1. Consent in context:
Legitimacy as a neighbourhood-level predictor of crime
Final conference of MARGIN, Budapest April 2017
Jonathan Jackson (LSE), Ben Bradford (Oxford) and Jouni Kuha (LSE)

2. Outline
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1.Area-level predictors of crime
a) Four classes of neighbourhood mechanisms
b) Collective efficacy and legal cynicism (in the US)
2. Legitimacy
a) Individual-level predictor of crime (in the US, UK and elsewhere)
b) Area-level predictor of crime (in the UK)?
3.Two London-based studies
a) Method
b) Findings

3. Four classes of ‘neighbourhood mechanisms’
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1. Densities of social networks/interaction,the level and density of social
interaction between neighbours, which, as a form of social capital, is
thought to inhibit crime through mechanisms of information exchange
and interlocking ties;
2. Norms and collective efficacy, which might be seen as the basis for the
level of informal social control and social cohesion in the area – that is, if
people in an area share a common understanding of what is right and
wrong, and are willing and able to act collectively on this basis, they are
more likely to be able to exert informal social control;

4. Four classes of ‘neighbourhood mechanisms’
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3. Organisational infrastructure, the density of civil and state institutions,
from churches to youth groups to neighbourhood policing, and crucially
participation in/use of these, which may be key influences in any
collective anti-crime measures in local areas; and,
4. Routine activities, the ecologically structured routines of everyday life,
influenced for example by the density and type of land-use in the area
and the nature of the local economy (in particular,perhaps, of the night-
time economy).

5. 2. Norms and collective efficacy in Chicago
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 Sampson et al. (1997): associations of residential stability and
concentrated disadvantage with violence were largely mediated by levels of
collective efficacy in Chicago
 Collective efficacy: spatially specific social ties to achieve shared expectations
for action
 Kirk & Papachristos (2011): neighbourhood levels of legal cynicism also
predicted homicide rates (alongside collective efficacy) in Chicago
 Legal cynicism: shared cultural frame in which people perceive the law as
illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill-equipped to ensure public safety

6. Portability and putative effect in London?
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 Sutherland et al. (2013): associations of structural neighbourhood
characteristics with violence (police recorded crime statistics and
ambulance call-outs for knife-related injuries) were not mediated by levels
of collective efficacy in London
 Brunton-Smith et al. (2014): associations of structural neighbourhood
characteristics with beliefs and worries about violent crime were mediated
by levels of collective efficacy and disorder in London

7. Brunton-Smith et al. (2014)
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8. Legitimacy
‘Legitimacy is a psychological property of an authority, institution, or social
arrangement that leads those connected to it to believe that it is appropriate,
proper, and just. Because of legitimacy, people feel that they ought to defer to
decisions and rules, following them voluntarily out of obligation rather than out
of fear of punishment or anticipation of reward.’ (Tyler, 2006: 375)
Connects judgement (belief that a legal authority has the right to
power) and motivation (internalised moral obligation to obey)
Judgment of the right to power
 the belief that an institution is appropriate, moral and just (and therefore
deserves the power it possesses)
Internalized moral obligation to obey
 the source of a rule or order is more important than its content;
 the source is imbued rightful authority when the institution is seen to be
appropriate, moral and just

9. 9
Legitimacy as an individual-level predictor of crime
 Papachristos et al. (2012): legitimacy was a significant predictor of
carrying a gun among gang members in Chicago
 Similar measures to those used in work on legal cynicism … presented as ‘the
extent to which an individual states that he or she believes that the law (or legal
agents) represents a just, fair, and valid basis of legal authority’ (p. 417)
 Jackson et al. (2012): normative alignment with the police and duty to
obey the law were significant predictors of self-reported offending
behaviour in England andWales
 Adjusting for personal morality and perceived risk of sanction

10. Legitimacy as a neighbourhood-level predictor of crime?
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 Neighbourhood-level legitimacy: shared cultural frame in which people
perceive the police as a normatively appropriate institution that has the
right to dictate appropriate behaviour
 London Metropolitan Police Service Public Attitudes Survey:
representative sample data from 1st quarter 2009/10 survey (n=5,120):
Normative alignment (belief that officers act in normatively appropriate ways)
• The police usually act in ways that are consistent with my own ideas about what is right
and wrong
• The police can be trusted to make decisions that are right for people in my
neighbourhood
• My own feelings about what is right and wrong usually agree with the law
Duty to obey (belief that officers are entitled to dictate appropriate behaviour)
• You should do what the police tell you even if you disagree
• You should accept the decisions made by police, even if you think they are wrong
• You should do what the police tell you to even when you don’t like the way they treat you

11. Legitimacy as a neighbourhood-level characteristic?
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 Multi-level structure: 4,299 individuals clustered within 878 neighbourhoods
 ICC=32%:32% of the variation in police legitimacy occurs between
neighbourhoods (Middle Super Output Areas)
 Take the mean for each neighbourhood? Small-area estimation problem!
 Empirical Bayes prediction of the mean, derived from a multivariate
multilevel model for the individual-level explanatory variables within MSOAs,
conditional on area-level variables
 A weighted average of (a) the simple sample mean within an area and (b) a
predicted value of the area mean based on other known characteristics of it
(partial pooling, shrinking within-area averages toward a common estimated
average across all the areas, see Kuha et al. 2011).

12. Predicting neighbourhood-level crime
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 Police legitimacy measured in 2009/10
 Recorded crime measured in 2010/11 (natural log)
 Previous crime rates for 2008/09 (natural log) – might crime and police legitimacy both be
shaped by earlier levels of crime?

13. Predicting individual-level crime
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 Crime: whether respondents had committed fly-tipping (illegally disposing of household rubbish)
and buying goods they knew to be stolen. Binary outcome (Y=1 for 18%)
 Random effects logit model: 4,299 individuals nested in 878 neighbourhoods
 Controls: gender, age ethnicity, housing tenure, economic activity, and perceived risk of sanction

14. Concluding remarks
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 Police legitimacy may be an individual- and
neighbourhood-level predictor of crime in London
 Legitimacy more important than collective efficacy?
 Collective efficacy does predict public beliefs and worries about
violent crime (Brunton-Smith et al. 2014)
 The first study did not rely on self-reported criminal
behaviour