Why People Obey the Law – Tom Tyler

Seminar Questions

1. Outline the distinction between an instrumental and a normative approach.

Instrumental / Normative
Definition
a victim of crime?
a police officer?
a student?

2. Define legitimacy. Why is legitimacy such an important aspect of the running of the criminal justice system? What ways that the criminal justice system operates might undermine its legitimacy?

3. What sense can you make of the following table? (I’ll talk you through this)

Zero-order Correlation / Beta
(with reliability adjustment)
Legitimacy / .22 *** / .11 **
Sociological Factors
Deterrence / .28 *** / .02
Peer Disapproval / .34 *** / .08 *
Personal Morality / .42 *** / .33 ***
Political Factors
Evaluation / .09 ** / .01
Background Factors
Sex (being female) / .28 *** / .26 ***
Race (being white) / -.11 *** / -.02
Age / .38 *** / .24 ***
Income / -.24 *** / -.15 **
Education / -.26 *** / -.06 *
Conservatism / .11 *** / -.03
R-squared
N = 1575 / .32 ***

4. If the main finding of Tyler is that personal morality and legitimacy are much better predictors of compliance with the law, what implications does this have for policy?