NCJ Number
247275
Date Published
April 2014
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This multimedia presentation (oral lecture and slide presentation) discusses issues related to the establishment of police legitimacy, which must be a focus of police leaders.
Abstract
The presentation is by Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum at the Real World Seminar (April 21, 2014) sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department's National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Dr. Rosenbaum is te director of the NIJ-sponsored National Police Research Platform Project, whose goal is to advance the state of knowledge and practice in American Policing. As part of this project, Dr. Rosenbaum and his colleagues have developed standardized performance measures that provide the foundation for local and national benchmarks of police organizational excellence. Police legitimacy and procedural justice and its monitoring and measurement by police leaders are the featured topics. "Legitimacy," as used in this presentation, draws on the consensus of researchers in this field in offering the following definition "a psychological property of an authority, institution, or social arrangement that leads those connected to it to believe that it is appropriate, proper, and just." In the arena of law enforcement, legitimacy rests on the community's view that police act professionally, fairly, competently, and consistently among a socioeconomically, culturally, and racially diverse population. The slides in this presentation document both the failures and successes of law enforcement agencies in achieving this goal. The presentation also discusses the importance of police leaders not only defining standards for behavior and training that lead to legitimacy and procedural justice, but also the regular monitoring and measurement of the degree to which officers are meeting these standards. The multimedia presentation with slides lasts approximately 1 hour and 19 minutes.