Ethics and Decision Making

Police Discretion

  • Exercise of individual choice or judgement.

  • Police must have autonomy, common sense, and interpret the law.

  • Criminal law must often times be interpreted.

  • Limitations of police resources.

  • Courts, jails also have limited capacity

Factors That Influence Discretion

  • Situation, setting, and suspect.

    • Every situation is unique requiring officers to analyze the context.

    • Officers should not make decisions based soley on gender, race, or appearance.

    • Officers should consider severity of the offense and potential for harm

  • Departmental policy and culture.

    • Range of behaviors that may be permitted.

    • Department’s leadership determines how officers police.

    • Police subculture can factor into work in problematic ways.

  • The law

    • The law has many gray areas.

    • Advantages and disadvantages to limiting discretion

    • Consistency is one advantage.

    • Unnecessary arrests can be a disadvantage

  • Political and economic pressure

    • Police are subject to politics and hot-button issues

    • Department leaders have to answer to government officials.

The Challenge of Discretion

  • The consequences of poor discretion can have severe outcomes.

  • Police must be role models to the community

  • If public trust is broken, the criminal justice system may be questioned

  • Quotas

    • Number of fixed citations or stops that officers are required to make

    • Biased enforcement can occur as a result.

    • Quotas are unethical and often illegal

    • Agencies may deny using quotas

  • Numbers based on policing can send the wrong message to the public

  • Quotas can call into question the goals of law enforcement

  • Problem can be intensified by pressure to write citations as source of revenue.

Ethics and Police Conduct

  • Ethics is concerned with what is morally right and wrong.

  • Community-oriented policing relates to ethical decision-making

  • Police agencies should emphasize ethics and discipline officers for unethical behavior

Ethics in Police Education

  • Research suggests some tolerance for unethical behavior

  • Police emphasis on loyalty can undermine ethics.

  • Ethics education must engage officers.

  • Law enforcement must engage officers.

  • Law enforcement academy must teach ethical decision making.

Evaluating Police Ethics

  • 1972 Knapp Commission findings

  • Referred to officers who accept wrongdoings as grass eaters

  • Reluctance to report wrongdoing is nonfeasance

  • Nonfeasance can be result of police subculture

  • Loyalty to the group is seen as virtue

  • Code of Conduct and federal laws require officers not to condone unethical behavior

  • Number of factors influence police ethics

    • Changing moral standards and lack of moral consensus

    • Individuals rejecting personal responsibility

    • High levels of frustration

    • Conflicting perceptions of role and expectations

    • Failure to draw moral lines in policy, training, discipline

  • Code of Conduct adopted by International Association of Chiefs of Police

  • Standards based on moral principles

  • Emphasis on role modeling by leaders

  • Leaders conduct is evaluated in three ways.

  • Leaders may be poor role models in some cases

  • Administrators intentionally ignoring ethical issues

  • Supervisors may perceive unethical practices from their leaders.

  • Unethical behavior by some tarnishes everyone’s reputations

  • Those who tell the truth may face backlash

Biased Enforcement and Racial Profiling

  • Racial profiling occurs when race is part of decision making

  • Can be grounds for disciplinary action

  • Action is still profiling if it is one factor among many

  • Publicized cases of racial profiling

  • All officers should be aware of consequences

  • Harassment of individuals is also unacceptable

Leadership and Improving Decision-Making

Background

  • Clear code of ethical conduct must be established

  • Chiefs and supervisors must lead by example

  • Recognize the importance of proper discretion

  • Guidelines for discretion must be clarified

  • Leaders must address unethical conduct openly.

  • 56% of people in survey rated police honesty as very high

  • Rewarding ethical behavior

  • Law enforcement leaders can encourage ethical behavior

Media Relations

  • Police-media relations can be problematic

  • Policing has become a high visibility profession

  • Police should be transparent with media

  • Media should be a tool and a partner

  • Social media can be used to counter false information

Intolerance of Malfeasance

  • Zero tolerance policies toward misconduct

  • National Institute of Justice study

    • Do they know the rules?

    • How much support for those rules?

    • Are staff familiar with disciplinary actions?

    • Do staff view these measures as fair?

    • How willing are staff to report misconduct?

  • NIJ study stated that an agencies culture may be more important than hiring practices

  • Agencies must take action against unethical behavior

  • Report’s recommendations for encouraging officers to report misconduct.