Abstract:
Recent scholarship examining public perceptions of procedural justice, police legitimacy, and public cooperation with the police in the United States has found that concerns about fairness (normative considerations) tend to be more powerful predictors of citizen satisfaction with the police than concerns about the police's capacity to reduce crime (instrumental considerations). Most of these studies have focused on differences in the views of Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics, while only a handful have examined the perspectives of different immigrant groups toward the police. To help fill this gap, especially at a time of significant growth in immigration, this dissertation investigates the relationship between procedural justice, police legitimacy, and willingness to cooperate with the police in a Ghanaian immigrant community in the United States.
