Sources of Police Legitimacy in Europe: the Role of Immigrant Status and Ethnic Discrimination

Police legitimacy is crucial in democratic societies because it promotes citizen's cooperation with the police and compliance with the law. Scholarship identified police procedural justice and police effectiveness as potential predictors of police legitimacy. In Europe, the police are serving an increasingly diverse group of citizens as the number of immigrants in European countries has been growing steadily. Research on predictors of police legitimacy for distinct groups in society-like immigrants versus non-immigrants-is scarce, however. Using data from the European Social Survey, this study has two aims. First, to examine whether immigration status moderates the relationships between perceived police procedural justice and police legitimacy, and between perceived police effectiveness and police legitimacy. Second, to compare the relationship between police procedural justice and police legitimacy for immigrants who belong to an ethnic group that is discriminated against in society and for immigrants who do not. Police procedural justice was the strongest predictor of police legitimacy in both immigrant and non-immigrant groups. Immigration status did not strongly influence the relationship between police procedural justice and police effectiveness on the one hand and police legitimacy on the other hand. Furthermore, discrimination did not impact the relationship between police procedural justice and police legitimacy among immigrants. Therefore, our findings suggest that the police can rely on the same principles of policing for immigrants and non-immigrants to uphold police legitimacy in Europe.