Legal Cynicism, Antisocial Attitudes, and Recidivism: Implications for a Procedurally Just Community Corrections

The current approach to supervising offenders in the community has produced disappointing results in terms of reduced recidivism. In response to this, a number of scholars have turned their attention to the role that community corrections officers (CCOs) may play in ensuring successful community supervision. Early evaluations of CCO training have shown promising results, yet missing from this knowledge is a consideration for the legal cynicism that may be held by offenders. It may be unreasonable to expect CCOs to change the antisocial attitudes of offenders when those negative attitudes are directed toward them. The purpose of the current work, therefore, is to integrate ideas about legal cynicism into the knowledge about effective supervision to promote a more procedurally just community corrections. Our broader purpose is to encourage a more realistic understanding of the challenges of the officer-offender relationship in order to improve the efficacy of existing models of effective community supervision practice.