Procedural Justice

Beat Intro
Voiceover
00:00	This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest 
community policing topics facing our nation.

Interview
Barry Bratburd
00:08	Hello, my name is Barry Bratburd and, on behalf of the COPS Office, I’d like to 
introduce you to Dr. T. Bowman. Dr. Bowman is here to talk to us today about 
how and why the Arlington, Texas, Police Department is operationalizing 
procedural justice into their agency. First of all, Dr. Bowman, can you share with 
us what procedural justice is, what it looks like in a law enforcement agency?

Dr. T. Bowman
00:30	Yes, sure. It’s pretty simple. We have to treat citizens we interact with like we 
need them, like they’re important to us. So we have to treat them with dignity 
and respect. We have to give them a say. We have to listen to their side of the 
story and make sure that they understand that we really care in whatever way we 
interact with them.
	
Barry
00:51	Can you describe how you’re implementing procedural justice in the Arlington, 
Texas, Police Department?

T.
00:56	Well, I tell you, Barry, the most recent iteration of our emphasis on procedural 
justice has actually been connected with our efforts to reduce crime even further. 
We’re in a community where crime is relatively low because of police efforts and 
community policing partnerships. We recently started to meet with every 
employee and every group in the police department about even further reducing 
crime beyond our historical lows. We combined our emphasis on procedural 
justice with a need to enhance citizen engagement. We showed every employee 
in the organization how they work hand-in-hand, especially in this economy 
where there are no additional resources. Police officers, additional civilian 
personnel, and budget resources—we’ve been talking to every employee about 
the need to reduce crime by increasing compliance, voluntary compliance. 

We understand that by giving citizens a say, by making them feel respected by 
the police, by increasing our legitimacy among the citizen population, that we in 
turn increase their voluntary compliance with the law, which ultimately reduces 
crime in our city and gets more people voluntarily involved. We’ve engaged 
every aspect of the agency—sworn and non-sworn—in ensuring, whether they’re 
interacting with people across a records counter or taking reports by telephone, 
that they’re still interacting with citizens. They have an opportunity to listen and 
explain to people and do so in a way that makes them feel like we really respect 
who they are and what they do. 

Barry
02:51	Can you give us a couple more examples of how police interactions with the 
community have changed since you implemented procedural justice?

T.
02:57	Well certainly. I can give the records counter example again. For example, our 
records clerk—now that’s a non-sworn component of the police department—
they said that prior to the emphasis on procedural justice and citizen engagement, 
their primary responsibility in citizen interaction was to provide requested reports, 
in some cases do fingerprinting, respond to requests for criminal history 
information and files, and that sort of thing. What’s important is that they 
recognize that they had a number of interactions with citizens but never viewed 
them as opportunities to enhance our legitimacy among the citizens.

	After the emphasis on procedural justice, every employee had a say, an input; 
they vowed that from now on, in every interaction they had with a citizen across 
the records counter, they would view that as an opportunity to impress upon that 
citizen the importance of him or her to our community, to our police department, 
the fact that their opinion matters, and that we would commit to procedural 
justice in every interaction.

	The telephone report operator’s the same. I’ll use that example. What they had 
done, historically, was receive about a third of our crime reports by telephone. 
They would call victims of crime back and they would take the report. That’s 
been a pretty routine process. The citizen has a crime to report. They want to 
report it by phone versus having an officer go there physically, and so the 
telephone report operators have taken those reports. With the emphasis on 
procedural justice, they now see those interactions as opportunities. They 
understand that the way they treat people on the telephone can have an impact 
on how they see officers that they confront in some other physical interactions.

	Those are just two examples of the way that we’ve implemented procedural 
justice and the way that it’s made a difference to, not just the person doing it, 
but to the entire agency.

Barry 
05:16	Well it’s great to hear the perspective of your non-sworn personnel but how about 
the sworn officers? How do they feel about implementing procedural justice both 
at the organizational level and the community level?



T.
05:26	What the officers have told me is that the emphasis on procedural justice has 
given them clear direction on my expectation and the police expectation on the 
cultural aspects of the police department. They know that we want officers 
fighting crime. We want officers responding to calls. We want officers being 
proactive. We want them to continue their high levels of activity, but when it 
comes to treating citizens, we want them to do that with dignity and respect. We 
will tolerate nothing less. The officers are excited about that. They’re very clear 
on it, and they’re going forward with that message.

	I’d like to share just a quick story from just this week, just a couple of days ago. 
One of my officers, unsolicited, e-mailed me and said, “Chief, I just want you to 
know that Alfred came into our office today.” Alfred is a homeless guy. He was 
recently evicted. He’s schizophrenic. He’s also a substance abuser. Another 
officer has been working with MHMR trying to get him connected with a 
caseworker, trying to get him some help, and he recognizes that. When Alfred 
came into the office, he said, “Miss Stephanie, God blessed me today.” She said, 
“Oh yeah? What did he do?” He said, “Somebody stopped and gave me two 
apples. I can’t eat apples, and so I thought about you and Officer Griffith and I 
wanted to bring y’all these apples ‘cause you’re trying to help me.” For that 
person, the police are legitimate. For the officers in our city, they see that all the 
time because they treat people with dignity and respect.

Barry 
07:08	Wow, what a great example. What have been some of your agency’s successes in 
implementing procedural justice? Have you had any big challenges? If so, how 
have you addressed them?

T.
07:17	Well, all I have to talk about is success. I could go for the next several hours 
talking about successes. Let me tell you, what we’ve seen is that we cannot 
implement and continue to maintain our position on procedural justice without 
seeing some corresponding benefit. The citizens react to being treated with 
dignity and respect. The business community does so as well. What we’re seeing 
is, because of the way the cops treat the citizens and the interaction with business 
owners, we’re starting to see positive impact on economic development and 
business investment in our city. We’re starting to see a positive benefit where 
they’re starting to put more money into the city and pay more because of the way 
that they’re treated. That, in turn, benefits not only the cops but everybody in our 
city.

Barry 
08:10	What would you say to other chiefs, especially those who are considering 
institutionalizing procedural justice, and also to those who think it might just be 
the newest fad? What would you say to those chiefs?

T.
08:22	Well, it’s not a fad. It’s great policing. It’s not new policing, it’s great policing. 
In the words of one of my officers, it’s just treating people with good old-
fashioned kindness. It’s treating folks with dignity and respect. It’s what we 
who are the keepers of the Constitution, who are committed to Constitutional 
policing, who are committed to providing to citizens the kind of treatment that 
they deserve in this kind of government system, it’s an absolute necessity. 

I would say to every chief everywhere that, while we extend a hand to the 
citizens and we try to make sure that we’re treating citizens with dignity and 
respect, it’s critical that we do that to our employees as well. If we take the 
external and the internal approach and treat everybody like we need them, then 
we will provide the highest level of service to our citizens and our employees that 
we possibly can. It’s an absolute necessity. 

Barry 
09:22	Dr. Bowman, thank you so much for providing us with your expertise and your 
time today.

T. 
09:26	Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure.

Beat Exit
Voiceover: 	
09:29	The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS 
Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving 
grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, 
developing partnerships, and solving problems.


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