Internal Procedural Justice, Moral Alignment, and External Procedural Justice in Democratic Policing

Notwithstanding the popularity of the process-based model of policing among social scientists, research on factors that encourage police officers to engage in procedurally fair behavior is relatively scarce. Based on the fair policing from the inside out framework and survey data collected from Taiwan police officers, this study explored the connection between internal procedural justice and external procedural justice through the mechanisms of moral alignment with both supervisors and citizens and perceived citizen trustworthiness. Fair supervision was found to build up moral alignment between officers and supervisors and between officers and citizens, which in turn led to stronger commitment to responsiveness and fair treatment of the public. Internal procedural justice and moral alignment also cultivated officers’ perceptions of public trustworthiness, which similarly strengthened officers’ response and fair treatment toward the public