Police legitimacy and procedural justice play important roles in democratic policing for their ultimate influence on police-citizen interactions. Prior research pointed out a plausible model of procedural justice from “inside-out” in police departments, but not much is known in police academies designated to train and prepare cadets. Built upon this framework, a sample of 2050 Taiwan police cadets survey data was used to examine the mediating roles of cadets’ self-legitimacy and learning in the academy mediate the relationship between internal- and external-procedural justice, as well as explore the impacts of police career motivations (e.g., public service motivation) on the process. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to analyze the data, and the findings largely supported our hypothesized impacts of public service motivation and the intervening factors of self-legitimacy and learning in the academy. The present study contributed to theoretical development through testing the framework in a non-Western democracy and offered policy implications.
Buchanan et al. (Sat,) studied this question.