Understanding police officers’ trust and trustworthy behavior: A work relations framework

Abstract

In recent years, theorization and research on citizens’ trust in the police have expanded enormously. Compared with citizens’ trust, police officers’ trust – both in citizens and in supervisors – has attracted very little attention. Further, it is striking that, although scholars have pointed to police officers’ procedural justice as a key factor for building public trust in the police, the question of how trustworthy police behavior can be achieved has hardly been theorized. To help fill in these gaps and understand police officers’ functioning, I offer a work relations framework. The building blocks for this approach come from different scientific disciplines: criminology, psychology, management, and political science/public administration. Theoretical elements and empirical indications from different fields are combined into a framework that aims at widening the scope of police research. More specifically, it identifies origins and consequences of police officers’ trust and origins of officers’ trustworthy behavior.