L15 Police Psych

Question 1

 Give reasons why some police engage in unethical behaviour

Answer 1

Explanations for Unethical Behaviour
• Shift away from “bad apples” view (only a few bad apples are doing this)
• System supports corruption via: (the barrel itself)
– On-the-job socialisation of recruits
– Peer group reinforcement & encouragement of rule violations
– Policing as a “brotherhood” subculture. Concept of the blue wall of silence. Police officers will lie for each other, even in cases of police brutality.
• Job of policing is itself corrupting
• Victimless crimes do not attract complaints about police inaction
• The demands of law and order campaigns and “results-style policing” compromise due process
• Generally low risk of being detected and punished
• Much police work is unsupervised and discretionary

Question 2

AUS Research: What is Unethical?

Answer 2

• From 1992, researchers from UNSW, conducted 4 studies on police ethics (Huon, McConkey, Hesketh):
 Study 1: Perceptions of ethical dilemmas
 Study 2: Individual perspectives on police ethics
 Study 3: Practical ethics in the police service
 Study 4: Public perceptions of professional ethics

Question 3

Study 1: Perceptions of Ethical Dilemmas

Answer 3

• Purpose: To investigate attitudes towards breaches of ethics among police officers and recruits
• Participants • 683 participants (530 males, 129 females); recruits to commissioned officers; From QLD, NSW, VIC, TAS, SA, WA, Aust Police Staff College
Study 1: Perceptions of Ethical Dilemmas Method
• Read 20 scenarios describing unethical behaviours
• Rated how serious each violation was for:
 Typical working officer
 Typical instructor
 The department
 Personal view
• Rated each scenario from “0” Not at all serious” to 10 Extremely serious)

Study 1: Main Findings

1. ‘Typical officers’ rated as viewing situations as least serious, followed by personal views, then instructor, then department
2. On almost all incidents, recruits rated most serious, constables/snr constables/sergeants as least serious; snr sergeants & commissioned officers midway
3. Females gave more serious judgements of incidents, viewing the typical officer and instructor as less scrupulous than themselves

Question 4

Study 2: Individual Perspectives on Police Ethics

Answer 4

• Purpose: To investigate individual officers’ training, knowledge and understanding of ethics in everyday policing situations
• Participants: 32 participants (26 males, 6 females); Recruits to superintendents; Exposure to ethics from 11 weeks to 30 years
• Method: Detailed, semi-structured interview

Findings and Implications
• Junior officers reported receiving more ethics training than senior officers, although training was not viewed as relevant or practical
• Rules and regulations need to be written in a way that is easier to understand
• Many temptations: opportunity and financial for senior officers, emotional and peer pressure for junior officers
• Resisting temptation: getting caught and being punished for senior officers, personal integrity for junior officers
• Getting caught: not smart enough, by outside bodies not your mates (blue wall of silence)
• Improving ethical behaviour: training, organisational change, supervision

Question 5

Study 3: Practical Ethics in the Police Service

Answer 5

• Purpose: To investigate individual and organisational influences on ethical and unethical behaviour among police officers
• Participants: 4655 participants from NSW, QLD, SA; 91% male, M age 37 years; Exposure to ethics from 11 weeks to 30 years
• Method: Survey study

Findings and Implications
Estimated that 13%-28% of police acts involve breaches of ethics
Recommendations from survey:
 Improve work conditions: reduce stress and increase pay
 Improve selection (although recruits more ethical!)
 Make ethics training more practical and relevant, improve supervision
 Reward those who display ethical behaviour
 React less stridently to minor breaches (tolerate error)
• Need individual and organisational change

Question 6

Study 4: Public Perceptions

Answer 6

 Public perceptions of police (compared to other professionals) improved from 1995 to 1999
 Pattern of complaints may have changed over time
The public were complaining about police less over time, but police were dobbing each other in more over time. Less blue wall of silence.
Police were 7 on a list of ethical professions, not bad. Other list showed them getting better, ministers getting lower.

Question 7

Police Discretion

Answer 7

Police discretion involves knowing when to enforce the law and when to allow for some latitude

Question 8

• Discretion is commonly used for:

Answer 8

• Those who support the use of discretion argue that laws cannot take into account all the situations police officers will encounter. If they enforced law all the time, wouldn’t focus on major offenses, not minor ones. Full enforcement would alienate the public, criminal justice system would be overloaded.

1. Youth Crime
2. Offenders with mental illness
3. Domestic violence
4. Use of force

Question 9

1. Youth Crime

Answer 9

• Discretion is encouraged with youth
• 30-40% currently handled informally (it’s worse to send a young person to jail where they will socialise and meet more serious offenders.)
• Belief that formal sanctions are not the most effective response
• Responses include community referrals, resolution conferences (offender and their family meet with victim to discuss the crime), and arrests

Question 10

2. Offenders With Mental Illnesses

Answer 10

• Encounters with the police more common since deinstitutionalization
• Responses include informal resolution, escort to psychiatric facility, or arrest
• Problems with institutions leads to frequent use of informal resolution and jail (Teplin, 2000)
• Often results in criminalization

Question 11

3. Domestic Violence

Answer 11

• Historically, domestic violence was often ignored by police
• Recent changes in policy encouraging arrest
• Discretion is still important
• Responses include separation, community referral, and 12-17% of the cases arrests (Melton, 1999)

Question 12

4. Use of Force

Answer 12

• Has received much attention but only accounts for a small number of police citizen interactions (U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2005) only 1.5% of interactions involve force. You’re not allowed to use force unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Question 13

Factors Influencing Arrest Decisions

Answer 13

• Seriousness of crime
• Strength of the evidence (eyewitnesses)
• Whether victim supports arrest (victim says yes I do want them to be arrested. In domestic violence, they ask them to)
• Relationship between victim and offender (less likely to make arrests if they know each other, more if they are strangers)
• Degree of suspect resistance (disrespectful to police officers)
• Race, gender, neighbourhood

Question 14

 Discuss the sources and consequences of police stress

Answer 14

Sources of Police Stress
• Occupational stressors:  E.g., Having to use a weapon, dead bodies
• Organisational stressors: E.g., Paperwork, lack of career progression etc (BIGGEST STRESSOR)
• Criminal justice stressors:  E.g., Frustration with court system, high rates of recidivism etc
• Public stressors:  E.g., Uncooperative witnesses, distorted press accounts, constant scrutiny etc

Consequences of Police Stress

1. Physical
2. Psychological and personal
3. Job-related

Question 15

1. Physical Consequences of Stress

Answer 15

• Police officers may be at an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease and digestive disorders (32%)
• High blood pressure, ulcers, weight gain, and diabetes are other ailments that may develop
• However, it is hard to distinguish if the causes are stressors or lifestyle (perhaps small town lifestyle is contributing to weight gain)

Question 16

2. Psychological and Personal Consequences of Stress

Answer 16

• While some research indicates the following problems are especially problematic for police officers, other studies do not: 
 Drinking and substance abuse 
 Depression, anxiety, suicide 
 Violence 
 Marital problems

Question 17

3. Job-Related Consequences of Stress

Answer 17

• Consequences include poor morale, absenteeism, reduction in effectiveness, turnover, and early retirement
• These problems may result from physical, psychological, or personal consequences of stress

Question 18

Preventing and Managing Police Stress

Answer 18

• Many programs are in place to prevent and manage police stress. These include:
 Physical fitness programs
 Professional counselling services (in and out of organisations)
 Family assistance programs (assistance FOR families of officers)
 Teaching adaptive coping strategies*
 Critical incident debriefings*

Question 19

Adaptive Coping Strategies

Answer 19

• Attempt to change maladaptive coping (e.g., substance abuse)
• Teach adaptive coping skills (e.g., better communication, focus more on the positive reactions than the negative)
• Has been shown to result in general health improvements and increased work performance (McCraty et al., 1999)
Felt more peaceful, better health etc.

Question 20

Critical Incident Debriefing

Answer 20

• One of the most commonly used methods of debriefing is Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD; Mitchell, 1983)
• CISD is a group debriefing procedure in which members discuss the traumatic event in a controlled and rational environment
• There are many positive aspects of CISD

However…
• Some research has shown that CISD shows no positive effects on PTSD levels (e.g., Rose et al. 2000; van Emmerik et al. 2002)
• Some research has even shown that CISD may have a negative effect on psychological wellbeing (e.g., Hobbs et al., 1996)
• Research on civilian witnesses suggests that people report misinformation that is mentioned during psychological debriefing (Devilly et al., 2007)

Question 21

Problematic Stages of CISD?

Answer 21

• Since there are many good aspects of CISD, we don’t want to through the baby out with the bathwater!
 • Stages:
 – Introduction
 – Facts x
– Thoughts 
– Reaction x
 – Symptom
 – Teaching 
– Re-entry

Question 22

Study (Paterson, Whittle, & Kemp, 2015) on CISD fact and reaction stages

Answer 22

• Fact Phase: where participants each describe their memories of the event witnessed. Hypothesis #1: Discussing facts may lead to memory conformity.
• Reaction phase: where participants discuss their emotions as they remember experiencing them during the height of the trauma. Hypothesis #2: Discussing emotions may have a negative effect on psychological wellbeing

. Participants
• 74 undergraduate psychology students (42 females, 32 males)
1) Stimuli: Autopsy Video (two versions)
2) 1st Delay: 5 minutes
3) Debriefing Condition:
i. Emotion-focused debriefing (talk about how you felt)
ii. Fact-focused debriefing (talk about the facts, no emotions)
iii. No debriefing control
4) Individual Questionnaires:
i. Memory  Free recall
ii. Psychological Reactions  Impact of Event Scale (IES)
1. No differences between conditions on Correct Items recalled
2. Fact-Focused Debriefing group reported more Misinformation than the other two conditions
3. Emotion-Focused Debriefing group reported more confabulated items than the control condition. (when saying don’t talk about the facts, the participants said any old thing)
4. Fact-Focused Debriefing group reported more intrusive thoughts than the control condition (white bear phenomenon)
5. Emotion-Focused Debriefing group had a trend towards more intrusive thoughts than the control condition