Ethics in Law Enforcements

This study is an interview of Jimmy Reeds working in prosecutors’ offices in the state of California. The purpose of the study is to gauge the effectiveness of ethical education in police service and present any challenges prevalent in officers while on duty. The paper will critically analyze the interview and share insight on areas of police services that need improvement in terms of ethical education. The paper will also reveal complications that police undergo in service such as corruption practices and recommend whether police services require continuous training to reduce these incidences. The study conducted a meta-analysis on existing literature on current ethical issues reported two come up with the sources used. Key aspects that help to narrow down the sources included report on police misconduct, corruption and emerging need for ethical training in the police force.

Jimmy Reeds is a consultant specialist in the prosecutors’ office. His role is to advice the police force of social matters that affect them while on duty and provide quarterly report highlighting the progress of the police force in terms of maintaining ethical relationship with the general public as well as highlighting problems encountered during their operation. The study used questionnaire to lead the discussion and highlight the ethical concerns revealed in the police force. Questions used to conduct the research included:

• What are main reasons behind police involvement in misconducts?
• Is it important for continuous ethical training to officers?
• How does ethical training reduce levels of misconducts?
• How can ethical training help to reduce corruption?

Police misconducts are all illegal activities conducted by police officers on duty. The misconducts lead to serial dangers to civilians, discrimination, injustice and at times obstruction of justice.  Reeds response highlighted that common misconducts experienced in the police force include, falsifying evidence, police brutality cases of corruption, false evidence, racial profiling and sexual misconduct. Reed pointed out that while many reports indicate widespread misconducts by police officers, individual personality and the level of education were important factor when analyzing differences in police misconduct. Based on evidence, Reed concluded that police with a higher level of education had fewer cases of police brutality as compared with police officers with low level of education. He also revealed that structural changes such as immigrant and population mobility highlight significant changes with police misconduct. He argued that the changes was because residents had a low level of social connection with police and therefore were either failed to report police misconduct or exaggerated their experience with police based on their previous misconception about police force in certain areas.

Reed revealed that minimum police supervision was a major cause of police misconducts. He explained that street cops mostly operated on their own and that supervisors tolerated their level of misconduct. Many police officers have personal relationships with supervisors. In case of misconducts their use the personal relationship as bait to hide any wrongdoings. Supervisors also easily cover up the mistakes because they consider exposing police misconduct as a negative picture to the whole police department. Because they highly want to publish a fair police report, they cook data and misrepresent figures. Independent bodies tasked with oversight of police misconduct often find different result when measuring incidences of police misconduct. Reed also pointed out that police brutality comes from the fact that police are used to use maximum force. Police easily fire guns to civilians in case of reported crimes and use lethal force too often. However, extra use of force is acceptable by bosses. Top cops constantly ignore abuse cases because they have an established connection with senior law enforcement. Reed used a 2013 report where only 51 officers out of 1,500 misconduct cases were disciplined. The ground of dismissal of most of the cases was based on procedural reasons such as failing to file report rather than focus on the actual misconducts. Reed also revealed that police involved in misconducts because of noble cause such as corruption. Some of the police explain their behavior in terms of good outcomes to justify the actions. Selective enforcement was yet another reason why police office is adversely mentioned in misconducts. Sometimes police engage in cases of misconduct when protecting friend, family or acquaintances. Finally, read revealed that power was among reasons why police involved in cases of misconduct. Big cops have immense power and can control all police report, therefore easily influence outcomes of police misconduct cases.

Feeling of Reed towards training needs

Reed acknowledges that police training in the US is one of the best in the world. However, he criticizes several aspects of police training that increase misconducts. He argues that police training has been statics over the decades and has not been revolutionized to capture the current dynamics of the modern society. Traditional training methods focused highly on physical training and emphasized self-defense highly. The training lacked training of how police should deal with community without unnecessary force. Reed notes that despite the constant progress over the years, police officers have constantly fought for changes in remuneration and improvement in duty. He used reference to statistical figures to indicate the constant improvement of police budget. However, he noted budget and donations towards training have reduced over the past few years. Most of the police budget is directed towards improving the working condition of the officers with little regard to the training and recruitment process. Police training commences on the recruitment process where significance of police safety is emphasized highly. Reed questions the overemphasis on police safety in the training and concerns over various training issues. He argue that the first rule of police safety in the training that an office first obligation is to return home cause police officers to justify some of the brutality when on duty. Policy training highly emphasizes the significance of police safety considering the hostile environment that police work. There are many stories from senior of how the junior should always remain alert because of brutal incidences that happen to police in the past. They are quick to use video training to emphasize the concept of alertness. Most of the training session in the police force is highly hand-on experience on how to deal with immediate danger. One of common scenario used in the police training is suspecting a person pulling a gun from a car if the person is lining on the window. Reed argues that police are trained to shoot way before the threat is fully realized. He affirms that a change is need to train police office to use different approaches when dealing with threat. He argues that police training should integrate the concept of technology to help anticipate threats rather than highly basin their training on using historical incidences. Reed argues that police risks are few that perceived and justify reduction on using fear and threat as a primary training technique.

Reed also argued that there was a general deficit in training police on ethical issues and practical experiences on dealing with community without using violence. Despite the fact that many police are currently engaging in criminal justice training, the police force in general only focuses on education on how to identify and question suspect. There is a general deficit in terms of offering overall and continuous training. Reed indicates that most police are rude because of deficit of training in terms of ethical education.

Whether to offer ethical training as continuous process in police training

Ethical training in the police force aims at training officers to consider their outcomes of action in course of duty. Daily routine of officer work is concerned with many challenging situations and police must come up with quick and accurate decisions. Reed notes that officers are human and that emotions play a significant part in explaining their behaviors. Sometimes the police might be training properly but behave unethically because of pressure. On the same note, Reed assert that the society have placed a very high expectation to police officers in terms of behavior. Officers are the last hope to restore order in society even in the most demanding situations. Even under challenging situation, officers are expected to follow the law when executing duty. Officers take oaths of office and are required to comply with the set professional ethical standards. Reed argues that there is a need to extend a continuous ethical training to officers because of the significance importance of ethical education. Ethics training is founded on practical experience and predetermined outcome based on empirical research. Reed asserts that ethics is continuous and that any ethical issues reported in the police force form basis of study. He argues that the main reason why ethical training should be continuously offered to police officers is that the training will help officers to reduce dilemma when faced with challenging situations. Ethical training help policy to consider different option in the course of action and make rational decision based on balanced previous experiences. Reed finally sums up that ethical education is important to help policy officers accept responsibility over their actions. He strongly expressed that ethics training has been highlighted and offered in many training institution. However, he noted that major problem comes in terms of implementation. Police should act ethically always. The police force should also have a system of evaluating the ethical training so that they can provide with consistent improvement. Reed argues that the problem of implementing and explaining ethics in the police force is because of the general definition of right and wrong in the police force. Officers are highly trained to consider right and wrong by only considering the outcomes. As long as an outcome complies with the law, it is considered right in the police discourse. Reed argues that element of motivation behind the behavior should be integrated in the ethical training.

Role of ethical education to reduce corruption

Corruption in the police force simply means use misuse of authority. Any officers who behave beyond his confines of power and the expected ethical regulation are termed as corrupt. There are many cases of corruption in such as falsifying police information, planting drugs on money and taking bribes from drug bursts. There are many police reports that indicate that indicated increased incidence of falsifying information in favor of the police.

            Reed believes that ethical training to police officers can reduce the level of corruption. He argues that the role of ethical training in the police force is to set the accepted standard in behavior. Ethical training also focus on the implementation process to ensure that police officer adhere to ethical code of behavior. Many corrupt practices are prohibited and considered unethical behavior. Reed argues that proper training should focus on engaging officer to implement ethical behaviors. Reed highlighted that the major problem in fighting corruption practices in the police force is the increased collection of money through fines from offenders. Fines are highly considered as common ways to punish offenders as police department aims at collecting more cash to improve service. Reed considers this as a shortcoming that should be addressed in ethical training. Officers should be trained not to consider fining wrong door as the primary option. He also argues that the rewards that police receive from civilians should be termed unethical in the police force because they are precursor to larger cases of corruption. Reed feels that ongoing ethical training will help to reduce corruption because office will have a chance to analyze new cases of corruption. He argues that corruption is dynamics and that officers find new ways of extending corruption when traditional means such as taking bribes are discovered. He asserts that continuous training should help supervisors and ethical trainers to trace new mechanism develop and publish them in police ethic standard. Reed also argues that some aspects of corruption such as receiving rewards from the public are not prohibited in law. Such shortcomings should be discouraged to reduce the level of corruption.

Discussion

Lawless (2015) study indicates that police misconduct in the US is widespread. Hover, there are few report indicating the level of misconducts. The study indicated that the last time justice department released report on police misconduct was on 2011 and that only 5% of police department provided the records. The study also found significant flaws in the reporting when compared with reports from non-governmental agencies. A report by Cato Institute’s National Police Misconduct Reporting Project report of 2010 indicated that there were 57% of cases of violent use of force from officers (Petrova, 2014). The study also indicated that more than 920 people were killed in 2015 and only 1 in 1000 police shorting cases is convicted of crime (Lawless, 2015). These findings correlate with Reed argument that the that the major reason that police engage in misconduct practices is because of failure of the law enforcement agencies to take action. Recently, incidences of racial profiling have increased in the police force sparking widespread debates. Whereas statistics indicate increased cases of misconducts, the police departments are quick to defend their reputation. Police boss are increasingly operating like politicians and denying wrongdoing of officers even when hard evidence is presented to show the level of police misconduct. There is a need for reform in the police department so that many cases of police misconducts can be convicted.

            Reed argued that training methods used in the police force are not efficient to reduce the level of corruption. He emphasized that the training is concerned too much hand-on experience to officers. Consistent with his argument, Dunham (2015) that budget for training has been considerably cut over the years citing specific example in budget cut in Florida state that an officer spend only $67 dollars in training per year. The same state reduced the amount of training by 5%, with the study suggesting the trend is consistent in other states. Further, a study by the Criminal Justice Association indicated grants directed to officer training had reduced by 43% in 2013 (Dunham, 2015). These revelations indicate that there is considerably lack of funds to foster proper police training. Dunham (2015) study suggested that there is a need to increase ethical training to officers. The study supports Reed argument that consistent training will help to reduce the levels of police misconducts and corruption. The study pointed indicated a positive correlation of education and reduce levels of police misconducts.  Education in general help people to develop rationality and therefore can think of different option when bound by difficult situations. Offering ethical education to officers will help to reduce levels of misconducts. The education will also provide the police with new insight on how to deal with challenging situation and therefore help them improve efficiency.

Recommendations

The police officer in the US generally performed better as compared with other officers in different country. Officers are better equipped, well trained and compensated handsomely. They manage to conduct rapid intervention and solve many cases in accordance with the law. However, the rise of case of misconduct cannot be underestimated. There is a need to change training tactics used and instead enhance the use of ethical training continuously as an option to identify new ways of dealing with emerging threats in the police force.  The policy training policy should be reviewed to include modern dynamics in the training process. The training should be set to capture issues of modern crime and issues such as community engagement. Aspects of racial profiling should also be captured in police training so that officers are equipped with the necessary technique to handle challenging situations.  Study suggests that police security is of little significance because most criminals do not pose immediate threat to police. Training should focus on teaching cops to deal with threat in a social ways. Ethical training should be introduced in police departments as a sure way of researching dynamics of police misconducts and continuously provided guidance to officers.

Conclusion

            An interview from Reed indicated that misconducts from police are commonplace. This study have found that lack of action against police officers and poor training are among the major issues that result to increased misconduct in the police office. The study agrees that there is a need to develop a holistic training through enforcing a continuous use of ethical training in police departments. Continuous training will help to identify areas of weakness in police training and offer insight on new ways of solving the challenges. Additionally, training will serve as a reminder to the officer that they are expected to follow ethical standards consistently.

References

Dunham, R. G., & Alpert, G. P. (2015). Critical issues in policing: Contemporary readings. Waveland Press.

Lawless, J. F. (2015). Prosecutorial Misconduct: Law, Procedure, Forms. LexisNexis.

Petrova, V. (2014). THE FUTURE OF OUR FREEDOM: An Investigation into the Policing of America and Suggestions for Integral Reform. Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, 9(2), 153.