WHY CHILDREN FOLLOW RULES:LEGAL SOCIALIZATION & DEVELOPMENT OF LEGITIMACY CLOTH

Why Children Follow Rules focuses on the process by which children and adolescents develop their orientation toward the law. Drawing on law, psychology, sociology and criminology, Tom Tyler and Rick Trinkner review the literature on socialization with a particular focus on families, schools, and the juvenile justice to reveal a fundamental conflict about how authority and power should be exercised in essential social institutions. They argue for the merits of consensual authority as a way to foster the popular legitimacy of the law at a time when public trust in the police, courts, and the law has reached unsettling lows.

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.