Victoria Herrington

Organisational and procedural justice: a review of the literature and its implications for policing

Organisational justice and procedural justice are complementary concepts that relate to the way individuals make judgments about fairness and outcomes when considering their interactions with others. Organisational justice and procedural justice comprise largely the same concepts, although their foci are different. Inwardly facing organisational justice is particularly concerned with the implications of justice judgments on staff attitudes, staff retention, workplace relations, productivity and performance. Outwardly facing procedural justice is—in the context of this paper—concerned with the interactions between police organisations and the public. This paper reports on the findings of a systematic review of the literature examining organisational and procedural justice in policing. We searched three comprehensive databases for literature on these themes. Fifty-seven empirical items were returned; five relating to organisational justice and police organisations, and 52 exploring procedural justice and police–public interactions. We explore this literature, and consider the implications for policing. We do so to set the scene for the other papers in this special edition. We conclude by noting that the extant literature has much to help police organisations better manage their internal and external relations, but that further effort should be made to turn empirically sound and theoretically interesting research into easily digestible and practically applicable models for police practitioners at all levels of the organisation.

Organisational and procedural justice: applying theory to police practice

This special issue of the Journal for Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism brings together original empirical and conceptual works on organisational and procedural justice. In particular we focus on the implications of the extant literature for policing, and how police organisations can better manage their internal and external relations with stakeholders. The work contained in this special edition emanates from the International Colloquium on Organisational and Procedural Justice held at the Australian Institute of Police Management (AIPM) in October 2012. The Colloquium was a bilateral meeting of academics and senior policing practitioners from across the world, with the aim of discussing three key themes:

Valuing different shades of blue: From diversity to inclusion and the challenge of harnessing difference

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine Australian efforts to promote gender equality in policing, suggesting that future police leaders will be confronted with the challenge of ensuring that their organisations are not only demographically diverse, but more importantly, that they are inclusive. Design/methodology/approach The paper utilises current Australian efforts to promote gender equality (case study), as a means of examining the way in which the conceptual distinction between diversity and inclusion plays out in practice. Findings The paper finds that current efforts to promote gender equality are being used as a proxy for diversity more broadly and are overly focussed upon demographic diversity. Less attention is being paid to the development of inclusive work environments, which will present a challenge to future leaders who are required to manage more heterogenous workforces. Research limitations/implications Research into the efficacy of existing strategies, which will further theoretical debate, is proposed, with a call for research by those from a wider range of disciplines, in addition to psychology and management studies, being made. Practical implications It is recommended that policing organisations utilise language focussed upon inclusion rather than diversity and foster cultures of learning, beginning at the academy. Originality/value The paper contributes to the global debate on workforce diversity by drawing on a Southern Hemisphere perspective on contemporary efforts in policing. This complements extant studies on diversity which emanate primarily from the UK and USA, and provides an important reflection for police organisations across the world as they proceed with good intentions around creating much needed cultures of difference in thinking and operating.