How would you improve ethics in policing

The enormous authority that society so willingly vests upon the police often can, and does result in situations where that authority is abused. The media is rife with instances of police excesses and ethical violations stemming from an abuse of the trust placed by society on law enforcement. Examples of ethics violations by the police run the gamut from brutality and coercion to racial profiling and corruption. Modern technologies such as GPS devices which enable ubiquitous location-based tracking and deep-packet inspection tools which allow for intrusive surveillance of Internet traffic and e-mail messages are opening a whole new minefield of ethical issues for the police. Attempts to address such issues, by individual police departments and by society in general can often get mired in politics, self-righteous finger-pointing, defensiveness and denial.

Many of the challenges associated with improving ethics in policing often stem from an inadequate understanding of the complex ethical and moral issues that police officers are forced to contend with on an almost daily basis. It is a lack of understanding that manifests itself particularly among those who are not a part of law enforcement and therefore have overly idealistic expectations of the moral and ethical standards that police need to hold themselves to.

Improving ethics in policing needs to begin with a setting of baseline standards and expectations for ethically and morally acceptable behavior within a department or police force. A line needs to be drawn in the sand in terms of whether ethical behavior needs to be informed and guided by situations, actions or exceptions. Rather than setting absolutist, all-or-nothing ethical goals for the police, the effort should be more on establishing standards for ethical behavior in different operational situations. There needs to be recognition that police behavior is often guided by fast developing operational situations and the manner in which they behave in one situation could be very different in the next.

This should not however mean that a police department should adopt a “spirit of the law” philosophy. However appealing that might seem, ethical behavior needs to be tempered with an understanding of the letter of the law as well. Leaving too much to discretion and interpretation could sometimes create more ethical dilemmas rather than less of them.

Training and education are vital once baseline expectations are set. It’s not enough to have a code of ethics if no one else knows about it. Neither is it okay to let anyone simply assume what constitutes ethical behavior or to let previous experience or precedent be an excuse. Expectations relating to ethical conduct need to be clearly spelled out in unambiguous statements and those statement then need to be clearly communicated. Consistent efforts should be made to ensure that police officers are aware of, and acknowledge their obligations.

Equally vital is the need to have a consistent and fair enforcement regimen. Ethical codes are of little value if there is no mechanism, or willingness to enforce it. This is perhaps the one area that a majority of police forces tend to struggle the most with. The reluctance to penalize a colleague or colleagues who might have crossed an ethical line, especially in a close-knit community such as a police force, can be an enormous obstacle to improving ethics in policing. But if any real progress is to be made, a sincere effort needs to be made to enforce ethical violations. Police leadership need to demonstrate that if necessary, they are willing to hold their departments to established standards-even If it makes them unpopular in the process.

The last, but perhaps the most important piece in the puzzle is the individual police officer out in the field. No one else is in a better position to observe ethical violations by a police officer than other police officers. But a pervading sense of camaraderie and loyalty to fellow officers all too often results in such violations not being reported to higher-ups. To improve ethics in policing it is vital to create a culture where field officers feel encouraged to speak up without fear of retribution.