This post originally appeared on Prawsblawg.
"Procedural justice" has recently become a big deal in the politics of policing. It was a core recommendation of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing; and has spawned a whole literature of its own, both in North America and in the United Kingdom. The basic idea is that certain ways in which speakers interact with targets during face-to-face encounters have an important psychological effect on the target of the encounter. The target feels that the speaker is justified in making demands upon the target, so that the target under an obligation to comply with the speaker's directives. Importantly, the target feels that way whether or not the speaker is, normatively, justified in making those demands; that is, whether or not an obligation to comply exists.
While "procedural justice" may be a useful tool in inducing compliance, it is distinct from actual, normative procedural justice. Justice is a normative concept, not a psychological one. And so a way of treating a target may be normatively unjust even if it fits the psychological theory of "procedural justice." Here's why.
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