What Can Go Wrong When Everything is Right? Using Organizational Justice to Understand Police Misconduct and Improve Personnel Systems

Authors

Antoine D. Busby, Stephen F. Austin State UniversityFollow
Meghan A. Thornton-Lugo, The University of AkronFollow
Laura Parker, University of Houston-DowntownFollow
Nicole Strah, University of North Carolina at CharlotteFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/

0000-0002-9157-0003

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25035/pad.2022.02.006

Abstract

Despite decades of attention paid to police reform, cases of office misconduct still continue to plague policing organizations. Assuming that organizations may still experience such officer malfeasance even when attempting to pursue best practices, we aim to explore how things can go wrong when everything else seems right. Specifically, we rely on trickle-down models of organizational justice, group engagement, and social identity to articulate how otherwise desirable organizational outcomes may produce detrimental outgroup biases. Based on our theoretical premise, we articulate specific changes that may be made to personnel systems that can avoid such officer misconduct in policing contexts.

Recommended Citation

Busby, Antoine D.; Thornton-Lugo, Meghan A.; Parker, Laura; and Strah, Nicole (2022) "What Can Go Wrong When Everything is Right? Using Organizational Justice to Understand Police Misconduct and Improve Personnel Systems," Personnel Assessment and Decisions: Number 8 : Iss. 2 , Article 6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25035/pad.2022.02.006
Available at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/pad/vol8/iss2/6

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Corresponding Author Information

Dr. Antoine D. Busby

Antoine.Busby@sfasu.edu