Police Ethics-Chapter 13, Practical Applications Flashcards
“In this life, you don’t have to prove nothin to nobody but yourself”
From the movie Rudy
Most important leader in the life of the individual police officer is the immediate supervisore
sergeant
sergeant’s strategies
- provide specific, important rewards for good work
- allow innovation and mistakes
- teach circumspection about use of force
- encourage the avoidance of subcultural negativity
- motivate, coach, teach and persuade
- encourage the development of personal ethic
What better little phrase could there be for a contemporary sergeant to utilize to help with his focus when dealing with subordinates and their key role as ethical advisor
teach and persuade
first and perhaps most important teaching job required of sergeants is that they nurture in their subordinates an understanding of and a feeling for the _____
ethical elements of police work
second critical substantive piece of teaching for the sergeant relates to the _____
use of force
Third, sergeant needs to do everything possible to dissuade officer from sticking by those__________norms that are most deleterious to the best interests of justice.
subcultural
caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, the ____________faces tough challenge
middle manager
middle managers serves as
glue that holds together upper level policy makers and the line officers on street.
Evaluate implementation strategies and evaluate and assess officers
Chief of police must operate within an ongoing paradox, that of ____and ___ at same time
teaching democracy and legality
chief can do two important things to send out important message about ethics.
- when a person becomes a sergeant, there is an open window with respect to the machinations of internal affiars. The newly sergeant spend a week or so in IA.
- no-nonsense message about how the dept is run and what is prioritized, chief should put the best and brightest investigators into IA
It is important to consider non-judicialized accountability mechanisms for two reasons.
- This is where and how most police misconduct is handled. It is done informally
- within this process, that leaders have their most obvious and ongoing chance to make a difference in world of police accountability by using their imagination and creativity
_and _can increase if and only if academy training begins to take ethics seriously
Accountability and professionalism
This is the focal point of a great deal of consideration paid to ethics in general and to the proactive creation of the individual officers internalized ethic in particular
FTO training
Best and brightest veteran officers should be involved as FTO, but the average number of year of experience possessed by FTO’s today has dropped down to less than ___
2 yrs
Criteria of Evaluation for police review systems
- Integrity- openness, objectivity and fairness of systemic processes
- Legitimacy-externally held perceptions of systemic integrity
- Learning- propensity for errant officers to change their behavior in a positive direction
- Cost- fiscal impact of review upon local budgets
Since the Wickersham Commission of early 1930s, the idea of having someone other than police review allegation of police misconduct has been controversial topic.
Comparative Police Review Systems
overwhelming majority of allegations of police misconduct are allegations of ____ and they are invariably dealt with by immediate supervisor level
ineptitude
3 main types of review systems
- Internal Affairs
- Civilain Review Boards
- Hybrid Systems
Today, there are approx ____civilian review boards or hybrid review systems that investigate citizen complaints.
70
hybrid systems- One such system operates as the office of citizens complaints (OCC) in
Kansas City, Missouri
Citizens take the complaint. IA investigates, OCC monitors. Officer guilt or innocence is determined by director of OCC. Director then advises the chief of police about this decision
Hybrid system
This systems tends to find officers guilty of misconduct slightly more often than does civilian review
IA
Extensive research reported in Perez’s 1994 book Common Sense Police Review, had some surprising findings.
- Civilian review boards are less prone to find police guilty of misconduct than IA
- While officers who have no experience with civilian review are almost universally against it.—those officers who do have experience with civilian review are not against it.
- minority officers- whether or not they have experience with civilian review- tend to support the ideas of civilian review by a wide margin
Toronto Canada, the optimum hearing board
includes the perspectives of the citizenry, legal profession and police.
civilian review boards
police review systems that are operated entirely by non-police civilians
duck hunting ponds
locations where police can write tickets easily due to number of speeding motorists
facilitators
role that middle manangers play in todays police world of COP
FTO
experienced training officers
hybrid review systems
police review systems made up partly of civilians and partly of sworn officer, such as the OCC in kansas city, missouri
integrity
concept involved in evaluating police review systems having to do with the openness of the process, its investigatory thoroughness and objectivity of it outcomes
learning
concept involved in evaluating police review systems having to do whether or not the system generates change inerrant police behavior
legitimacy
concept involved in evaluating police review systems having to do with how integrity of the systems is perceived externally
middle manager
police supervisor between sergeant and upper level management; usually a lieutenant or captain
no-fault discipline
system that sanctions errant behavior using positive counseling and training
police officer review boards
internal boards used by police dept to review the use of firearms and /or force
Wickersham Commission
first major commission looking into the operations of the American criminal justice system and the police in particular; met in 1932
