Tom R. Tyler

Who is Tom R. Tyler?

Tom R. Tyler is a professor of psychology and law with seminal contributions to understanding why people obey the law. A 2012 review article on procedural justice by Anthony Bottoms and Justice Tankebe noted that, "Unquestionably the dominant theoretical approach to legitimacy within these disciplines is that of 'procedural justice,' based especially on the work of Tom Tyler.". Professor Tyler has been at New York University since 1997; in January 2012, he joined the faculty at Yale.

Tyler is the author or co-author of 9 books and an editor for 6 others. His widely cited 1990 book on Why People Obey the Law was republished in 2006 with a new afterword discussing more recent research and changes in his thinking since its initial publication.

Tyler and Huo is based on surveys of people in different ethnic groups to understand their concepts of justice. They found that minority African-Americans and Hispanics have essentially the same concept of justice as majority whites but different experiences. They describe two alternative strategies for effective law enforcement:

Deterrence: effective but inefficient

Process-based: efficient and effective

This follows, because people who perceive that they may be victimized unfairly by law enforcement are less likely to cooperate. Tyler and Huo's analyses suggests that biased, unprofessional behavior of police, prosecutors and judges not only produces concerns of injustice, it cripples law enforcement efforts by making it more difficult for police and prosecutors to obtain the evidence needed to convict guilty parties.