Immigrant status and neighborhood context on perceptions of police procedural justice

• NCJ Number: 306233
• Journal: Social Science Quarterly Volume: 103 Issue: 7 Dated: 2022 Pages: 1659-1672
• Date Published: December 2022
• Author(s): Yue Yuan; Yuning Wu; Claudio Vera Sanchez
• Length: 14 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2019-R2-CX-0055
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This study examined the relationship between immigration generational status and people's perception of police procedural justice and explored the importance of contextual variables on residents’ perceptions of police procedural justice.

Abstract

The authors examined the relationship between immigration generational status and people's perception of police procedural justice, net of individual-level and neighborhood-level control variables. It also explored the importance of contextual variables, particularly neighborhood foreign-born concentration and collective efficacy, on residents’ perceptions of police procedural justice. With a multi-stage, clustered sample approach, the authors randomly selected census tracts in San José, California, and then households inside each tract were chosen to participate in a survey. They used multi-level modeling to explore factors that were associated with procedural justice. Results show first-generation immigrants, compared to second or third-and-plus-generation immigrants, are more positive in their evaluations of police procedural justice. Results also show that neighborhood collective efficacy can significantly affect people's perceptions of procedural justice, even after controlling for individual-level predictors and neighborhood characteristics. Both individual-level immigration measures and neighborhood factors should be included in future research. (Published abstract provided)