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The extent to which police officers obey instructions and policies is of permanent concern to police leaders and the community. This is especially the case when it comes to preventing police misconduct, such as the use of excessive force. In the current study we examined officer compliance from a procedural justice and social exchange perspective. Using data collected among 536 police officers of the Metropolitana Police in Buenos Aires, we explored to what extent internal procedural justice and trust are related to: (1) officer compliance with supervisors and policies; and (2) officer endorsement of regulations on the use of force. The results indicate that perceptions of fair treatment by supervisors and trust in supervisors are positively associated with (stated) compliance. Our findings suggest that a procedural justice approach may facilitate the implementation of police policies and contribute to preventing police violence.

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.

Notwithstanding the popularity of the process-based model of policing among social scientists, research on factors that encourage police officers to engage in procedurally fair behavior is relatively scarce. Based on the fair policing from the inside out framework and survey data collected from Taiwan police officers, this study explored the connection between internal procedural justice and external procedural justice through the mechanisms of moral alignment with both supervisors and citizens and perceived citizen trustworthiness. Fair supervision was found to build up moral alignment between officers and supervisors and between officers and citizens, which in turn led to stronger commitment to responsiveness and fair treatment of the public. Internal procedural justice and moral alignment also cultivated officers' perceptions of public trustworthiness, which similarly strengthened officers' response and fair treatment toward the public.

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