Assessing the relationship between police legitimacy beliefs and criminal behaviour over time: A test of causal direction

This study investigates the direction of the relationship between police legitimacy beliefs and delinquent behaviour using longitudinal data from Swiss adolescents (z-proso study). Employing a random intercepts cross-lagged panel model, we assess whether police legitimacy influences delinquent behaviour or vice versa. Results show stable within-person effects for police legitimacy beliefs and delinquent behaviour, with varying strength over time. Delinquent behaviour significantly predicts police legitimacy beliefs, but the reverse effect is limited and inconsistent. A highly significant negative association was found at the between-person level, with weak to medium effect sizes overall. This research challenges the idea that police legitimacy beliefs directly reduce delinquent behaviour, suggesting the need for further research on the direction of this relationship. It emphasises the limitations of cross-sectional designs, calling for longitudinal methods and standardised measures for better comparisons. Police legitimacy only weakly and inconsistently predicts delinquent behaviour, highlighting the need to test procedural justice theory against other criminological theories and take the evidence for reverse causality seriously. Practically, strategies focused solely on increasing police legitimacy may not effectively reduce delinquency.