Public trust and confidence in legal authorities: What do majority and minority group members want from the law and legal institutions?

Discussions of public trust and confidence in the police and the courts oft en assume that the key to public feelings is the public's evaluation of the outcomes that the public receives fi om these legal authorities. In the ca se of the courts, discontent is often assumed to be linked to issues of cos t and delay-instrumental concerns about the outcomes delivered to the publi c by the courts. In the case of the police, the inability to effectively co ntrol crime is frequently seen as driving public evaluations. This article presents an alternative procedural justice based model that links public tr ust and confidence to views about the manner in which legal authorities tre at the public. Drawing upon psychological research about public evaluations of institutions and authorities it is argued that the key issue that shape s public views is a process based evaluation of the fairness of the procedu res that the police and courts use to exercise their authority. Analyses fr om several studies exploring the basis of public views support this procedu ral justice based model of public evaluation. In addition, the results prov ide suggestions about the elements of procedures that are central to public judgments about their fairness. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.