Reflections on organisational justice among police officers investigating rape and serious sexual offences in England and Wales

Organisational justice occurs when employees consider the actions and procedures within their workplace to be fair and equitable, but the evidence of whether and how this operates in a policing context is limited. We have used the concept of organisational justice to contextualise and examine the results from our data across five police constabularies, with a specific focus on investigators of rape and serious sexual offences. We share insights gained from interviews and focus groups from Operation Soteria, a nationwide policing and research collaboration to develop systemic improvements in the outcomes of rape and serious sexual offences cases. Primary data collected from 129 participants in interviews and focus groups suggest that police officers do not feel a sufficient investment in their learning and well-being needs. Feelings of being unsupported in the workplace reflect a lack of organisational justice, impacting on officers’ capacity to support victims to the best of their ability. We make recommendations to enable transformational change in rape and serious sexual offences investigations, requiring an organisational shift and reframing the current learning offer for rape and serious sexual offences investigators.