Police Chiefs, Organizational Justice, and Body-Worn Cameras: A Key to Releasing Video Footage
Date | 01 May 2022 |
DOI | 10.1177/02750740221084330 |
Published date | 01 May 2022 |
Author | Daniel E. Bromberg |
Subject Matter | Articles |
Police Chiefs, Organizational Justice, and
Body-Worn Cameras: A Key to Releasing
Video Footage
Daniel E. Bromberg
Abstract
This study addresses a missing link in the organizational justice literature—a police chief’s trust in their officers. Most orga-
nizational and procedural justice studies examine these concepts from an officer’s perspective, but fail to capture how leaders
perceive their officers. Trust, however, is a relational concept, which implies there might be effects of a leader’s trust in their
officers. This study addresses if a police chief’s level of trust in officers will affect their behavior as related to the release of
body-worn camera footage. Body-worn cameras have been adopted across the United States and all over the world. However,
if the footage they capture is rarely shared, cameras impact will be minimal. The findings suggest that if a chief has higher levels
of trust in their officers, then the chief’s willingness to release footage is increased, potentially leading to an improved rela-
tionship between law enforcement and communities.
Keywords
organizational justice, procedural justice, trust, policing, body-worn cameras
Introduction
The alignment between values, leadership, and operative
systems manifests in what many call organizational justice
or work-place justice. It has been argued that organizational
justice mediates the relationship between civilians and law
enforcement—primarily the idea is that police officers’
outward behavior and actions can be explained by their per-
ceptions of organizational justice (Myhill & Bradford, 2013;
Bradford & Quinton, 2014; Trinkner et al., 2016; Haas et al.,
2015; Van Craen, 2016; Van Craen & Skogan, 2017; Sun
et al., 2018). Organizational justice scholarship is preceded
by decades of scholarship about procedural justice (Walker
et al., 1974; Tyler, 1988), which offers substantial insight
and a foundation upon which to build, but organizational
justice focuses on internal dynamics rather than the civilian-
law enforcement dynamic. The focus of this study is on
police chiefs’trust in their officers alongside a chief’s
general perception of organizational integrity—two central
components of organizational justice. Specifically, I look at
trust as it relates to the public release of body-worn camera
(BWC) footage. Moreover, I examine how BWCs in
general have effected relationships within a law enforcement
organization.
While internal organizational trust has been a mainstay of
organizational justice, limited studies have examined it from
a chief’s perspective. Nevertheless, there is strong evidence
that the behavior of anyone in leadership sets the tone for
the entire agency. For example, research on authentic leader-
ship, in which “relationships are characterized by a) transpar-
ency, openness, and trust, b) guidance toward worthy
objectives, and c) an emphasis on follower development,”
(Gardner et al., 2005, p. 345) correlates with several out-
comes including concepts related to trust, job performance,
job satisfaction, and organizational commitment (Gardner
et al., 2011). While these characteristics may be prevalent
across all leaders, Schaffer (2008) identifies a perception
from new police recruits that, “the nature of police work
and the legal and symbolic importance of trust and ethics
embedded in the profession require leaders to demonstrate
more honesty and integrity than those in many other occupa-
tions,”(p.15). Therefore, if a leader trusts their employees
this may lead to a better relationship between civilians and
law enforcement. To be clear—the relationship between
civilians and officers is not what is being analyzed in this
study, nevertheless, it is a major implication.
Department of Political Science, University of New Hampshire, Durham,
New Hampshire, USA
Corresponding Author:
Daniel E. Bromberg, Department of Political Science, University of New
Hampshire, 20 Academic Way, 321 Horton Social Science Center,
Durham, New Hampshire, USA.
Email: daniel.bromberg@unh.edu
Article
American Review of Public Administration
2022, Vol. 52(4) 255–267
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/02750740221084330
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