POLICE ETHICS

Police Ethics



Abstract

The issue of the ethical behavior or misbehavior of the police is hardly a new problem. It originates from the creation of law enforcement in the early 1800s. Emerging Professionalism and the Role of Ethics Training Early American policing relates to the choice that policing and public safety were to be the responsibility of local government. Recent examinations of police corruption speculate that unethical behavior is a product of the organizational culture, which creates and supports opportunities for the individual officer to become corrupt.

Table of Contents

Abstractii

Introduction1

Discussion2

Public Perceptions of Police2

Ethical Dilemma in Police Organizations3

Causes of Unethical Behavior of Police Officers5

The Solution8

Ethics Training for Law Enforcement Officers9

Conclusion11

References12

Police Ethics

Introduction

In criminal justice system, the application of ethical norms has come to be recognized as a crucial part of the process of doing justice. Whether an action is performed by law enforcement, corrections, judges, lawyers, or justice policymakers, we expect that decision making will be ethical, and when it is not, we anticipate that those who violate ethical norms will be held accountable. The field of normative ethics sets standards of conduct to assist in determining how to act, and it draws on such sources as religions, natural law, and written law in shaping ethical standards. Applied ethics is concerned with resolving issue that raise questions about what is right or wrong and what is good or bad. Criminal Justice professionals, who often possess the right to control others through the application of force and coercion, must understand how to act in situations in which ethical dilemmas arise, if they are to avoid accusations of abuse of their powers. Ethical theories about how to act and the rightness or wrongness of acts provide a foundation from which to analyze ethical dilemmas and arrive at a correct conclusion or resolution.

Of all the elements in criminal justice system, policing is the most likely to provoke ethical dilemmas. In the early days of law enforcement in the United States, the police relied unhesitatingly on physical force and coercion to maintain control of the streets and paid little attention to ethical standards. An institutional culture comprising the values, attitudes, and norms of law enforcement developed within policing and this culture has encouraged and condoned corruption and the use of force, including lethal force, within the community. Research studies of policing and developed models of the crime fighter, the emergency operator, the social enforcer, and the social peacekeeper. Police developed the notion that the cause of crime fighting was noble, and therefore sometimes justified unethical conduct. Police culture supported corruption, the excessive use of force, a cynical and suspicious approach to the community, and the notion that police were themselves victims. Codes of ethics were devised, published and promoted but were often flouted in favor of the noble cause.

Discussion

Over the last two decades, criminal justice policies focusing on crime control including so-called zero-tolerance practices and incapacitating offenders for every long periods of time under laws such as three strikers and you are ...