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Delinquency and Crime Among Youths in the Philippines: A Test of Legal

Cynicism

Article  in  Asian Journal of Criminology · March 2012

DOI: 10.1007/s11417-011-9102-2

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Asian Criminology
DOI 10.1007/s11417-011-9102-2

Delinquency and Crime Among Youths

in the Philippines: A Test of Legal Cynicism

Raymund Espinosa Narag & Melchor De Guzman

Received: 15 September 2010 / Accepted: 1 February 2011

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract The construct of legal cynicism is gaining currency in the United States and other
western developed countries in explaining why people break the law. This construct is
viable in societies with strong economies and mature political and criminal justice
institutions. This paper asks whether the construct of legal cynicism is applicable in
societies with differing economic, political and social conditions. Specifically, the paper
investigates whether legal cynicism can explain the delinquent behaviors of youths in the
Philippines. Despite diligent efforts to duplicate the measures of legal cynicism, the paper
finds that this construct is a weak predictor of youth delinquent behaviors. This
contradictory finding is explained by looking at the historical and sociopolitical conditions
of the country.

Keywords Legal cynicism . Comparative criminology . Developing country . Youth

delinquency

Introduction

Criminological theories formulated in Western societies have been continuously adopted to

explain criminal behaviors of individuals everywhere (Cohen 1986). This trend has
produced an assumption that the criminological knowledge in the West has universal
application. However, some post-colonialist scholars argue that this assumption must be
questioned considering the vast differences in the economic, cultural and legal context of
where individuals are located (Agozino 2004; 2005; Cohen 2003). Post-colonialist scholars
question whether or not criminological theories that emanate in societies where the

R. E. Narag (*)
School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, 12 Baker Hall, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48823,
USA
e-mail: naragray@msu.edu

M. De Guzman
College of Brockport at the State University of New York, 350 New Campus Dr. Brockport( NY 14420,
USA
 Asian Criminology

economies are industrialized, where cultures are more individualistic (Karstedt 2001), and
where legal systems are more or less based on the rule of law (Rosenfeld 2000), can also be
used to explain criminal behaviors in societies where the economies are more agrarian and
partly industrialized, where cultures are more collectivistic, and where legal systems are
continually challenged by non-state actors (Agozino 2004; Karstedt 2001), thus resulting in
what political scientists call the “rule of men” (Gramm 1973; Lacy 2004). More
importantly, post-colonial scholars maintain that criminological policies developed in the
West, when applied without regard to the cultural, social, political and social realities of the
importing country, may in fact worsen the local conditions.
This paper contributes to this postcolonialist challenge and seeks to test the explanatory
power of a theory of western origin. This paper used a popular western criminological
concept called legal cynicism and examined whether its predictions hold true in an Asian
developing country setting, the Philippines. This paper used a positivistic methodology to
investigate the claims of a western theory.

Theoretical Perspective

Western scholars have noted that individuals have varying views on laws and legal
institution (Sampson and Bartusch 1998; Tyler 2003). This variation in views has been
measured by asking individuals for their legal beliefs, that is, whether “is it okay to break
the law once in a while?” or “is it okay to break the law as long as no one is hurt?”
(Sampson and Bartusch 1998). It has also been measured by investigating how legitimate
individuals perceive their governments to be (Tyler 2003) or how effective is the
government in delivering services (Bridenball and Jesilow 2008), particularly in
controlling crime (Sunshine and Tyler 2003). Other ways used to measure these varying
views is to look at how individuals perceive the credibility of legal institutions,
particularly the police, in creating sanctioning threats for those who break rules (risk)
and in fairly distributing police services across people and communities (distributive
fairness) (Sunshine and Tyler 2003). The extent that individuals have low regard for laws
and legal institutions based on the different dimensions noted above indicates their levels
of legal cynicism.

Literature Review

Western scholars have argued that individuals with high levels of legal cynicism are
more prone to committing criminal and violent behaviors. Specifically, Tyler (1991) has
theorized that citizens are more likely to break the law and commit crimes when they do
not believe in the morality of the law and in the legitimacy of the government making the
law. Western scholars have mustered evidence to support this view. In a face-to-face
interview of 215 children and adolescents selected through random sampling from two
contrasting neighborhoods (in terms of racial and economic composition) in New York
City, Fagan and Tyler (2005) found that perceptions of legitimacy are related to
compliance with the law. Similarly, a study in Chicago neighborhoods found that levels of
legal cynicism are related to homicide rates even after controlling for neighborhood
structural characteristics. In a longitudinal study (three years) of youths aged 18 to 25 in
Chicago, Sampson et al. (2005) found that legal cynicism is related to the odds of
committing violent acts even after controlling for individual, family and other
Asian Criminology

neighborhood context variables. Also, Kane (2005), using neighborhoods as units of

analysis in a longitudinal study (22 years) in the state of New York, found that extremely
disadvantaged neighborhoods that are overly-policed and where there are elevated
instances of police misconduct (the proxy measure for legal cynicism) have higher crime
rates. In an ethnographic study in a disadvantaged community in Philadelphia, Anderson
(1999) reported that the low level of police legitimacy resulted tino residents relying on
their own codes and rules to resolve their conflicts. The author immersed for prolonged
periods in these communities and observed how residents negotiate their day-to-day
existence. He concluded that residents had developed aversion towards and contempt for
the police and other legal institutions such that they employed their own brand of street
justice when they were aggrieved, which then increased violent crime rates (Anderson
1999). Also, Kubrin and Weitzer (2003) noted that even residents who maintained
conventional law-abiding value systems may believe that violence become inevitable in
their neighborhoods due to the absence of legitimate formal social control. Kubrin and
Weitzer (2003) also noted that perceptions of police illegitimacy led some residents of
structurally disadvantaged communities to engage in violence because of the belief that
police would be unresponsive to intervention requests.
These individual- and community-level studies on legal cynicism are consistent with
the more traditional Western explanations of criminal behaviors and higher crime rates.
For example, Sutherland’s (1947) differential association theory is compatible with the
predictions of legal cynicism since both theories emphasize how would-be criminals
downplay the consequences of their illegal actions. Specifically, differential association
theory can be restated to mean that individuals with higher levels of legal cynicism have
an increased predisposition towards favorable definitions of crime. Individuals living in
communities where residents have low regard for the law and legal institutions may be
socialized to the same kind of legal belief systems. Youths, for example, may be
socialized by their peers to the belief that vandalism and breaking other people’s property
are normal activities in order to be accepted in their cliques. While differential association
theory has been criticized for assuming that individuals need to be perfectly socialized to
criminal behaviors before committing a crime (Kornhauser 1978; Hirschi 1996; but see
Akers 1996; Matsueda 1997), the notion of legal cynicism is compatible with the
differential association theory’s assertion that criminal or deviant behaviors are learned.
Legal cynicism is also compatible with Matza’s (1964) more refined proposition
suggesting that youths may drift in and out of involvement in criminal activities and
employ the legally cynical beliefs in certain contexts to justify their behavior (Sykes and
Matza 1957).
While seemingly on the other side of the theoretical debate, legal cynicism is also
compatible with social control theory (Hirschi 1996). The emphasis here is not on the
socialization of individuals towards criminal beliefs, but rather on the attenuation of the
individuals’ moral and legal beliefs. Specifically, social control theory emphasizes the role
of moral beliefs as restraining factors from committing crimes. Social control theory can
therefore be restated that, when individuals do not believe in the morality of the law and in
the legitimacy of the government (Tyler 1991), the restraining value of these factors are
broken. Finally, the deterrence theory is compatible with the claims of legal cynicism since
both theories emphasize the diminishing threat of legal sanctions (Nagin and Paternoster
1993). Deterrence theory suggests that, to be effective, the threat of punishments and its
attendant risk must be properly conveyed to individuals. Individuals with high levels of
cynicism, however, minimize the threat of legal sanctions. Deterrence theory can therefore
be restated to mean that individuals with high levels of legal cynicism cannot be deterred
 Asian Criminology

despite the severity and celerity of punishments, thereby removing the moral barriers for
would-be offenders to commit crime.1

Predictors of Legal Cynicism

Given the salience of legal cynicism in explaining unlawful and criminal behaviors and its
compatibility with the earlier and more established Western criminological theories,
scholars investigated the factors related to elevated levels of legal cynicism. This, indeed,
has wide policy appeal because, as Western scholars reckoned, if governments can decrease
the levels of cynicism to the laws and legal institutions, then this could lead to more
proactive ways to reduce crime.
Individual level demographics have been found to be related to legal cynicism. In terms
of age, a number of studies have found that younger people are more likely to express
negative attitudes toward the police and other legal institutions (Brown and Coulter 1983;
Reisig and Correia 1997; Sampson and Bartusch 1998). Conversely, adults generally
express more trust in the law and government officials than younger people (Tyler 2003).
However, the relationship of age and legal cynicism may not be linear, as one study found
that, for children and adolescents, legal cynicism increases from age 10 to 21, but
eventually lowers when they mature (Fagan and Tyler 2005). In terms of gender, women
are more likely to view the police and other legal institutions favorably (Cheurprakobkit
2000; Correia et al. 1996; Sampson and Bartusch 1998). In terms of race/ethnicity, most
studies found that ethnic minorities are more likely to express negative attitudes towards the
police (Bayley and Mendelsohn 1968; Benson 1981; Sampson and Bartusch 1998; Worrall
1999). African Americans are less likely than Whites to trust the police (Harris 1999; Jacob
1971), whereas Hispanics have more favorable views than African Americans. However,
Hispanic views about the police are less favorable than Whites (Carter 1985; Lasley 1994;
Schuck et al. 2008).
However, these race/ethnicity differences become insignificant when the neighborhood
characteristics are taken into account. For example, Carr et al. (2007) found that youths in
three racially-grouped disadvantaged neighborhoods in Philadelphia (i.e., Whites, African
Americans, and Hispanics) all shared negative views about the police. In terms of
socioeconomic status (SES), high SES is related to lower legal cynicism (Sampson and
Bartusch 1998). However, an analysis of a national survey in the United States indicated
that SES may also interact with race, as high-SES African Americans were found to have
elevated perception levels of police bias (Weitzer and Tuch 2005). Finally, in terms of
education, more educated people are less likely to express negative attitudes (Jesilow and
Mayer 2001; Murphy and Worrall 1999). These more positive views about the police were
more pronounced among educated Whites (Weitzer and Tuch 1999).
Personal experiences had also been found to be related with legal cynicism. Residents
who live in neighborhoods that have elevated levels of fear were more likely to disapprove
of their police and other legal institutions (Reisig and Correia 1997; Reisig and Giacomazzi
1998; Reisig and Parks 2000). Also, personal experiences of discrimination with
governmental authorities may aggravate the citizens’ distrust of the laws and legal

1
While we recognize the unsettled role of moral beliefs in the debate between differential association (and
cultural deviance theories in general) and social control theories, we suggest here that the concept of legal
cynicism can straddle both theoretical fences. Our goal is not theory competition since our dataset does not
permit us to test variables that specify the pathway in which legal cynicism affects delinquent behavior. Our
more modest goal is simply to test if this concept is related to delinquent behaviors in a setting outside the
West.
Asian Criminology

institutions. In a community survey in Santa Cruz, California, citizens having negative

contacts with the police expressed lower levels of perceptions about the police (Bridenball
and Jesilow 2008). In addition, these studies demonstrated that improving the relations of
the police and other legal institutions with the citizens were instrumental in gaining the
people’s trust and confidence. Perhaps fairness in how criminal justice agencies perform
their duties would result in lower levels of legal cynicism.
These empirical findings give credence to the idea that legal cynicism might work
correctly in societies such as the United States. This may be because, in the United States
and other Western societies, there is relatively general acceptance of the rule of law and the
legal institutions have developed relatively strong mechanisms to impose sanctions against
those who violate the laws. Thus, when individuals are legally cynical, it can be assumed
that they are released from any moral restraints and thus may commit crime. In the same
vein, since law violators havea relatively higher chance of being caught and actually being
punished in Western societies, it can also be assumed that it pays for most individuals to
stay legally committed. These are two key assumptions that make the concept of legal
cynicism work. The question, however, is would the concept of legal cynicism hold true in
societies where there is a general contempt on the rule of law and where legal institutions
have weak mechanisms to punish the violators? Particularly, would the concept of legal
cynicism be applicable in the Philippines?

Methods

Data for the study were from a 1997 national multi-stage random sample of 1,200 youths
aged 15 to 30 that were gathered by a nationally acclaimed polling agency, the Social
Weather Station. In this survey, the youths were polled on their views on life, their
perspectives about the government, and their offending behaviors. Face-to-face interviews
were used in gathering demographic and attitudinal information. However, in order to
reduce social reactivity, a sealed envelope was utilized for the self-reported criminal and
offending behaviors.

Independent and Dependent Variables

The western literature suggests that demographic characteristics like age, gender, racial
minority status, socioeconomic status, education and locale are related to legal cynicism. In
addition, experiential variables such as neighborhood levels of safety and incidents of
discrimination are related to legal cynicism.
Legal cynicism is expected to be related to offending behaviors, after controlling for
individual demographic and experiential variables. These findings in the Western literature
are used to generate testable hypotheses on the predictors of legal cynicism and its impact
on offending behaviors (see Fig. 1).
These variables were operationalized in a manner similar to the Western literature. Age
(continuous), gender (dichotomous), education (trichotomous), and locale (dichotomous)
were the demographic variables used. Perception of safety in the neighborhood was
operationalized by aggregating three Likert-type items that asked how satisfied the
respondents were in their neighborhoods, how satisfied were they in their personal safety,
and what were their perceptions of the security of their properties. The higher scores
indicated that respondents were more satisfied. For the other variables, the operationaliza-
tion was more flexible in order to reflect the realities of the Philippine setting. For example,
 Asian Criminology

Age

Gender

Religious Minority
Legal Cynicism 1:
Governmental Support
Delinquent and
SES criminal behaviors:
Drug use, robbery,
theft, forced sex,
Education encounter with the
Legal Cynicism 2: police
Governmental
Locale Participation

Neighborhood
safety

Discrimination

Fig 1 Conceptual model of the predictors of legal cynicism and its influence on crime.

instead of using the construct race/ethnicity to incorporate the impact of racial minority
status, religious affiliation was used. In the Philippines, there is no race/ethnicity issue that
is as salient in most Western societies. However, there has been an intractable problem of
religious separatism posed by Filipino Muslims and Christians (Bertrand 2000; Gowing
1979; Majul 1973; Noble 1976). Thus, as a proxy measure, the category Catholics was
designated as the majority, while the religious minority members included Muslims and
others. Socio-economic status (SES) was measured using a self-report of where the
respondents placed themselves on a show card (not poor, in the line, poor). It must be noted
tha, in the Philippines, “in the line”, when translated in the national language, means “nasa
guhit” and connotes the psychological sense of being on the poverty line. This item was
therefore preferred as an indicator of SES.2 For experiences of discrimination, the dataset
did not have items that asked respondents of their experience of discrimination with the
police and other legal institutions. However, respondents were asked about seven items as
to whether they had been discriminated against because of their particular demographic
status (that is gender, age, educational background, disability status, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, and religious affiliation). This proxy measure for “experiences of discrimina-
tion” should still be predictive of the levels of legal cynicism considering that those who
were discriminated on these grounds may feel that the government and the legal institutions
have not done enough to protect their interests.

2
Another indicator is the class of dwelling, where the interviewers classified the respondents on the quality
of housing in which the respondents lived, that is, those who lived in high class subdivisions were designated
high social status. We chose the former indicator as respondents who live in high quality housing may still
perceive themselves to be on the line. However, we substituted these two indicators in the statistical analyses.
They have yielded identical results.
Asian Criminology

For legal cynicism, two items were used to operationalize two dimensions of this
concept. First, a “view on governmental support” was constructed from a question on “how
big or small is the help given by the Sangguniang Kabataan or SK to the youth?”
Sangguniang Kabataan is part of the local government that is managed by and for the
youth. Support given by SK to the respondents can be construed as a form of governmental
effectiveness and legitimacy. Respondents who perceive that SK is most helpful may
develop an attachment to the legal institutions. This was 6-point response scale (Very big
help, Big help, Not sure, Little help, Very little help, No help given) and were reverse-coded
so that the more positive evaluations had higher values. Eventually, this measure was
dichotomized where “Very big help” and “Big help” were combined and given a value of
‘1’ and the rest of the options were given a value of ‘0’.
Another dimension of legal cynicism was constructed from an item that asked “Have
you ever participated in any government program for the youth or not?” This was
answerable by ‘Yes’ (coded as 1) or ‘No’ (coded as 0). This item was included as it taps the
respondents’ involvement in governmental institutions. Respondents who participated to
the youth programs will likely view the government as legitimate.
There were five items used for the offending behavior. These five items were answerable
by Yes/No. These included whether respondents “ever used drugs, ever used force to get
something from someone (robbery), ever stolen things from someone (theft), ever forced
someone to have sex with him or her, and ever had an encounter with the police.” The five
items were then aggregated and recoded such that respondents who committed at least one
of the listed offenses were coded as 1, and those who did not commit any offense were
coded as 0.

Analyses

The data were analyzed by running the univariate, bivariate and multivariate characteristics
and relationships of and among the variables. To test for problems posed by multi-
collinearity, the bivariate correlations were generated (see Appendix). The Variance
Inflation Factors (VIF) among the independent variables were also obtained (outputs not
shown). Results showed that there were no problems due to multicollinearity. Further
diagnostics also showed that there were no problems related to missing data and outliers.
Logistic regression was utilized in determining the factors that are related to legal cynicism
and offending behaviors. The dichotomous nature of the legal cynicism variables and
offending behaviors (coded as 0 and 1) necessitated the use of this procedure.

Results

Table 1 shows the results of the univariate analysis. The mean age of the respondents was
22 years of age, the youngest being 15 and the oldest being 30 years of age. Fifty percent of
the respondents were males, 84%t were Catholics, while the majority (69%) considered
themselves as either “poor” or “on the line”, and another 68% had reached “some
vocational” education. The majority (62.5%) of the respondents came from urban areas.
These demographic characteristics of the respondents approximated to the 1995 Census
data in the Philippines.
In terms of neighborhood levels of safety, the mean score is 12.57, where the highest
score is 15 and the lowest is 3. This result indicates that the respondents were generally
satisfied with the neighborhood where they live and the safety and security it offered to
 Asian Criminology

Table 1 Descriptive statistics

Demographic N Freq (%) Mean SD Min Max

Age 1200 22.000 5.000 15 30

Gender 1200
Male 600 50.0%
Female 600 50.0%
Religion 1200
Catholic 1044 87.0%
Others 156 13.0%
Socioeconomic Status 1200
Poor 591 50.0%
“On the line” 221 18.4%
Not Poor 388 32.3%
Education 1200
At most elementary 173 14.4%
At most some vocational 628 52.3
Completed vocational to college 399 33.2%
Locale 1200
Urban 750 62.5%
Rural 450 37.5%
Neighborhood levels of safety 1123 12.570 2.155 3 15
Experience of discrimination
Based on gender 1200 0.114 0.318 0 1
Based on age 1200 0.140 0.351 0 1
Based on educational background 1200 0.150 0.357 0 1
Based on disability 1200 0.017 0.131 0 1
Based on ethnicity 1141 0.066 0.249 0 1
Based on sexual orientation 1200 0.030 0.172 0 1
Based on religious affliation 1200 0.090 0.297 0 1
Overall discrimination 1141 0.330 0.470 0 1
Legal Cynicism
Views on governmental support 1135 0.600 0.489 0 1
Participation in governmental activity 1200 0.150 0.353 0 1
Offending behavior
Drug use 1200 0.110 0.313 0 1
Robbery 1200 0.030 0.182 0 1
Theft 1200 0.065 0.247 0 1
Forced sex 1200 0.031 0.179 0 1
Encounter with the police 1200 0.043 0.202 0 1
Overall offending 1200 0.200 0.400 0 1

their person and property. In terms of discrimination, 33% of the respondents reported that
they had experienced at least one form of discrimination, with the following breakdown:
11.4% of the respondents claimed that they had been discriminated against based on their
gender and 14% claimed age discrimination. Another 15% reported that they were
Asian Criminology

discriminated against due to their educational status. Much smaller percentages of

respondents claimed being discriminated due to disability (1.7%), ethnicity (6.6%), sexual
orientation (3.0%) and religious affiliation (9%).
The two dimensions of legal cynicism reflected two different things. Sixty percent of the
respondents indicated the view that the government, through the Sangguniang Kabataan,
was either a very big help or a big help. Conversely, this means that only 40% of the
respondents had an elevated level of legal cynicism. However, only 15% of the respondents
reported having participated in any of the government programs. Using the governmental
participation as the dimension, there were more respondents who were legally cynical. This
is an important finding considering that, in Western literature, the different dimensions of
legal cynicism usually converge.
In terms of offending, 20% of the respondents self-reported that they had engaged in at least
one form of offending behavior. Eleven percent of the respondents had admitted that they had
used drugs, 3% admitted committing robbery, 6.5% reported involvement in theft, 3.1% forced
someone to have sex with them, and 4.3% had had an encounter with the police.3

Factors Related to Legal Cynicism

Based on Western literature, age, gender, minority status, SES, education and locale are related
to legal cynicism. However, in this dataset, most of the demographic variables were not related
to both dimensions of legal cynicism except for educational status (see Table 2). Young men
and women expressed similar levels of legal cynicism, as did the religious majority and
minority, those who considered themselves as poor, on the line and not poor and those living
in urban and rural areas. Those who had more education (completed at least vocational) were
four times more likely to participate in government activities compared to those who finished
at the most elementary educational level. However, this same educational status was not
related to the other dimensions of legal cynicism, that is, the view on governmental support.
Both experiential variables were related to legal cynicism but only in one dimension. Those
who felt satisfied with their neighborhood and the safety and security it offered felt that the
government was supportive. and those who were discriminated against felt the government
did not provide them with support. However, neither experiential variable was related to the
governmental participation variable. Overall, the whole model predicted only a small portion
of the total variance in the two dimensions of legal cynicism. Using the Nagelkerke Pseudo
R-Square, only 3.3% of the variance in the view of governmental support variable was
explained and 6.9% of the variance in the governmental participation variable was explained.
More so, the size of the coefficients (B) also showed that the predictors were weakly related
to the dependent variables. Finally, the direction of the coefficients for the neighborhood
levels of safety was negative, and though not significant, it was contradictory to the proposed
direction. The negative coefficient suggests that those who felt safe in their neighborhoods
were more likely not to participate in governmental activities.

Legal Cynicism and Offending Behaviors

The Western literature suggested that legal cynicism could predict offending behaviors.
However, the data did not produce the predicted results (see Table 3). Neither of the

3
This percentage of self-reports in offending behaviors of Filipino youths is a little bit higher compared to
other surveys conducted by the Social Weather Stations. This could be because this particular survey made
use of sealed envelopes where respondents must have felt that their responses were made more anonymous.
 Asian Criminology

Table 2 Two dimensions Legal cynicism regressed on predictors

View on governmental support Governmental participation

Predictors B S.E. Wald Exp(B) B S.E. Wald Exp(B)

Age -.017 .015 1.297 .983 .007 .021 .108 1.007

Gender Contrasting Male .041 .067 .383 1.042 .120 .091 1.764 1.128
(1) versus Female (-1)
Religion Contrasting Catholics -.004 .097 .002 .996 -.130 .125 1.088 .878
(1) versus Others (-1)
SES1 Contrasting Poor (-1) .099 .114 .761 1.104 .008 .148 .003 1.008
versus On the line (1)
SES2 Contrasting Poor (-1) -.040 .101 .158 .961 .212 .128 2.725 1.236
versus Not Poor (1)
Education1 Contrasting Less than -.308 .187 2.708 .735 -.636 .341 3.482 .530
vocational (.-5) versus completed
vocational or more (1)
Education2 Contrasting At most .298 .198 2.257 1.347 1.435 .438 10.729 4.201***
elementary (-1) versus completed
vocational or more (1)
Locale Contrasting Rural (-1) versus .014 .072 .036 1.014 -.024 .099 .059 .976
urban (1)
Neighborhood levels of safety .100 .030 11.059 1.106*** -.029 .042 .486 .971
Overall discrimination Contrasting -.150 .069 4.708 .861** .153 .093 2.682 1.165
Not discriminated (-1) versus
discriminated (1)

Chi square Omnibus test of Model Coefficients

24.11***
***P<.01
42.075***
***P<.01
Nagelkerke R Square
0.033
**P<.05
0.069
**P<.05

dimensions of legal cynicism were related to offending behaviors. Further analysis also
showed that, even if broken down to different components of offending (that is drug use,
robbery, theft, forced sex and encounter with the police), both dimensions of legal cynicism
were not significant predictors (data not shown).
The offending behavior was explained by four variables in the model. Males were two
and half times (Exp B or odds ratio=2.4) more likely to self–report involvement in
offending behaviors compared to females. Youths living in urban areas and those who felt
discriminated against had a significantly elevated risk of offending compared to those living
in the rural areas and those who were not discriminated against. Finally, those who felt that
their neighborhood was relatively satisfactory in terms of safety and security were less
likely to self-report involvement in an offending behavior. Overall, these four variables
explained 18.2% of the variance in the dependent variable. Traditional Western variables
Asian Criminology

Table 3 Offending behavior regressed on predictors (Logistic regression)

Predictors B S.E Wald Sig. Exp(B)

Age 0.0099 0.0202 0.2402 0.6241 1.0099

Gender Contrasting Male (1) versus Female (-1) 0.8755 0.0995 77.3828 0.0000 2.4000***
Religion Contrasting Catholics (1) versus Others (-1) 0.0787 0.1287 0.3738 0.5409 1.0819
SES1 Contrasting Poor (-1) versus On the line (1) 0.0196 0.1477 0.0177 0.8943 1.0198
SES2 Contrasting Poor (-1) versus Not Poor (1) 0.0146 0.1296 0.0127 0.9103 1.0147
Education1 Contrasting Less than vocational (.-5) -0.1618 0.2423 0.4461 0.5042 0.8506
versus completed vocational or more (1)
Education2 Contrasting At most elementary (-1) 0.0992 0.2545 0.1518 0.6968 0.9056
versus completed vocational or more (1)
Locale Contrasting Rural (-1) versus urban (1) 0.3078 0.0957 10.3497 0.00013 1.3604***
Neighborhood levels of safety -0.0761 0.0382 3.9672 0.0464 0.9267**
Overall discrimination Contrasting Not discriminated 0.2414 0.0869 7.7140 0.0055 1.2730***
(-1) versus discriminated (-1)
Views on government support -0.0588 0.1736 0.1147 0.7348 0.9429
Participation in governmental activity 0.0505 0.2314 0.0477 0.8271 1.0518
(Constant) -0.8916 0.6827 1.7056 0.1916 0.4100

Chi square Omnibus test of Model Coefficients

123.315***
***P<.01
Nagelkerke R Square
0.182
**P<.05

like age, minority status, socioeconomic status and educational status were not important
predictors of offending behaviors.

Discussion

Using a recently articulated but now popular construct called legal cynicism, this paper
empirically tested whether its prediction hold in a non-Western developing country setting.
Due diligence was exercised to replicate the measures of legal cynicism and other variables.
However, the results indicated that age, gender, religious minority status, socio-economic
status and locale were not related to any of the dimensions of legal cynicism. Education
status was related to one dimension (governmental participation), and neighborhood levels
of safety and experience of discrimination were related to the other dimension (views on
governmental support). Overall, only a small variance in the two measures of legal
cynicism was explained by the models. Also, the results showed that legal cynicism was not
related to offending behaviors, even when the components of offending behaviors were
disaggregated.
Using the more positivistic perspective, these divergent findings could be explained by
the following arguments. First, the measures of legal cynicism employed in this study might
not have been accurate replications of the measures used in the West. For example, instead
of employing views on governmental support or participation in government activities,
perhaps the better measure would be dimensions of the legal beliefs (i.e., asking
 Asian Criminology

respondents, “Is it okay to break the law once in a while?” or “Is it okay to break the law as
long as no one is hurt?” ;Sampson and Bartusch 1998). Also, the dimensions of legal
cynicism used in this study employed only single item questions, which could have
lessened the reliability and validity of the measures used. Indeed the finding that, generally,
respondents were less cynical in one dimension (government support) and more cynical in
another dimension (governmental participation) (Table 1) indicated that the measures may
be lacking in convergent validity.
The second positivistic critic may be based on the research design. Legal cynicism is a
construct that is most robust in multilevel studies, that is, in partitioning individual and
community-level effects (Sampson and Bartusch 1998). This is because, in some
neighborhoods in the United States, whole communities may become legally cynical due
to negative experiences with the police and legal institutions. As such, legal cynicism is a
strong predictor of offending behaviors when looking at the characteristics of individuals
nested in particular neighborhoods. Given the national character of this dataset, it was not
meaningful to aggregate the respondents in the communities that they come from. There
were too few respondents nested in a particular barrio (the smallest cluster) to come up
with aggregate information. Given the limitations of the dataset, positivistic scholars would
argue that the construct of legal cynicism was not fully tested.

Conclusion

Employing a post-colonialist perspective provides a more meaningful explanation why

legal cynicism, as a construct, has limited utility in the Philippine setting. As initially
discussed, there are two key assumptions that make the concept of legal cynicism
appropriate: one is that the society in which it is applied to generally thrives under a rule of
law. Secondly, the society must have legal institutions which are mature and strong enough
to punish the violators. When these two assumptions are not met, the construct of legal
cynicism becomes irrelevant.
In the Philippines, due to a combination of historical, political, social and economic
factors, the laws and legal institutions are generally regarded with contempt. Three and half
centuries of colonialism, three foreign invaders (Spain, USA and Japan), one and a half
decades of despotic Martial Law and series of corrupt governments have made citizens
develop a contemptuous regard for the laws, the police, the courts and corrections (Abueva
1970; Gutierrez 1992; Hedman and Sidel 2000; Rogers 2004; Sidel 1999). The state
apparatus is continually captured by socio-economic elites, who then use the state
bureaucracy to forward their narrow self-interests (Hutchcroft 1998; Sidel 1999). In the
Philippines, this socio-political condition had invariably been called cacique democracy,
bossism, paternalism or cronyism (Anderson 1988; McCoy 2009; Sidel 1999). As such, the
implementation of the law is haphazard and depends on the individual caprices of those
who wield power. The protection of the law thus depends on one’s personalistic relationship
with the dispenser of political power. Citizens have come to recognize that laws are but
formal pronouncements, to be followed or invoked when beneficial to one’s interest but to
be disregarded or purposefully violated when they serves as an impediment to one’s
interests.
In this context, the citizens’ level of cynicism thus becomes immaterial. For example, a
citizen who view is that the government is helpful or supportive (because of the personal
favors he or she got from the sitting government official) and thus indicates low levels of
legal cynicism (at least based on the Western measurement) may still willingly break a law
Asian Criminology

should personal necessities of survival dictate it. Restated in another way, some citizens
may profess their loyalty (and thus reflect high legitimacy) to the government but only
because they could extract favors from those in governmental position (for example, getting
a job as a police officer as promised by the mayor of a town). Still, this individual loyalty
will not serve as a moral restraint to break a law that limits the attainment of some personal
ends (for example, said police officer can still extort money from the hapless public) (De
Dios and Ferrer 2001).
In the same vein, in the Philippine context, even when a crime is committed, the
imposition of a penalty is dependent not on legal or procedural factors but rather on the
capacity to mobilize resources (Lopez 2009). The chances are, even if factually guilty, most
accused could still be pronounced legally innocent, as long as they are able to mobilize their
personal resources to shield them from punishments. This could be in the form of bribing
the police or judges or by using political connections to force police and judges to declare
one as not guilty (Elman 2008; Moratalla 2000). As such, the criminal justice institutions
have weak capacities to punish the violators equally. On other hand, someone can easily be
punished for a crime he or she did not commit when their personal resources were not
sufficient to shield them from the personalistic application of the law.
As such, given the personalistic implementation of the law, a different form of
deterrence may be in place. Those whose view is that they cannot manipulate the
individual players that have access to the laws and legal institutions may be the ones
more deterred rom breaking the law. That is, individuals do not break the law NOT
because they are afraid of the legal consequences (as is the general case in the Western
societies) but because they know that they do not have enough political and social
resources to shield them from subsequent criminal prosecution. Conversely, individuals
break the law not because they view the government as illegitimate (again, as in the
general case of Western societies) but because they believe that they are assured that,
when they break the law, they have the political and social resources to shield them
from criminal prosecution.

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