. The present study merged these two types of contact due to the small number of participants who reported negative direct contact, especially concerning victimization. Likely these direct contacts increase with age and can be explored more robustly in the second half of adolescence. Another point not considered was the possibility of having more than one contact in the same period, which could sharpen the characterization of the adolescents in each trajectory. It is expected that even among adolescents who had negative contact, those who had more than one would disagree even more with the police authority. At last, we did not consider the subjective experience arising from each contact. In that sense, we could expect that similar events (e.g., being taken to a police station) may impact each adolescent differently, either by the way the policeman approaches each one or by individual differences in how each teenager interprets and deals with this experience.
Acknowledgements
The study is part of the Research Program “Building Democracy Daily: Human Rights, Violence and Institutional Trust” held by the Center for the Study of Violence from the University of São Paulo (NEV-USP), a Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Center (CEPID) funded by São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) (process number: 2013/07923-7). We would also like to thank Debora Piccirillo for her suggestions that contributed to the improvement of the manuscript.
André V. Komatsu is a professor and researcher at the Center for the Study of Violence (NEV-USP), Department of Sociology, University of São Paulo. He has a PhD in Psychology from the University of São Paulo, with a doctoral internship at the University of Barcelona (UB). He has an MA and BA in Psychology from the University of São Paulo.
Renan Theodoro is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Violence (NEV-USP), Department of Sociology, University of São Paulo (NEV-USP). He is a PhD researcher in Sociology at the University of São Paulo. He has an MA and BA in Sociology from the University of São Paulo.
Mariana Chies-Santos is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Violence (NEV-USP), Department of Sociology, University of São Paulo (NEV-USP). She has a PhD in Sociology at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, with doctoral internship at the Centre de Recherches Sociologiques sur le Droit et les Institutions Pénales. She has an MA in Criminal Sciences at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul.
Marcos C. Alvarez is a professor at the Department of Sociology, University of São Paulo. He is a director of the Center for the Study of Violence (NEV-USP). He is a post-doctorate at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He has a PhD and MA in Sociology from the University of São Paulo.
