Introduction
Many people would describe ethics as something that is related to one’s feelings about what is wrong and right, while others would say that it has something to do a with person’s religious belief. Some individuals would also say that an ethical person will always act based on the law requires, while others may think of it as the standards of actions and behaviors that are socially accepted. Perhaps, ethics hold various definitions that make many people to define it based on their own perception. In the criminal justice system, ethics is one of the most essential factors that must be considered by all law enforcers. The criminal justice ethics, otherwise known as police ethics, can be characterized as the study of ethics that is being applied in law enforcement. The purpose of this study is to present the deeper meaning of ethics as it relates to the law enforcement of police officers. Although police ethics can be defined through a wide range of characteristics and standards, every police action must be done in accordance with morally accepted, integrity justified, and law-guided behaviors.
Police Ethics
Ethics has been applied in different areas of the profession, such as the business or medical ethics. There are also some important elements that needs to be discussed pertaining to the police ethics or law enforcement ethics. Compared to business or medical ethics, this topic is viewed to be relatively underdeveloped. Meaning, there are some aspects of the police ethics that need further understanding in order to find ways on how to improve such ethics. Therefore, there should be some developments that must take place in order to further understand how police ethics can be developed and improved. Police ethics should not just be as simple as doing what is right. It is essential to consider some of the known ethics principles and understand how it can be applied to this profession.
According to Pagon (2000), police ethics is considered a branch of normative ethics. Therefore, the relationship between theory and practice makes the applied ethics quite different from compared to philosophical ethics. Furthermore, it is ideal to relate the fundamental imperatives of various applied ethics, such as beneficence, respect for persons, and justice to how police ethics can be defined.
As for the principle of beneficence, it has a fundamental idea that no matter what the profession is, the professional must always act in accordance with what is right. In this case, the police ethics in relation to beneficence means that officers must always take care of the people and loom out for the interest of the community according to what the law requires. On the other hand, respect for persons holds the idea that the police ethics must include the respect for the society’s dignity and autonomy. Justice pertains to the equal application and allocation of resources across all members of the society, regardless of the socioeconomic status. In this case, police ethics pertains to the officers’ actions, to which they provide equal service to all individuals.
It is ethically accepted that police officers must act according to ethical principles that aim to provide guidelines in relation to how they must fulfill their duties. In fact, the police ethics employs and should continue to apply these ethical principles throughout the field of policing.
Establishing Ethical Standards in Policing
According to the ethical imperatives, virtues, and values, police ethics must develop a clear and instantly recognizable standard in relation to ethical conduct of police officers. In fact, it is important that there is a code of ethics within this context. Thus, such code of ethics must hold a clear and specific statement that expresses the terms and moral principles. Additionally, it must express the type of conduct that are expected from the police profession, along with its members.
Since law enforcement is considered a profession, ethical conduct and ethics both play essential roles in achieving the primary goals of policing. Grant (2002) said that code of ethical standard states that police officers’ central duties are to safeguard lives, serve the community, protect the innocent people against deception, protect the weak people against intimidation and oppression, and to respect every person’s constitutional right of all equality, liberty, and justice. In addition, the code of ethics must include a clause that officers should keep their lives unsullied, which is being symbolized by their badge that recognizes public trust and faith.
The establishment of ethical standards of police officers must be in conjunction with the overall code of ethics of the law enforcement, which states the ethical mandates of all law enforcers in order to perform their duties efficiently. Additionally, the created ethical standards will serve as guidelines for police officers in making sure that they act upon their duties based on ethical behaviors that are socially and legally accepted.
Ethics in Relation to Police Service
Defining the police ethics should not just be bound to descriptive phrases and characterizations. To further understand the significance of police ethics, it is important to discuss its actual application to the police service.
According to Kooken (1947), the supremacy of the American people in the country is assured, which makes it essential for the public service system to have a high degree of effectiveness. In relation, there could be many issues that hinder the public safety and the police service to achieve its optimum positive outcome. Therefore, it is important that the code of ethic for the police service must encompass basic objectives that will provide general rules in terms of their performance as law enforcement officers of the land.
The general rules that will enhance the ethical police service must encompass several significant points. Police officers must be habitually courteous by recognizing their responsibilities as one of the important public servants. They must be particularly attentive to members of the community when it comes to seeking information or assistance. Thus, police officers must accept the responsibility to the community by being always punctual in different engagements in relation to the performance of their duties. It is also important for police officers that they understand the essence of administering the law in an impartial, just, and reasonable way. By doing this, police officers must know the limitations of their authority and should not use their power for their personal advantage.
As members of law enforcement of the country, police officers should always remember that their duty is to regulate the people’s conduct and to minister to their needs across all walks of life. The ethical actions of police officers mean that there should always be a focus towards resolving the community’s law enforcement-related problems, regardless of socioeconomic status of the persons. In that way, police officers will also be able to elevate the police force’s reputation in the eyes of the public. In fact, ethical actions of the police officers may consider an urgent matter to discuss due to different issues regarding unethical behaviors of police officers that were reported by the media.
Therefore, police service must always recognize the rights of every member of the community in order to ensure that their actions are based upon the ethical values and standards written on their guidelines. However, before the police officers can fully understand and appreciate the privileges and rights of the citizens, officers should first understand and respect the privileges and rights of their comrades. Thus, the ethical behavior of every police officer must start from one’s self and then followed with respect to their colleagues towards providing respect to the whole community. It may be easy to say that respect to others means an ethical conduct towards the other people. However, the situation where the police officers are in somehow makes the term respect more complicated and required, especially if there is a need to arrest or apprehend someone who breaks the law. That is because, the police service is more likely to have contact with anti-social individuals who are likely to cause the officers to adopt a veneer of toughness. Police officers normally entertain an inaccurate belief that being courteous to law violators is a sign of weakness.
Conversely, there are still many instances that being ethical even towards law violators is not a mere sign of weakness or servility. There are many factors that influence the people’s perception about being ethical is a sign of weakness. On the other hand, some people may see police officers as a tough person with a strong personality. Police officers may be firm and tough when it comes to law enforcement; officers may be strict and even relentless when it comes to their relationship with law breakers, which come under the officer’s control.
Nevertheless, they still remain as propitious as well as gentlemanly in many aspects, which is a clear indication of ethical behavior in performing their duties. In understanding the police ethics, it is important to consider the different elements that encompass the duties of police officers, which also serve as influential factors of people’s perception towards police service. Generally, the application of ethical standards in police service may be challenging for some, but these officers’ behaviors can be changed if ethical standards are being practiced on a daily basis.
Challenge of Police Ethics in the Presence of Advanced Technology
Today’s law enforcers have the ability to access and use different technological tools in order to solve crimes and to fulfill their duties. Wilmot (2010) said that several technological advancements, such as wireless technology, Internet technology, and other fiber optics-powered technology have converged into new methods of using investigative resources that many police officers have learned a few years ago. In this case, there is a need to conduct training about the ethical use of these technological tools and avoid misuse of their data access in relation to private and sensitive data. In fact, several police academies are now incorporating ethics training with the basic curriculum. Relatively, the public has the right when it comes to expecting that police forces will only use ethical choices in terms of handling their information.
This only shows that the police ethics is not only confined within the idea of fulfilling the police tasks when they are outside, such as community policing, the usual enforcement of the law, and many others. Police ethics, especially in today’s time, also encompasses their behavior when it comes to protecting the people’s data in order to avoid potential breach of sensitive information. That is why, the current ethics trainings of police officers must be a continuous approach in order to ensure that every aspect of their profession is based upon the idea of socially-accepted behaviors.
Apart from the continuous effort to develop ethical standards in police service, there should also be a constant ethics training that includes proper handling of technological tools, such as the surveillance technologies and other information technology-related tools in fulfilling the police tasks. The police ethics in relation to technology handling can be a challenge of the future due to continuous development of different types of technologies that can trigger a potential misuse of such.
Integrity and Police Ethics
Integrity is an important behavior or trait that every person must hold. Regardless of its relation to any profession, integrity’s composition can be the justification of one’s trustworthiness. When it comes to its relationship with police ethics, integrity has the ability to create conditions for law enforcements to intelligently and purposely resist corruption as well as to become more efficient and trusted.
According to Pagon (2000), integrity, in relation to policing, means that officers genuinely accept the moral standards and values of policing and even holds his profession’s virtues. Additionally, the integrity in police ethics means that police officers consistently act using his personal will and according to such standards, virtues, and values, even in the presence of external pressures.
Integrity in police ethics is equally important with other ethical traits. However, integrity may not be achieved by the police officer if there is a lacking formula. The goal of achieving integrity in police ethics can be done through a combination of competence, accountability, and ethics, but minus the corruption (Westmarland, 2005). Thus, the integrity of police officers can be defined as something that has been ethically accomplished even if no one is looking. In other words, there is an honest, ethical way of performing the duty honorably, even if such action was not directed by the higher-ranking officer.
It is important to discuss the integrity and relate it to police ethics. That is because; ethical actions in police duties can be done based on the ethical standards, but may not be justified based on the idea of integrity. Therefore, in order to achieve the optimum ethical behavior in police service, it is essential to combine police ethics with integrity. In that way, police forces will be able to uplift their reputation and its own standards in relation to ethical practice.
However, it was stated that not all law enforcers have integrity (Pagon, 2000). Therefore, it is also important that the development of police ethics must include the emphasis on the essence of integrity in relation to their profession because it is a moral obligation to improve one’s behavior if the police officer finds that some of his ideas are wrong. Otherwise, they may have to commit the violation of integrity if they are aware that they are actions are unethical, but they proceeded to do it.
Conclusion
Defining police ethics is a broad area that encompasses various actions according to the ethical standards of the police profession. There are some areas in this profession that needs to be developed in order to ensure that every police officer acts based upon the socially-accepted behaviors. There are also some areas that require continuous ethics training so as to ensure that ethical practice is being performed on a daily basis, such as the application of technological advancement in police service. Thus, in order to achieve the best outcome, police ethics must be in collaboration with integrity as it will serve as the justification of ethical behaviors of police officers.
References
Grant, J. K. (2002). Ethics and Law Enforcement. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, 71(12), 11-14.
Kooken, D. L. (1947). Ethics in Police Service. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1931-1951), 38(1), 61-74.
Pagon, M. (2000). Police Ethics and Integrity. Ethics, Integrity and Human Rights, 3-14.
Westmarland, L. (2005). Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence.Policing and Society, 15(2), 145-165.
Wilmot, C. (2010). The Challenge of Ethics in Law Enforcement in the Face of Advancing Technology. California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, 1-13.
