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<p>Debate is ongoing between scholars of group identity regarding why individuals support systems disadvantageous to their social ingroups. Both system justification theory and the social identity model of system attitudes have been offered as explanations for this conundrum. At present empirical investigations into either have been quantitative, using close-ended responses. In this study, I employ template analysis as a qualitative technique to explore rationalizations for obedience to police among "real world" interviewees speaking, in open-ended format, of their attitudes toward local authorities in Cleveland, Ohio, and Newark, New Jersey, United States. A sample of 92 interviewees had been arrested, prosecuted and/or incarcerated in the two years before interviewing. As criminalized, economically marginalized, and mostly racial minority individuals, they identified with groups disadvantaged by the criminal legal system represented by their&#xa0;local police. I find that interviewees mostly adhere to an obligation to obey police, regardless of group- versus individual-level conceptions of their police encounters, their positive or negative perceptions of police, or their identification or perceptions of their neighborhood and community ingroups. Those who more expressly identified with one or more of these disadvantaged social ingroups gave myriad reasons why they nonetheless obeyed the police, primarily based on either&#xa0;safety and preservation rationales or support of the law and policing as idealized in abstraction. These justifications often occurred alongside negative perceptions of current policing authorities. I conclude by discussing avenues for future research.</p>

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To Obey or Not Obey: Disadvantaged Social Group Identity and Criminal Legal-Involved Interviewees’ Multiple Rationalizations of an Obligation to Obey the Police

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2025年6月12日

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  • Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill

摘要

Debate is ongoing between scholars of group identity regarding why individuals support systems disadvantageous to their social ingroups. Both system justification theory and the social identity model of system attitudes have been offered as explanations for this conundrum. At present empirical investigations into either have been quantitative, using close-ended responses. In this study, I employ template analysis as a qualitative technique to explore rationalizations for obedience to police among "real world" interviewees speaking, in open-ended format, of their attitudes toward local authorities in Cleveland, Ohio, and Newark, New Jersey, United States. A sample of 92 interviewees had been arrested, prosecuted and/or incarcerated in the two years before interviewing. As criminalized, economically marginalized, and mostly racial minority individuals, they identified with groups disadvantaged by the criminal legal system represented by their local police. I find that interviewees mostly adhere to an obligation to obey police, regardless of group- versus individual-level conceptions of their police encounters, their positive or negative perceptions of police, or their identification or perceptions of their neighborhood and community ingroups. Those who more expressly identified with one or more of these disadvantaged social ingroups gave myriad reasons why they nonetheless obeyed the police, primarily based on either safety and preservation rationales or support of the law and policing as idealized in abstraction. These justifications often occurred alongside negative perceptions of current policing authorities. I conclude by discussing avenues for future research.