Organizational support and democratic policing attitudes: A mediation analysis of Taiwanese officers

This study examines the effects of organizational support on officers' attitudes toward the use of force and the protection of suspects' rights both directly and indirectly through psychological factors of self-legitimacy and moral disengagement. Based on data from a survey of 498 officers conducted in the autumn of 2022, this study reveals that organizational support has a positive total relationship with both support for force and respect suspects' rights. While its effect on respect suspects' rights is mostly direct, its influence on support for force is chiefly indirect, through increasing both self-legitimacy and moral disengagement.