ETHICS TRAINING FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

Ethics Training for Law Enforcement

Ethics Training for Law Enforcement

American citizens are constantly prodded and inundated with story after sordid story; and incident after horrific incident of the gross improprieties of a small percentage of law enforcement officials. It is ashamed before the Good Lord to have to turn on the television set, only to see a prominent Assistant District Attorney arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in an airport parking lot for soliciting a minor on-line to commit a lewd act in-transit. Or, seeing a small, tightly knit group of police officers from a medium sized precinct on the evening news; beating an alleged car thief beyond human comprehension. Even furthermore, trying their best to wave helicopter news crews away so that they could possibly finish what they had started. How about two police officers, on the cusp of retirement, looking to, “cash-in”, on their many, many years of dedicated service to the department by setting up their own, personal brothel & drug cartel. It is stories such as these, which should make the average American citizen cringe to even think that these types of things do, in fact, go on in departments, precincts, Wards, Burroughs, counties, and cities all across this nation. What the average American citizen must realize is this: Law enforcement personnel are also part of the human experience as much as every other American is Understanding this resolute fact, we must also take into account the harsh truth that we live in a Western culture that still feeds on, “old-school”, rules and, “jaded ideologies”. But even having stated these precise points, we must never, ever roguishly undermine the Constitution, which is the foundational bedrock that sets the rules that make up our unique system of American justice. The relationship between law enforcement administrators and the valiant patrolmen & patrolwomen who don the uniform everyday is a complicated marriage, to say the very least. This relationship is multi-faceted… Law enforcement administrators have their own set of rules; and the, “brotherhood”, of law enforcement officers has their own sets of rules as well.

The types of seemingly conflicting, established rules and codes, and unwritten, rules and codes that we are going to focus on are: The comparisons and contrasts between the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics that each and every law officer swears to uphold with their very lives when they take their oaths as law enforcement officials, and the, “glass-shield”, that the same rookie is given on their very first day on the force. Secondly, the stark differences between the Law Enforcement Moral Code of Ethics and, “Street-Justice”. Lastly, the failure of law enforcement administrators to ensure that every single police officer is given the proper care, coaching, and superior emotional support that they so vitally need; after an incident that involves the use of lethal force ending in the death of a subject or fellow law enforcement officer. We, as American citizens, must not only focus on the short-term causes of crime and ...