Ben Bradford

This study explores the role of social identity and group-level processes in shaping public perceptions of police legitimacy and procedural justice during anti-war demonstrations in the United Kingdom. Building on procedural justice theory and extending the findings of Radburn and colleagues, we conducted two studies to examine how social context and identification with protestors influenced evaluations of protest policing. Study 1 investigates the impact of prior attitudes towards the Israel–Palestine conflict on perceptions of procedural fairness, identification with police and legitimacy. Results show that participants who viewed a video of the policing of protests over the war in Gaza who identified with pro-Palestine protestors viewed the police as less procedurally fair and legitimate than with neutral or pro-Israel attitudes. These findings affirm the importance of social identity in shaping vicarious experiences of policing. Study 2 extended this analysis by examining how the perceived operational independence of the police influenced these relationships. We found that perceptions of police independence moderated the effect of protestor identification on evaluations of procedural justice, police legitimacy and identification with police. This research highlights that police legitimacy is a dynamic and contextually embedded social psychological process. By demonstrating how social identity, vicarious experience and perceptions of police–government relations shape public evaluations of policing, the study underscores the importance of maintaining operational independence and engaging with group-level dynamics to foster legitimacy and trust in diverse democratic societies.

While procedural justice research has established that uncaring, insensitive or intimidating police treatment is linked to negative mental health outcomes for crime victims, the psychological consequences of exclusion remain underexplored. Using data from an online survey of crime victims who interacted with the police (n = 504), this study tested four hypotheses: the direct harmful effect of procedural injustice on mental health (H1), the negative impact of police-induced exclusion on mental health (H2), the link between procedural injustice and police-induced exclusion (H3) and whether procedurally unjust police behaviour worsens feelings of exclusion, further undermining mental health (H4). Findings challenge the initial hypothesis that police procedural injustice harms crime victims’ mental health by inducing exclusion. Instead, they suggest a dual impact: procedural injustice both harms mental health and fosters exclusion, but these effects appear to operate independently rather than being directly linked. These results remained consistent even after accounting for crime type and severity, and demographic and socio-economic factors. Qualitative survey responses and four follow-up interviews provide valuable lived experiences and context that enrich the survey findings. They suggest that procedural injustice may harm mental health by stripping victims of the core conditions necessary for psychological recovery – safety, validation, justice and agency – while also undermining their trust in the police. The study underscores the need for emotionally intelligent and procedurally fair policing to support victims’ psychological well-being.

Purpose: Domestic and intimate partner violence (DIPV) is a global health crisis that remains vastly underreported, making community bystanders a critical avenue for prevention. Understanding what shapes individuals’ sense of responsibility to intervene is essential, yet bystander research has been dominated by Western theory. This study examines how culture moderates the bystander effect on perceived responsibility in DIPV situations and explores psychosocial barriers informing this judgment. Methods: A vignette-based experiment was conducted with participants from the United Kingdom ( N = 242) and China ( N = 221). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three third-person vignettes depicting a bystander witnessing DIPV: alone, with multiple passive bystanders, or in a control condition. The primary outcome was perceived responsibility, with predictors including demographic variables and four barrier subscales (normative, reputational, relational, safety). Results: A two-way ANOVA revealed a significant culture × condition interaction. UK participants displayed a classic bystander effect, reporting lower responsibility when others were present, whereas Chinese participants reported higher responsibility in the multiple-bystander condition, indicating a reversed bystander effect. Regression analyses showed that normative concerns were the only consistent barrier predicting lower responsibility, with this effect stable across cultures. Culture itself remained an independent predictor, with Chinese participants reporting lower baseline responsibility than UK participants. Conclusions: The bystander effect is not universal but fundamentally shaped by culture. These findings challenge classic bystander theory and caution against directly exporting Western-developed intervention programs. Effective prevention demands cultural specificity, recognizing the diverse ways responsibility is constructed across communities.

Purpose: Domestic and intimate partner violence (DIPV) is a major global issue. While bystander intervention is a key prevention strategy, its drivers are poorly understood outside of Western societies. This study aimed to identify and compare the psychosocial factors affecting bystander intervention intentions among community members in the United Kingdom (UK) and China. Methods: A total of 463 adults (221 Chinese, 242 UK) completed a self-report online survey. Key constructs measured included bystander intent to help, perceptions of injunctive and descriptive norms, attitudes justifying gender-based DIPV (sexism beliefs, acceptability, myths, victim-blaming), and perceived personal responsibility. Analyses included t-tests for group comparisons and sequential regression and moderation analyses to examine associations between psychosocial factors and bystander intervention intentions. Results: Significant cross-cultural differences were observed across most variables. UK participants reported higher intent to help, stronger injunctive norms, and greater personal responsibility, whereas Chinese participants reported greater endorsement of descriptive norms and violence-justifying beliefs. Sequential regression analyses showed that personal responsibility was the strongest psychosocial correlate of intent, followed by injunctive and descriptive norms, while acceptance and sexism emerged as key attitudinal inhibitors. Tests of moderation provided no evidence that associations between these factors and bystander intervention intentions differed across cultural contexts. Conclusions: This study extends bystander research beyond its predominantly Western focus. The findings support ecological models of bystander intervention, showing that intentions are shaped by factors operating at both the level of individual cognition and the wider cultural environment. Prevention programs should therefore move beyond uniform designs and be adapted to the sociocultural contexts in which they are implemented.

This study examines the predictors of varying levels of militarisation of nation states’ coercive apparatuses from 2011 to 2021. It tests two competing explanations: the first posits that militarisation is a ‘natural’ progression in the professionalisation of security forces in response to new forms of crime and security threats; the second argues that it is driven by economic, political, and social crises. Drawing on cross-national longitudinal data covering 161 countries, we estimate six linear panel regressions with country fixed effects and robust standard errors clustered by country on a multiply imputed dataset that ensures the inclusion of developing states in the analysis. We employ three distinct measures of militarisation and find that, contrary to prevailing assumptions, these do not correlate with crime or security threats. Instead, political stability emerges as the strongest predictor of levels of militarisation. These results challenge functionalist accounts of militarisation, suggesting that it may function, at least in part, as a political strategy—providing a veneer of stability, restoring public confidence in ruling parties’ ability to maintain control during crises, and reflecting a wider logic of control in which elites expand coercive capacity to deter dissent and project authority—rather than operating solely as a direct security measure. In this light, the militarisation of the coercive apparatus may serve as a mechanism for power projection.

Purpose: Domestic and intimate partner violence (DIPV) remains pervasive, yet most evidence on social norms and community responses is drawn from Western populations. This study addresses this critical gap by examining how sociocultural norms shape recognition of, and responses to, DIPV across British and Chinese contexts, representing Western and East Asian sociocultural settings. Methods: Focus group interviews were conducted with 24 participants (12 males, 12 females) across 4 focus groups from singular Chinese, British, and bicultural backgrounds, recruited through social media and academic networks. Data were analyzed thematically using principles of grounded theory. Results: Thematic analysis revealed that social norms profoundly influence what is recognized as abuse, what responses are seen as acceptable, and when outsiders should intervene. UK participants were more attuned to non-physical abuse and expressed greater willingness to intervene. Chinese participants, especially those without overseas exposure, prioritized family privacy and narrower definitions of abuse, and preferred informal support to formal intervention. Bicultural participants showed more expansive recognition of abuse but retained elements of traditional beliefs. Conclusions: This study robustly demonstrates the central role of cultural context and social norms in shaping attitudes and responses to DIPV, extending research beyond Western-centric scholarship and advancing theoretical understanding of cross-cultural variation. The findings indicate that prevention should engage local values and informal controls, tailoring bystander strategies to culturally specific barriers and safety concerns.

This article examines whether the militarisation of policing undermines states’ commitments to human rights, focusing on extrajudicial killings as a severe form of state-led violence. Although militarisation is frequently justified as a necessary response to crime threats that exceed conventional police capacities, its broader implications for democratic governance remain insufficiently examined. Drawing on theories of repression, environmental criminology, and Bourdieusian perspectives on police habitus, we argue that militarisation reshapes the organisational logics of coercive institutions by normalising power projection, intensifying threat perception, and weakening institutional and normative constraints on the use of lethal force.Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) on a global country–year panel dataset, the analysis demonstrates that higher levels of militarisation are associated with increased rates of extrajudicial killings, even after controlling for governance capacity, economic conditions, and political violence. These findings suggest that militarisation constitutes a distinct dimension of state power, associated with weaker constraints on lethal force and with shifts away from legitimacy-based policing practices, potentially eroding due process and normalising the use of lethal force. The study advances debates on policing, state violence, and human rights by providing cross-national evidence of a structural relationship between militarisation and extrajudicial killings.