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PUBLIC COOPERATION WITH THE POLICE IN GHANA: DOES PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS MATTER? *
Author(s) -
TANKEBE JUSTICE
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2009.00175.x
Subject(s) - salience (neuroscience) , legitimacy , legitimation , procedural justice , alienation , context (archaeology) , criminology , normative , political science , perception , sociology , social psychology , psychology , politics , law , geography , archaeology , neuroscience , cognitive psychology
Recent criminological emphasis on the salience of normative concerns, such as procedural fairness and legitimacy, in understanding public law‐abiding behavior has been based on evidence from Anglo‐American studies. This article examines these issues in the African context based on general survey data from Accra, Ghana. The results show a lack of empirical validity, in the Ghanaian context, of the Sunshine–Tyler legitimacy scale. The results also show that public cooperation with the police in Ghana is shaped by utilitarian factors such as perceptions of current police effectiveness infighting crime. It is argued that the importance of perceived police effectiveness to public cooperation is a result of police legitimation deficits and the public's alienation from the Ghana police, which in turn are traced to the colonial history of the police and current poor police performance.