Mediating the court procedural justice–delinquency relationship with certainty perceptions and legitimacy beliefs

A mediation analysis was performed with perceptual and cognitive mediators to investigate the effect of court procedural justice on subsequent delinquency. The hypothesis tested in this study held that court procedural justice would promote a change in perceived certainty of punishment, a change in perceived certainty would foster change in institutional legitimacy, and institutional legitimacy would lead to a reduction in offending. This two-mediator model was tested in a sample of 1354 (1170 males, 184 females) serious delinquent youth from the Pathways to Desistance study. Results from a four-equation causal mediation analysis revealed that a significant pathway ran from strong court procedural justice perceptions to increased certainty of punishment to high institutional legitimacy to low delinquency. Conversely, there was no evidence of a significant pathway running from strong certainty of punishment to increased court procedural justice to high institutional legitimacy to low delinquency. These results provide insight into how strong perceptions of court procedural justice may indirectly contribute to decreased delinquency over time, while offering clues on how this process can be managed with policy initiatives and treatment interventions.