Why People Obey the Law—Legitimacy, not Punishment

Why People Obey the Law—Legitimacy, not Punishment

Abstract

<p> Why People Obey the Law was first published in 1990. It has been republished in full in 2006, with an afterword by the author that brings the reader up-to-date on where the research has gone since his classic study was conducted in 1984 in Chicago. The conclusion of the study was that people obey the law because they believe it is legitimate, not because they fear punishment if they are caught. Tyler points out that this is good, because deterrence is far more costly for society than establishing favorable impressions about the procedural fairness of governmental institutions.</p><p>The original study surveyed by telephone 1,575 respondents for about 25 minutes each. A randomly selected subset of 804 respondents was reinterviewed one year later. These citizens, in addition to the collection of demographic data, were asked questions about everyday contact with the police and the courts as well as their views of the police and courts in Chicago and their level of behavioral compliance with the law. The author analyzed these data to uncover how the relationship between legitimacy and compliance changes when other factors, such as deterrence, peer opinion, personal morality, and evaluation of authorities, change. Using the second