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In recent years, several studies on self-legitimacy of police officers were conducted; however, few have tested the unstable nature of legitimacy in different time periods. This paper aims to focus on the self-legitimacy of police officers and its impact on pro-organizational behavior in 2013 and 2016.

The study took place in eight regional police directorates in Slovenia. The number of participants amounted to 529 police officers in 2013 and 478 police officers in 2016 that have completed a paper and pencil survey that was pretested using a convenience sample of police officers studying as part-time undergraduate students.

Overall findings revealed organizational commitment as the strongest predictor of self-legitimacy of police officers in Slovenia. The invariance of the “core variables” and their influence on the self-legitimacy of police officers in different time periods was confirmed. Their perception of individual legitimacy, organizational commitment, education and years of service influenced pro-organizational behaviors of police officers.

Limitations of the study can be seen in the sincerity of participating police officers and the nature of self-legitimacy, which operates differently in different societies.

The results could be used for the improvement of policing in a young democratic country.

Legitimacy, procedural justice and other components of policing in a democratic society need to be tested globally, especially in young democracies. This study is an example of an ongoing, follow-up endeavor of researchers and the national police to reflect upon the development of policing.

The paper has confirmed the invariance of relations with colleagues, supervisors' procedural justice and audience legitimacy on the self-legitimacy in different time periods and societies.

The authors examine predictors of self-legitimacy for police officers belonging to the Military Police force of São Paulo (Brazil). Considering the variables mobilized by the literature on self-legitimacy, the authors seek to identify what explains the self-legitimacy of militarized police officers.

A survey was applied to 298 frontline police officers in the city of São Paulo, analyzing indicators separated into two groups: relationship dimension and organizational dimension. An ordinary least square model is used to test the “relationship” and “organizational” variables on police officers' self-legitimacy.

Effectiveness is the strongest predictor for self-legitimacy. Organizational justice and distributive justice also present important effects, as the perception of citizens' attitudes toward police reinforces the conception of self-legitimacy as a dialogical construct, comprising here the public's expectations of police work as well as the police officers' perceptions that they are respected and considered important by the public.

There are no other studies on self-legitimacy related to Brazilian police officers or exploring these aspects among police officers submitted to a militarized structure. These results contribute to the ongoing debate on the militarization of police activities and their possible effects on police legitimacy.

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.

Police officer perceptions of their own legitimacy can be important in shaping aspects of their performance and other organizational outcomes. The current study uses person-environment fit theory to assess the effects of value congruence with top managers, immediate supervisors and coworkers on officers' perceptions of self-legitimacy.

The study used a cross-sectional survey of nearly 250 front-line police officers from seven municipal police departments in Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky to examine the effects of perceived value congruence on officers’ self-legitimacy. A hierarchical model of fit is assessed using structural equation modeling.

Findings demonstrate that value congruence positively relates to officers’ reported self-legitimacy, suggesting that officers who perceive greater similarity in values with others in the organization will express more confidence in their authority.

Our findings add to research on police officers’ self-legitimacy, and the use of a hierarchical model of person-environment fit might offer implications for future research on police culture.

This study examined the effects of organizational justice and citizen respect to support for democratic policing through self-legitimacy among South Korean police officers.

The authors used survey data from 467 South Korean police officers in 2022. Structural equation model analysis was used to examine relationships between each variable.

This study found a positive relationship between organizational justice and self-assessed legitimacy. Also, citizen respect had a positive relationship with both police officers' self-assessed legitimacy and audience legitimacy. Self-assessed legitimacy had a significant effect on support for democratic policing, while perceived-audience legitimacy did not have a significant effect on support for democratic policing.

The current study provides evidence that self-legitimacy affects supporting democratic policing in a non-Western democracy. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to examine the role of police self-legitimacy as a link between organizational justice and citizen respect and the intended behaviors of police officers toward citizens.

The focus of this study is to examine Indian police officers' punitiveness toward violators of criminal sanctions attached to COVID-19 mitigation laws enacted by the Indian Penal Code. The authors draw from the conceptual frameworks and correlates typically employed in traditional crime and justice research and adapt them to the context of the pandemic. Additionally, the authors examine whether officers' punitive attitudes are related to their belief in self-legitimacy and their job assignment (civilian vs. armed personnel) in a country with inherited colonial policing legacies.

Data for the study came from 1,323 police officers in a northern state of India.

Findings suggest that officers with vicarious fear of COVID-19 infections (e.g. infection of family members) find the sanctions associated with the new laws harsh. Additionally, officers who subscribe to the classical attributions of offenders feel that the laws are not punitive enough. In contrast, those with deterministic views perceive the sanctions as excessively harsh. Findings also suggest that officers' self-legitimacy, and belief in the authority and responsibility vested in them, is a key predictor of their punitive attitudes. Finally, officers assigned to police lines are more punitive than those designated to patrol/traffic work.

Data or prior research on officers' punitive attitudes toward other violations (non-COVID-19 violations) is unavailable for comparison with this study’s findings.

No prior research has examined the relationship between police officers' perceptions of self-legitimacy, their belief in the authority vested in them by the state, their belief in their role as police officers and their relationship to their punitive attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors associated with management-level officers’ sensitivity to various manifestations of the “Ferguson effect.”

A survey was administered to police officers attending an advanced training institute in the Southeastern USA in the fall of 2015. Specifically, a series of items first inquired about negative attitudes attributable to deadly force incidents throughout the country, followed by items tapping into theoretically relevant concepts including self-legitimacy, audience legitimacy, and peer attachment.

Findings suggest that like line-level officers, police managers may also harbor various attitudes attributable to a Ferguson effect – including less willingness to be proactive, reduced motivation, less job enjoyment, and a belief that crime will ultimately rise as officers “de-police.” However, officers who believe their communities afford legitimacy to the police were less likely to report these sentiments. Study limitations and avenues for future research are also discussed.

This is the first study to consider how police managers have been impacted by highly publicized deadly force incidents in recent years. It underscores the importance of maintaining legitimacy in the public eye, particularly in the post-Ferguson era of American policing.

This chapter examines how citizen journalism affects perceptions of legitimacy among local residents and police officers.

Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with residents and police officers.

Local residents are mostly willing to obey police commands, but a lack of trust in the police and fear of retaliation hinder willingness to cooperate with the police. Citizens’ willingness to follow police orders is mostly a way for them to end the encounter as quickly as possible so the contact will not extend for a prolonged period of time and cause even more serious consequences. Citizens have recorded the police in the past when they witnessed officers not following proper procedures. The police view citizens recording them as a form of defiance and while this makes policing challenging, police officers interviewed still hold high levels of self-legitimacy, most likely due to their organizational and occupational culture. Recording the police has emerged as a way for citizens to challenge police authority and legitimacy during encounters.

While recording the police has increased with recent technological advances, little empirical research has examined its impact on policing and police-community relations. This study connects three critical issues in policing – technology, citizen journalism, and police legitimacy – by assessing the impact of recording the police on police legitimacy in the eyes of the public and police officers. Not only does this study fill our gap in knowledge on citizens recording the police, but it also furnishes valuable implications for policy and future study.

Using an online survey design and a primary data collection of police officers working in a large city in the southern United States, the current study finds evidence that officers perceptions of police legitimacy can be divided into two types: self-identification and perceived external legitimacy. The study investigates the role of perceived organizational support, leader–member exchange and demographic factors in predicting perceptions of self-identification and perceived external legitimacy.

The police legitimacy literature has focused primarily on the public's perceptions of the legitimacy of police. There is limited understanding of the components of officers' attitudes towards police legitimacy, or the predictors of those components.

Results of the Ordinary Least Squares regression models indicate perceived organizational support mediates the relationship between leader–member exchange and self-identification and perceived external legitimacy. Exploratory mediation analyses indicate perceived organizational support mediates both of those relationships.

The results provide further evidence that the two types of self-perceived legitimacy are analytically distinct. They differ from previous work in that demographic and organizational variables predict each type similarly, and that one predictor (POS) mediates the influence of another (LMX). The results have implications for future police self-legitimacy research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the antecedents of sheriff deputies’ perceived legitimacy of their agency’s citizen advisory council (CAC).

The authors obtained survey data from 567 sheriff deputies in a southeastern state. The authors first asked whether respondents knew their agency had a CAC, and then asked those who responded affirmatively a series of questions about the legitimacy of the council. The authors then ran an ordinary least squares regression that included organizational justice, self-legitimacy and public scrutiny as independent variables predicting perceived legitimacy of the CAC.

Deputies who perceived greater organizational justice from command staff were significantly more likely to perceive the CAC as legitimate.

In response to strained police/community relations, reform advocates have urged the police to embrace a more democratic style of policing, including allowing for more citizen oversight of agencies. The study sheds light on how line-level officers perceive such oversight.