The Effect of Procedural Justice on General Satisfaction with Police: A Study from Saudi Arabia

Abstract This study contributes to the extant literature by assessing the effects of two normative (procedural justice and obligation to obey) and two instrumental (police effectiveness and risk) factors of policing on satisfaction with the police in Saudi Arabia. This study is important because it allows researchers to understand the role that procedural justice, a concept that appears to have a universal connection to improved policing, plays in attitudes toward the police in an understudied part of the world: the Middle East. Employing both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in analyzing data from 235 Saudi citizens, procedural justice had the strongest predictive effect on Saudi citizens’ satisfaction with their country’s police. Also, age and gender predicted Saudi citizens’ satisfaction with the Saudi police. Not surprisingly, and in line with prior research, obligation to obey did not predict satisfaction. We address the implications of our findings for policing, public policy, and future research in the Middle East.