![handle is hein.journals/lwhmbv46 and id is 1 raw text is: AMERICAN American
S PSYCHOLOGICAL Psychology-Law
SOCIATION -s~ciety Law and Human Behavior
© 2021 American Psychological Association 2022, Vol. 46, No. 1, 1-14
ISSN: 0147-7307 https://doi.arg/10.1037/hb0000465
Relational and Instrumental Perspectives on Compliance
With the Law Among People Experiencing Homelessness
Arabella Kyprianides', Ben Bradford', Jonathan Jackson2' 3, Clifford Stott4, and Krisztiin Pdschl
1 Department of Security and Crime Science, University College London
2 Department of Methodology, LSE
3 Law School, University of Sydney
4 School of Psychology, Keele University
Objective: We conducted an exploratory study testing procedural justice theory with a novel population. We
assessed the extent to which police procedural justice, effectiveness, legitimacy, and perceived risk of
sanction predict compliance with the law among people experiencing homelessness. Hypotheses: We did
not develop formal a priori hypotheses but examined five general research questions. First, are there positive
associations between police procedural justice, police legitimacy, and compliance? Second, do procedural
justice and legitimacy differentially predict compliance, depending on the particular type of offending?
Third, are there positive associations between police effectiveness, perceived risk of sanction, and
compliance? Fourth, does the perceived risk of sanction differentially predict compliance, depending
on the particular type of offending? And fifth, are there positive associations between moral judgments
about different offending behaviors and compliance? Method: Two hundred people (87% male, 49% aged
45-64, 37% White British) experiencing homelessness on the streets of an inner London borough completed
a survey that included measures of procedural justice, police legitimacy, perceived risk of sanction,
morality, and compliance with the law. Results: Procedural justice and police legitimacy were only weakly
(and not significantly) associated with any of the three types of compliance (compliance with laws
prohibiting low-level crimes, behaviors specific to the street population, and high-level crimes). Police
effectiveness positively predicted compliance via perceived risk of sanction, but only for street-population-
specific offenses that can be important for survival on the streets, such as begging and sleeping in certain
localities. Morality was positively associated with all three types of compliance behaviors. Supplementary
analyses suggested a small amount of instability in the results, however, possibly because of the relatively
small sample size. Conclusions: The lack of relevant relational connections to legal authority may explain
why procedural fairness and perceptions of police legitimacy were not particularly important predictors of
compliance in this context. More research is needed into the types of marginalized communities for whom
structural factors of alienation and lack of access to resources may serve to reduce normative group
connections. Future work should test whether the need to survive on the streets leads people to discount
some social and relational constraints to behavior, making people (almost by definition) more instrumental
in relation to law and law enforcement.
Public Significance Statement
Relational concerns might not be related to compliance in the homeless street-population context as
breaking the law is critical to survival on the street, and this may weaken identification with the group
that the police represents. Deterrence-based policing strategies may discourage behaviors specific to the
street population (e.g., begging on the streets and sleeping in restricted areas). However, deterrence-
based policing strategies might not be associated with the wider criminal activity of this same group
activity in which some of the group's members were engaged.
Bradley D. McAuliff served as Action Editor. dObb5b40dlaf81952d803939ba
This article was published Online First December 23, 2021. >, The experiment materials are available at https://osfio/vbnhg/?view_
Arabella Kyprianides https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7168-089X only=95509ad0bb5b40d af81952d803939ba
Ben Bradford https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5480-5638 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Clifford Stott https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5399-3294 Arabella Kyprianides, Department of Security and Crime Science,
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [Grant University College London, Shropshire House, 11-20 Capper Street,
# E5/R011397/1]. The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest. London WC1E 6JA, United Kingdom. Email: a.kyprianides @ucl
The data are available at https://osf.io/vbnhg/?view_only=95509a ac.uk](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/lwhmbv46&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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