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Situational Trust: How Disadvantaged Mothers Reconceive Legal Cynicism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Monica C. Bell
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Abstract

Research has shown that legal cynicism is pervasive among residents of poor, black neighborhoods. However, controlling for crime rates, these residents call police at higher rates than whites and residents of middle-class neighborhoods, and ethnographic research suggests that mothers in particular sometimes exact social control over partners and children through police notification. Given these findings, how might researchers better understand how legal cynicism and occasional reliance on police fit together? Drawing on interviews with poor African-American mothers in Washington, DC, this article develops an alternative conception of cultural orientations about law: situational trust. This concept emphasizes micro-level dynamism in cultural conceptions of the police, expanding the literature on police trust by emphasizing situational contingency. Mothers deploy at least four alternative strategies that produce moments of trust: officer exceptionalism, domain specificity, therapeutic consequences, and institutional navigation. These strategies shed light on the contextual meanings of safety and legitimacy.

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Law & Society Review , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 314 - 347
Copyright
© 2016 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I am deeply indebted to Matthew Desmond, Kathryn Edin, Robert Vargas, Bruce Western, Asad L. Asad, and Yaseen Eldik for consistent support and insight. I am also grateful to Linda Burton, Marcia Chatelain, Jackelyn Hwang, Anthony Jack, Michèle Lamont, Christy Ley, Jeremy Levine, Heather McLaughlin, Dara E. Purvis, Eva Rosen, Jasmin Sandelson, Joe Soss, Alba Villamil, Christopher Winship, and participants in the Urban Social Processes Workshop, the Advanced Qualitative Methods Seminar, the Proseminar on Inequality and Social Policy, and the Culture and Social Analysis Workshop at Harvard University for invaluable feedback. I also appreciate invaluable comments from the anonymous reviewers. Caroline Lauer and ImeIme Umana provided excellent research assistance. I gratefully acknowledge funding from the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard. All errors are my own.

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