Exploring the Impact of Negative Publicity and Organizational Justice Among Officers of a Southwest Police Agency
Abstract
Three years since the murder of George Floyd and police departments, nationwide, are amid a staffing crisis. While the outcomes of “de-policing” have received much empirical attention, little has been placed on understanding how officer’s attitudes were impacted, and how this affects their interactions with the public. This study uses survey data from a sample of 138 predominately Hispanic police officers to investigate the impact that negative publicity and organizational justice have on self-legitimacy (i.e., the confidence an officer has in their authority). Accordingly, multivariate regressions are estimated to test the independent effects of negative publicity and organizational justice on self-legitimacy. Modeling procedures are repeated using two distinct measures of external self-legitimacy and one measure of self-identification self-legitimacy. The findings reveal that officers who were less motivated due to negative publicity were likely to have low self-legitimacy, however, the perceptions of the organization confounded this relationship. Implications for theory, policing strategies, and future research are discussed.
Subject Area
Law enforcement|Criminology
Recommended Citation
Durán, Matthew J, "Exploring the Impact of Negative Publicity and Organizational Justice Among Officers of a Southwest Police Agency" (2023). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI30493981.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI30493981