RT Article
T1 In their own eyes: an empirical examination of police self-legitimacy
JF International journal of comparative and applied criminal justice
VO 43
IS 2
SP 99
OP 116
A1 Tankebe, Justice
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1753963273
AB In their paper Beyond Procedural Justice, Bottoms and Tankebe specified two interrelated dimensions of legitimacy: audience legitimacy and self-legitimacy. Criminologists have given considerable attention to audience legitimacy, but police officers’ belief in their own legitimacy remains understudied. This paper extends Bottoms and Tankebe’s theory and reports findings on some of its key propositions, using survey data from a UK police force. Three key findings emerge. First, contrary to previous studies, feelings of recognition by supervisors and clientele did not predict self-legitimacy; self-legitimacy was found to depend on feelings of peer recognition and acceptance. Second, self-legitimacy predicted officers’ commitment to external procedural justice but not their moral orientations towards crime victims. Finally, perceived police effectiveness but not supervisor recognition - that is, internal procedural justice - was the key predictor both of external procedural justice and of normative orientations towards crime victims. The implications of these findings are discussed.
K1 Self-legitimacy
K1 external procedural justice
K1 Legitimacy
K1 Organisational justice
K1 Police Effectiveness
K1 recognition triad
DO 10.1080/01924036.2018.1487870