Police Ethics-Chapter 12, Causes of Police Misconduct

Question 1

“It is better to let one hundred guilty men go free than it is convict an innocent man”

Answer 1

American legal axiom

Question 2

people choosing to be deviant after calculating the changes of being caught, the potential reward and so on.

Answer 2

rational choice theory

Question 3

Crime is caused by ineffective and disorganized social institutions, culturally transmitted deviance or ______

Answer 3

deviant subcultures

Question 4

Some people that are improperly socialized, develop ________ or become genuinely _____

Answer 4

antisocial personalities

sociopathic

Question 5

Some theorists suggest that crime is caused by ____ ___when people reject either their society’s culturally constructed goals or institutionally prescribed methods of obtaining those goals.

Answer 5

strain theory

Question 6

when economic distance or gap between the very poor and the extremely rich is great, the amount of crime that occurs can be significant.

Answer 6

stratification

this explanation for crime is called conflict theory

Question 7

crime is the product of the _______ of individuals combined with opportunities presented by lifes circumstances.

Answer 7

greed

Question 8

Given how much of police work is done and unobserved, ____ ____is the one and only hedge the police officer can possess that mitigates falling into such misconduct.

Answer 8

personal character

Question 9

Rationalizations- Studying deviance in 1957 what authors suggested there are several ways people can rationalize their misbehavior

Answer 9

Gary Sykes and David Matza

Question 10

Rationization techniques

Answer 10

1. denial of responsibility- they made me do it
2. denial of injury- no innocents got hur
3. denial of victim- they deserved it
4. condemning the condenmers- they don’t know anything
5. appeal to higher loyalty- protect your own

Question 11

erring officers rationalize their misbehavior and avoid dealing with what we called the ____

Answer 11

duty to be beneficent

Question 12

Several subcultural dynamics that tend to create misconduct or an atmosphere within which it can flourish.

Answer 12

1. the “overkill”- police tend to rationalized the use of excessive force
2. Dirty Harry problem- noble cause corruption. supported by far too many members of police subculture.
3. Fort Apache syndrome- “us against them”, solidarity within the police subculture
4. troublesome dynamic when the police were first distanced from the citizenry.

Question 13

Today, ___ ___ ___ ___ is the subcultral wisdom. it suggest that it is necessary nor wise to explain anything to the citizenry.

Answer 13

“never explain, never apologize”

Question 14

American Societal Dynamics:

Several dynamics are endemic to contemporary American society that help to create an atmosphere within which misconduct can flourish or rationalize its concealment.

Answer 14

1. has to do with the level of crime and violence that exists in the streets of America
2. degree of stratification present in US
3. police misconduct will be created due to what some contemporary political scientists refer to as the “semi-democratic” nature of American society.

Question 15

Hardest form of police misconduct to deter is

Answer 15

Noble cause corruption - police cleave to the duty of beneficence, that is breaking the procedural rules of the criminal justicie game, police are doing good. They are removing evil people from the streets.

Question 16

Avoiding Dirty Harry syndrome takes character. It involves cleaving to the second principle of our ethic to live by. It takes ackowledging that justice must be served and it must be equally served to those we consider to be deviants.

Answer 16

Dirty Harry again

Question 17

The Framing of Rubin “Hurricane “ Carter

Answer 17

1960s Carter a black boxing champion with a troubled youth was hounded by a New Jersey prosecutor who “knew” he was a bad person.
prosecutor manipulated witnesses and evidence in a way that put Carter behind bars for crime he didn’t commit. 20 yrs later, he was acquitted.
ex of Dirty Harry-type.

Question 18

Ineptitude is often the product of inadvertent incompetence. When this is the case, police leaders can and should treat ineptitude in a ?

Answer 18

positive, counseling and training mode.

Question 19

“There is no such thing as “excessive” force. “ most important article ever written about the police use of force in 1982 by the famous criminologist?

Answer 19

Carl Klockars

Question 20

antisocial personalities

Answer 20

like sociopathic personalities; personality structures of people who are dangerous and aggressive and who neither learn from their mistakes nor are deterred by punishment

Question 21

burn-out

Answer 21

people with high stress jobs end up loosing their exuberance and mental edge

Question 22

conflict theory

Answer 22

built upon the analysis of Karl Marx, this sociological school of analysis suggests that social norms and institutions are controlled by economic elites that pass their desires down to the masses

Question 23

deviant subcultures

Answer 23

cultures within cultures that possess their own norms and values, that deviate from the norms and values of the dominant society

Question 24

greed and opportunity

Answer 24

formula that explains both crime causation and police deviance causation

Question 25

never again, never apologize

Answer 25

police axiom from the post-political era, suggesting that explaining or apologizing is an indication of weakness, therefore should be avoided

Question 26

rational choice theory

Answer 26

suggesting that crime is caused by people weighing potential rewards against potential sanctions and deciding to misbehave in a rational manner

Question 27

sociopathic

Answer 27

form of behavior of people who are dangerous, aggressive, ani-social and who neither learn from their mistakes nor are deterred by punishment

Question 28

strain theory

Answer 28

sociologist theory of Robert Merton suggesting that there exists a strain or tension between those socially prescribed goals and institutionally defined methods of obtaining the goals in any society and goals and methods accepted by some citizens

Question 29

stratification

Answer 29

level of economic differentiation in any given society or gaps between the economic experiences of the rich, the poor, middle class and so forth

Question 30

Central to the problem of police corruption of authority and police crime is _____ and ____

Answer 30

greed and opportunity

Question 31

The troublesome nature of the problem of excessive force is that it has multiple causes?

Answer 31

1. dirty harry- this is done to get the job done
2. product of ineptitude- poor training, racism
3. corruption of authority and police crime.