Why Children Follow Rules: Legal Socialization and the Development of Legitimacy

Legal socialization is the process by which children and adolescents acquire their law related values, attitudes, and reasoning capacities. Such values and attitudes, in particular legitimacy, underlie the ability and willingness to consent to laws and defer to legal authorities that make legitimacy based legal systems possible. By age eighteen a person's orientation toward law is largely established, yet legal scholarship has largely ignored this process in favor of studying adults and their relationship to the law. Why Children Follow Rules focuses upon legal socialization outlining what is known about the process across three related, but distinct, contexts: the family, the school, and the juvenile justice system. Throughout, Tom Tyler and Rick Trinkner emphasize the degree to which individuals develop their orientations toward law and legal authority upon values connected to responsibility and obligation as opposed to fear of punishment. They argue that authorities can act in ways that internalize legal values and promote supportive attitudes. In particular, consensual legal authority is linked to three issues: how authorities make decisions, how they treat people, and whether they recognize the boundaries of their authority. When individuals experience authority that is fair, respectful, and aware of the limits of power, they are more likely to consent and follow directives. Despite clear evidence showing the benefits of consensual authority, strong pressures and popular support for the exercise of authority based on dominance and force persist in America's families, schools, and within the juvenile justice system. As the currently low levels of public trust and confidence in the police, the courts, and the law undermine the effectiveness of our legal system, Tom Tyler and Rick Trinkner point to alternative way to foster the popular legitimacy of the law in an era of mistrust.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Part I: Introduction Chapter 1: Legal Socialization and the Elements of Legitimacy Chapter 2: General Approaches to Legal Socialization Chapter 3: Legal Socialization across the Life Course Part II: Models of Legal Socialization Chapter 4: Developing Values and Attitudes about the Law Chapter 5: The Development of Legal Reasoning Chapter 6: Neurological Development and Legal Competency Part III: Legal Socialization across the Spheres of Childhood and Adolescence Chapter 7: Legal Socialization in the Family Chapter 8: Legal Socialization in the School Chapter 9: Legal Socialization in the Juvenile Justice System Part IV: Conclusions & Final Thoughts Notes References Index

About the Author :
Tom R. Tyler is the Macklin Fleming Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology at Yale University. Rick Trinkner is Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University.

Review :
"[A] powerful book that has clear connections to both scholarship and the wider social order...the content of the book also makes a broader argument for a reorientation of legal authority and proactive engagement with members of society to see the development of healthy and positive individuals, and move toward a resilient and sustainable legal authority. Scholarship of this cast can help to alter a course that runs contrary to what societies strive to correct in adult life." -Criminal Justice and Behavior "If we want to understand why adults follow rules and obey the law, it is crucial to study how children and adolescents develop their understanding of law and law-related values, attitudes and behaviors. Why Children Follow Rules gives us a deeper understanding of that process and why it is so important to study." -Journal of Youth and Adolescence "Tyler and Trinkner provide a well-researched book highlighting the importance of understanding legal socialization as an integral part of a young person's overall socialization process and showing how these processes affect behavior in adulthood." -Contemporary Sociology "...an easy read and a fascinating introduction to the topic of socialization in the law." -CHOICE "This is a fine book with many important messages. It commends the positive and proactive approach of creating a value climate within which people view authorities as legitimate. When parents, schools and police respond in punitive, arbitrary and humiliating ways to wrongdoing by young people, they tend to make things worse. When they respond in respectful, fair and restorative ways to salvage opportunities to learn from wrongdoing, they tend to make things better. It is not rocket science. Yet this book is the best of science in how to build the decent society bottom-up through simple gifts to our next generation of children." -John Braithwaite, Distinguished Professor, Australian National University "Why Children Follow Rules is an important book on legal socialization. It expands the area from cognitive developmental psychology to include a focus on the centrality of authorities including parents, teachers, and the juvenile justice system among children and adolescents. Tom Tyler and Rick Trinkner do a great job of integrating two distinctive legal socialization approaches: the cognitive developmental approach of legal reasoning, legal attitudes, and rule following/rule-breaking and the authority approach of procedural justice, legitimacy of authority, legal cynicism, and rule-following/rule-breaking. This book is a must read for legal socialization researchers and practitioners." -Ellen S. Cohn, Professor of Psychology and Justice Studies, University of New Hampshire "A worthy sequel to Why People Obey the Law, Why Children Follow Rules makes a strong, research-based case for adopting the same procedural justice approach toward young people that Tyler has long advocated for adults. The book has one clear, timely message: Subject youth to disrespectful confrontation, rigid enforcement, and unexplained punishment, and both their reoffending and their contempt for rules is likely to increase." -Christopher Slobogin, Milton Underwood Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University