The most general perspective on the legitimacy of a social institution relies upon the acceptance that the legitimised subject has a right to govern, and that the governed 378 ARCHIVES OF CRIMINOLOGY recognise that right. Understanding it this way, legitimacy can be analysed from two perspectives: normative when it concerns objective criteria that permit evaluation when the institution is legitimate (normative foundations for its appointments and rules for its functioning); and empirical, when it pertains to the awareness of citizens that a particular institution is legitimate. Over the last 25 years, a number of important works on the subject of legitimacy of the police were understood via empirical means. Based upon these, one can differentiate two opposing approaches towards police-citizen relations. Although both rely on collaboration, they indicate alternate conditions which might determine this. The first approach instrumentally characterises itself as achieved by citizens using a cost-benefit analysis of the results of working with the police; citizens are more amenable to co-operation when the possible benefits are higher than the incurred costs. From this perspective, citizens accept the activities of the police and declare a willingness to work with them, if in their eyes the police are applying realistic sanctions towards people who disturb the norms of the law, are fighting effectively against criminal and undesirable behaviours, and are treating all citizens in an equal manner. Different motives for working with the police accompany citizens in their attitudes to trials. In this case, co-operation results from internal recognition of the legitimacy of the police by citizens. If citizens believe their police to be legitimate, they will be more inclined to co-operate with them and obey the law. Legitimacy results here, above all, from the conviction that the police are fulfilling their duty in a just procedural manner. The most empirically-supported research into attitudes about trials has been determined by the American model by T.R. Tyler. Legitimacy in his view assumes trust towards police by citizens and their internal convictions about service in regards to their recommendations. Understood this way, legitimacy is strongly determined by the fairness of police procedures, and is itself an essential influence on the willingness of citizens to co-operate with the police and their readiness to abide by their laws. After a period of domination in police research about the concept of legitimacy being strongly linked to procedural fairness, there were attempts at revising and modifying this theory. An alternative to Tyler’s definition of police legitimacy was proposed by British researchers J. Jackson and B. Bradford. In their view, the police’s legitimacy is formed from three elements: internal conviction about police services, shared social value of the police, and the legality of the police’s activities. However, to independently differentiate, police legitimacy produces here the same effects as in Tyler’s concept, and so determines for citizens their willingness to co-operate with the police and their readiness to abide by the law. Presented in the following study of research on the legitimacy of the police, a methodology is given for testing both of the previously-mentioned concepts, i.e. Tyler’s model, where trust of the police is a basic element of legitimacy, and Jackson and Bradford’s model, where trust is treated as a separate social phenomenon, though it is linked with the legitimacy of many related factors. The fundamental goal of the presented research determined however to attempt answering questions about which theoretical principles of the procedural model of police legitimacy, including former ARCHIVES OF CRIMINOLOGY 379 foreign research within this scope, do they find applied in the Polish socio-cultural context. Polish research was undertaken in 2013 under the auspices of the international research project “Legitimacy Policing and Criminal Justice in Central and European Europe” amongst 374 law students from various academic centres via an online survey. The research had an exploratory character and was to establish a starting point for further research into the legitimacy of the police in Polish society.