The People’s Attorney? Examining Public Trust in the Prosecutor’s Office
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19485394 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Joshua Baldwin (0000-0003-3689-9161), Damon Cann (0000-0003-1497-1580, Utah State University), Jamie L Carson (0000-0002-0083-5206), Jeff Yates (0000-0003-0208-5119, Binghamton University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-17 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Law and Courts (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2164-6589 • E-ISSN: 2164-6570 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/jlc.2026.10027 |
| OpenAlex | W7162758928 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 42 |
Prosecutors play a pivotal role in the American criminal justice system, exercising broad discretion over charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing recommendations. Yet despite their significant influence, we know surprisingly little about how the public perceives prosecutors – or the conditions under which trust in them is earned or lost. Building on research on political trust and leveraging new, granular survey evidence, we argue that public confidence in prosecutors is shaped by three interacting domains: (1) ideological identity and background characteristics; (2) orientations toward government and legal institutions; and (3) social dynamics – especially political efficacy and social capital. Our analysis shows that these forces jointly structure trust through multiple pathways, clarifying when and why prosecutorial legitimacy is strengthened or undermined. This framework offers concrete benchmarks for understanding variation in trust across communities and for evaluating reforms amid sustained scrutiny of the criminal justice system
Criminal justice · Discretion · Legitimacy · Plea · Politics · Public trust · Scrutiny · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Jury Decision Making Processes
Post-Broadcast Democracy
Trust
Critical Citizens
Why People Obey the Law
How State Judicial Selection Methods May Influence Views of US Supreme Court Nominees
The Effect of State Supreme Court Selection Method on Perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court
Judging prosecutors
Race, Social Capital, and Trust in the Police
Understanding Public Confidence in American Courts
New-Style” Judicial Campaigns and the Legitimacy of State High Courts
Why Do We Trust Our Congressman
My Trust in Government Is Implicit
Public Perceptions of State Court Impartiality and Court Legitimacy in an Era of Partisan Politics
Why Do People Trust Their State Government
Race, Place, and Descriptive Representation
The Political Party Basis of Attitudes Toward the Supreme Court
Justice in Black and Brown
Why Do People Accept Public Policies They Oppose? Testing Legitimacy Theory with a Survey-Based Experiment
The Increasing Nationalization of Local Elections
Feelings of Political Efficacy in the Fifty States
In Government We Trust
The Signs of Deconsolidation
Political Trust in a Cynical Age
Political Trust and Trustworthiness
Spirals of Trust? The Effect of Descriptive Representation on the Relationship between Citizens and Their Government
Why Do Partisan Media Polarize Viewers
Individual-Level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital
News Cycles and Satisfaction With Democracy
A Crisis of Political Trust? Global Trends in Institutional Trust from 1958 to 2019
Homegrown Institutional Legitimacy
Descriptive Representation and Prosecutorial Discretion
The Sources Of Public Confidence In State Courts
The Political Consequences of Intolerance
Dynamic Representation
The Political Relevance of Political Trust
Private and Public Trouble
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |