Police Ethics-Chapter 12, Causes of Police Misconduct Flashcards
“It is better to let one hundred guilty men go free than it is convict an innocent man”
American legal axiom
people choosing to be deviant after calculating the changes of being caught, the potential reward and so on.
rational choice theory
Crime is caused by ineffective and disorganized social institutions, culturally transmitted deviance or ______
deviant subcultures
Some people that are improperly socialized, develop ________ or become genuinely _____
antisocial personalities
sociopathic
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.
strain theory
when economic distance or gap between the very poor and the extremely rich is great, the amount of crime that occurs can be significant.
stratification
this explanation for crime is called conflict theory
crime is the product of the _______ of individuals combined with opportunities presented by lifes circumstances.
greed
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.
personal character
Rationalizations- Studying deviance in 1957 what authors suggested there are several ways people can rationalize their misbehavior
Gary Sykes and David Matza
Rationization techniques
- denial of responsibility- they made me do it
- denial of injury- no innocents got hur
- denial of victim- they deserved it
- condemning the condenmers- they don’t know anything
- appeal to higher loyalty- protect your own
erring officers rationalize their misbehavior and avoid dealing with what we called the ____
duty to be beneficent
Several subcultural dynamics that tend to create misconduct or an atmosphere within which it can flourish.
- the “overkill”- police tend to rationalized the use of excessive force
- Dirty Harry problem- noble cause corruption. supported by far too many members of police subculture.
- Fort Apache syndrome- “us against them”, solidarity within the police subculture
- troublesome dynamic when the police were first distanced from the citizenry.
Today, ___ ___ ___ ___ is the subcultral wisdom. it suggest that it is necessary nor wise to explain anything to the citizenry.
“never explain, never apologize”
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.
- has to do with the level of crime and violence that exists in the streets of America
- degree of stratification present in US
- police misconduct will be created due to what some contemporary political scientists refer to as the “semi-democratic” nature of American society.
Hardest form of police misconduct to deter is
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.
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.
Dirty Harry again
The Framing of Rubin “Hurricane “ Carter
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.
Ineptitude is often the product of inadvertent incompetence. When this is the case, police leaders can and should treat ineptitude in a ?
positive, counseling and training mode.
“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?
Carl Klockars
antisocial personalities
like sociopathic personalities; personality structures of people who are dangerous and aggressive and who neither learn from their mistakes nor are deterred by punishment
burn-out
people with high stress jobs end up loosing their exuberance and mental edge
conflict theory
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
deviant subcultures
cultures within cultures that possess their own norms and values, that deviate from the norms and values of the dominant society
greed and opportunity
formula that explains both crime causation and police deviance causation
never again, never apologize
police axiom from the post-political era, suggesting that explaining or apologizing is an indication of weakness, therefore should be avoided
rational choice theory
suggesting that crime is caused by people weighing potential rewards against potential sanctions and deciding to misbehave in a rational manner
sociopathic
form of behavior of people who are dangerous, aggressive, ani-social and who neither learn from their mistakes nor are deterred by punishment
strain theory
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
stratification
level of economic differentiation in any given society or gaps between the economic experiences of the rich, the poor, middle class and so forth
Central to the problem of police corruption of authority and police crime is _____ and ____
greed and opportunity
The troublesome nature of the problem of excessive force is that it has multiple causes?
- dirty harry- this is done to get the job done
- product of ineptitude- poor training, racism
- corruption of authority and police crime.
