This chapter considers some ways in which police leaders can best ensure that their workforces pay due attention to the legitimacy of their contacts with the public, and work harder at fostering their legitimacy in the eyes of the public. I suggested in Chapter Four that key factors in embedding procedural justice in police organisations are likely to be: clear leadership and advocacy of procedural fairness principles; adopting internal styles of management that are consistent with principles of organisational justice; training for front-line staff and their supervisors, including specific de-escalation skills in the handling of conflict and defiance; and ensuring that effective community consultation mechanisms are in place. This chapter focuses on issues of leadership and organisational justice, and discusses police training and qualifications. It does not cover community consultation in any detail.

Leadership

At one level, embedding procedural justice principles in police organisations might seem to be simply a question of ‘selling’ the benefits to the workforce. To an outsider, these may seem overwhelming: treating people with procedural justice secures compliance and cooperation from those with whom the police have contact; it reduces non-compliance and thus increases officer safety; and it promises to save money, at least in the medium term, and thus increases the financial security of the organisation and its employees. There are also those more principled reasons for adopting procedural justice – that an indicator of a healthy nation is the degree to which those who exercise power over citizens behave fairly and with justice. As will be discussed in Chapter Six, the instrumental benefits – compliance, cooperation and safety – may secure immediate purchase with the workforce but there is a risk that focusing solely on these at the expense of arguments of principle could be counterproductive.

However, it would be a mistake to imagine that procedural justice will be an easy ‘sell’. It is a truism that organisational change in any institution with a long history and traditions will demand a great deal of time and energy from leaders, who will also need to ensure that they carry their middle managers with them. There are reasons for thinking that this is especially true of change in policing. Many academics have described police occupational culture, with many common features. Robert Reiner (2000) identified seven defining characteristics: a sense of mission, suspicion (or cynicism), isolation/solidarity, conservatism, machismo, pragmatism and prejudice.