The role of trust and transparency in the pursuit of procedural and organisational justice

Central to the ability of the police to provide fair and effective services is the generation and preservation of reasonable levels of trust and transparency. For the police to be perceived as just internally (organisational justice) and externally (procedural justice), operations, decision-making and related behaviours must generally be transparent and must generate a degree of trust. Internally, officers must be able to understand how agency leaders make decisions and treat personnel; optimally, that understanding will facilitate the emergence of a high degree of trust between line personnel and those who direct their operations. Externally, the public must be able to understand how agencies behave in order to have confidence that their police force is working to ensure a high degree of efficiency, efficacy and equity in operations; optimally, that knowledge will ensure that citizens trust police personnel and forces. This paper examines the role that trust and transparency play in efforts to create police services with a high degree of organisational and procedural justice.