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Recently, the interest of scholars studying procedural justice in policing has shifted from the relationship between procedural justice and citizen compliance to trust in police officers’ perceptions of who exercises it. This study explores the relationship between organizational justice and the perception of procedural justice from the perspective of police officers. Furthermore, it investigates the mediating roles of discretion and responsiveness.

Using 441 survey responses from South Korean police officers, a mediation model is outlined and tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice had indirect effects on the perceived importance of procedural justice. Moreover, discretion and responsiveness mediate the relationship between organizational justice and perceived procedural justice.

Officers who perceive police fairness are more likely to have a positive perception of procedural justice toward citizens when they have a higher level of discretion and responsiveness. However, police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice are not directly linked to their perceptions of procedural justice.

This study contributes to the generalization of knowledge by empirically testing Van Craen’s theoretical model of the Korean police. It also expands the existing theoretical model by investigating the influence of overall organizational justice and its possible mediators on procedural justice.

This paper aims to assess whether internal procedural justice is directly and indirectly through self-legitimacy connected to external procedural justice among Taiwanese police officers.

Survey data used in this study were collected from 316 Taiwanese police officers in 2019. Structural equation modeling was performed to examine the direct and indirect relationships between internal and external procedural justice.

Supervisors' internal procedural justice is directly related to the external procedural justice rendered to the public by police officers. Internal procedural justice also directly enhances officers' perceptions of internal legitimacy and external legitimacy. Greater senses of internal legitimacy are then accompanied by higher external procedural justice.

Survey data collected from a non-random sample of officers limit the study findings' generalizability. Organizational justice in the form of supervisory justice is instrumental in promoting officers' perception of self-legitimacy and their delivery of fair treatment to the public.

The present study represents a first attempt to link two important veins of studies in recent policing literature, organizational justice and officer self-legitimacy. This study provides needed evidence to support the value of supervisory justice in policing in a non-Western democracy.

Since 9/11, Muslims have experienced discrimination and scrutiny from authorities. For many, this experience has damaged their trust in law enforcement and left them with the impression that they are viewed as suspect. This study seeks to better understand the relationship between Muslims' perceived police bias and trust, and how procedural justice may shape this relationship.

The authors collected survey data from 398 Muslims in Sydney, Australia, as part of a larger study on immigrants' views of police. Participants were surveyed on a range of topics including contact with police, global assessments of police procedural justice and how they believe police treat their cultural group.

Overall, the authors find that the extent to which people perceive police bias is associated with their level of trust in police. Greater preconceived bias is associated with lower trust in police. The authors also find that perceiving police as procedurally just is positively related to trust. Importantly, this study finds a significant interaction effect between perceptions of police bias and procedural justice on Muslims' trust in police. Specifically, for those who hold the view that police are unbiased, perceiving police as generally procedural just has a strong positive effect on trust. For those who view police as biased against Muslims, procedural justice has a weak but positive effect on trust. This interaction effect suggests that perceived bias may shape how Muslims interpret police treatment of Muslims.

This study is the first to explore how perceived police bias and perceptions of procedural justice predict and interact to shape Muslims' trust in police, advancing existing procedural justice policing scholarship.

The purpose of this paper is to review the “state of the art” in research on police legitimacy. The authors consider two bodies of theory and empirical research on police legitimacy: one rooted in social psychology and concerned with individual attitudes, and the other based on organizational institutionalism. The authors contrast the theories, discuss the methods with which propositions have been examined, and take stock of the empirical evidence. The authors then turn to a direct comparison of the theories and their predictions.

Critical review and comparison of two bodies of literature.

Police legitimacy is a phenomenon that can be properly understood only when it is addressed at both individual and organizational levels. A large body of social psychological research on police legitimacy has been conducted at the individual level, though it has dwelled mainly on attitudes, and the empirical evidence on the relationships of attitudes to behavior is weak. A much smaller body of research on organizational legitimacy in policing has accumulated, and it appears to have promise for advancing our understanding of police legitimacy.

The understanding of police legitimacy can be deepened by the juxtaposition of these two bodies of theory and research.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically and comprehensively review the literature on procedural justice in policing, in the context of both police-citizen encounters and organizational decision making.

The current study reflects a narrative meta-review of procedural justice within policing generated through a systematic and exhaustive search of several academic databases (e.g. Criminal Justice Abstracts, Criminology: A SAGE Full Text Collection, EBSCO Host, PsychInfo, etc.).

The current meta-review identified 46 studies that matched the selection criteria. In this body of research, 28 studies analyzed procedural justices within the context of police-citizen encounters and 18 studies examined procedural justice within the context of police organization decision making. In general, the body of research yields two main findings. First, citizens’ perceptions of procedural justice during interactions with the police positively affect their views of police legitimacy, satisfaction with police services, satisfaction with interaction disposition, trust in the police, and confidence in the police. Second, the perception of police personnel of procedural justice in organizational decision making positively influences their views of decision outcomes, trust in the administration, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, desire to stay with the agency, and overall views of the agency.

The practical implications derived from this meta-review are twofold. First, police personnel engaged in police-citizen encounters reap many benefits when they treat citizens with fairness and maintain an encounter process that is marked by objectivity and equity. Second, police supervisors and administrators reap benefits when their subordinates perceive that there is procedural justice within the organization.

The state-of-the-art meta-review on procedural justice in policing is the first of its kind. This study comprehensively reviews the literature on two important bodies of policing research. This study will be useful for researchers who wish to further explore procedural justice issues in policing, and for police managers/administrators who wish to strengthen citizens’ perceptions of the police and their employees’ perceptions of the organization.

There are a number of individual and contextual variables that influence public opinion of the police but we know little about the public opinion regarding state law enforcement agencies. Prior studies involving municipal police and other criminal justice agencies indicate that the perceptions of procedural justice, or fair treatment, are important predictors of citizen satisfaction with police services. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether individuals who perceive procedurally just treatment during their contact with a state patrol officer improve the levels of satisfaction with the state patrol.

This paper presents the results of a public opinion study (n=846) regarding the Colorado State Patrol conducted in 2009. A subsample of 393 individuals who had contact with the state patrol and were further surveyed about their contact with the officer. Logistic regression models were used to examine individual- and contextual-level variables influence satisfaction with the state patrol and whether this relationship was mediated by the perceptions of procedural justice.

The authors found that individuals who perceive higher levels of procedural justice expressed higher satisfaction with the state patrol. Females, older respondents, and non-white respondents expressed greater satisfaction, as well as those who had voluntary contact or were not arrested. More importantly, procedural justice mediated the effect of involuntary contact and arrest on levels of satisfaction, and while non-white respondents were less likely to experience procedural justice, when levels of procedural justice are controlled for, they have higher levels of satisfaction.

The findings emphasize the significance of citizen perceptions of procedural justice during contacts with members of the state patrol. The current study contributes to our knowledge of procedural justice and citizen satisfaction with police encounters given previous research on citizen satisfaction with police focuses almost exclusively on local-level agencies, and research on procedural justice asks the respondents almost exclusively about the police in general.

Procedural justice is important for fostering peoples’ willingness to cooperate with police. Theorizing suggests this relationship results because procedural justice enhances perceptions that the police are legitimate and entitled to be supported. The purpose of this paper is to examine how legitimacy perceptions moderate the effect of procedural justice policing on Muslims’ willingness to cooperate with police.

Survey data from 800 Muslims in Australia are used.

This study shows Muslims’ procedural justice perceptions are positively associated with two types of cooperation: willingness to cooperate with police in general crime control efforts; and willingness to report terror threats to police. Muslims’ perceptions of police legitimacy and law legitimacy also influence willingness to cooperate. Specifically, police legitimacy is more important for predicting general willingness to cooperate with police, while law legitimacy is more important for predicting Muslims’ willingness to report terror threats. Importantly, legitimacy perceptions moderate the relationship between procedural justice and both types of cooperation. Specifically, procedural justice promotes cooperation more strongly for those who question the legitimacy of police or the legitimacy of counter-terrorism laws, but the moderation effects differ across the two cooperation contexts. The findings have implications for procedural justice scholarship and for counter-terrorism policing.

The current paper examines an under-explored aspect of legitimacy; it examines police legitimacy perceptions, but also examines how people view the legitimacy of laws police enforce (i.e. law legitimacy). It is argued that perceptions about law legitimacy can also impact people’s willingness to cooperate with police.

This study examines the short- and long-term changes in officers' attitudes toward four elements of procedural justice (i.e. trustworthiness, respect, neutrality and voice) after a department-wide procedural justice training program.

This study utilized the pretest–posttest, single-group design to evaluate the training with two waves of officer surveys and conducted multivariate analyses to assess the factors that could have an impact on the training effects.

The training was effective in increasing officers' support for all four elements of procedural justice immediately, and the effects remained significant over 18 months. In addition, the analyses found that there were racial differences in officers' attitudes before and after the training, and the immediate supervisors' priority played an important role in the training effects.

There has been limited systematic research on police training. This study contributes to the understanding of how procedural justice training can help improve police-community relations and reduce the attitudinal differences between White officers and minority officers.

Though contemporary police organizational behavior scholars often limit their measure of organizational justice to just supervisory procedural justice, this study examines how the additional dimensions of supervisor trustworthiness and peer procedural justice compare with procedural justice in their role shaping police outcomes.

A survey of 638 police officers in Zagreb, Croatia, was used to regress three separate dimensions of organizational justice on key officer attitudes toward their duties.

The authors found that supervisor trustworthiness and peer procedural justice were the dominant predictors of officers' rule compliance and trust in the public.

The findings suggest that police scholars and practitioners seeking to better understand the role of officer judgments on resisting agency reform should consider the precedent in corporate behavior research to specifically test the unique roles of multiple components of police organizational behavior on policing outcomes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented many challenges for contemporary police. The present research examines public assessments of police responsibility and performance during the pandemic using a procedural justice paradigm.

Participants (N = 104) rated images of a police officer, including when using different items of personal protective equipment (PPE), along the core dimensions of procedural justice. Participants then completed survey questions about their assessments of the police’s responsibility and performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Findings from our regression analyses indicate that participants’ perceptions of procedural justice are positively related to their assessments of police responsibility and performance. Our findings also indicate that participants’ perceptions of procedural justice can be affected by the police’s use of different items of PPE, including face masks, face shields, goggles and medical gloves.

The present research uses procedural justice, a well-trodden paradigm from past empirical works, to examine perceptions of police amidst a time of much societal change. The findings present important practical implications for police who must continue to manage public perceptions while providing service during the pandemic.