Toward Measuring Objective Procedural Justice: Commentary on Terpstra and van Wijck (2022)

Abstract

I commend Terpstra and van Wijck (2022) for heeding repeated calls (Nagin and Telep 2017; Tyler 2017) for more field work testing procedural justice theory (PJT). Their general conclusion—that behavior signaling fairer treatment and decision-making is unassociated with the procedural justice judgments of those interacting with police officers—represents a challenging finding to PJT, at least on the surface. Certainly, they are not alone in their assessment. Worden and McLean (2017) used a similar methodology to produce findings that led to nearly an identical conclusion. Indeed, those earlier findings were central to Nagin and Telep’s (2017: 11) critique of PJT, in particular the “potential fragility of the assumption that perceptions of fair treatment are tightly associated with the actual treatment received” during police interactions.