Police Ethics-Chapter 4, Why be Ethical?

Question 1

A police term for officers who are cavalier about the use of force and about viewing citizen as the enemy in an “us against them” perspective.

Answer 1

cowboy

Question 2

Situations wherein two or more alternative behavioral options present themselves and both are ethically defensible.

Answer 2

ethical dilemmas

Question 3

Situations wherein a person must choose between the ethical thing to do and the easier or more comfortable or less costly thing to do.

Answer 3

ethical questions

Question 4

A metaphor for the idea that the police are huddled together inside a stockade, surrounded outside by hostile savages.

Answer 4

Fort Apache

Question 5

Alvin Toffler’s idea (from the book of the same name) that change occurs so abruptly in contemporary society that people are shocked by it.

Answer 5

future shock

Question 6

Human inclinations to behave like animals or in a natural, or opposed to civilized, way: when people are moved to do what feels good.

Answer 6

hedonistic impulses

Question 7

A viewpoint that is based on the values, characteristics, and behavior that are believed to be best in human beings, rather than on any supernatural authority.

Answer 7

humanistic perspectives

Question 8

The propensity for police officers to make judgments about people when they make arrest/no arrest discretionary decisions.

Answer 8

police moralizing

Question 9

The idea from Muir that the three types of power ought to be utilized in a specific order whenever possible: first exhortation, then reciprocity, and then (and only then) coercion.

Answer 9

power prioritization

Question 10

Human imagination, emotional subtlety and toughness makes it possible for humankind not to accept the environment but to change it. And that series of inventions, by which humankind from age to age has remade their environment, is a different kind of evolution- not biological, but _______

Answer 10

cultural evolution

Question 11

With language we create a world of meaning. This is a human world that is just as natural to us as the physical world. Language enables us to think, and the images and references and connections of thought are ______

Answer 11

abstractions

Question 12

hedonistic impulses

Answer 12

animalistic impulses.

Question 13

All norms, rules and laws are supposed to be in the best interest of _____
______ norms are created, maintained and abusers are sanctioned in a rather casual way. The form of sanction used for them is merely social ______.

Answer 13

society
Informal
ostracism

Question 14

Why Be Ethical?
The study will consider several different perspectives on ethical thought, each of which has somewhat different answer to this question.

Answer 14

• Ethical formalism- reason is our natural and governing disposition; to fulfill our human nature we must fulfill our duty to be rational.
• Utilitarianism- An ethic that rests on principle that it is always good to maximize benefit; in the words of JS Mill, we ought always to do “the greatest good for the greatest number.”
• Religion- Created in God’s image, we are endowed by Him with a conscience, the spark of the Divine in us; God will is the ultimate moral authority in a religious life.

Question 15

Our norms, rules and laws–our ethics–are what makes us different from all other species.
The job of our social institutions-families, schools, religions, economic systems, laws, is to instill these ______

Answer 15

principles in people and maintain adherence to these principles.

Question 16

The job of police officers, among others, is to?

Answer 16

apply such norms, rules and laws in a way that encourages order and civility among people

Question 17

To the followers of Ethical Formalism (Immanuel Kant’s philosophy), being ethical is?

Answer 17

being ethical is something that everyone should do because reason requires it of us. Human beings owe a duty to society, to each other and to themselves to be ethical as part of the requirement to behave as rational beings. This duty is ABSOLUTE.

Question 18

Utilitarians philosopher

Answer 18

John Stuart Mill

Question 19

Mill’s utilitarians perspective (John Mill’s philosopher) believe that being ethical, is?

Answer 19

something that people ought to do because it involves behaving in the interests of the majority of society’s members. Utilitarian principles suggest that behaving ethically involves care for and nurturing others.

Question 20

ethical perspective in Religion

Answer 20

Created in Gods image, we are endowed by him with a conscience, the spark of the Divine in us; Gods will is the ultimate moral authority in a religious life.

Question 21

Two humanistic perspectives

Answer 21

ethical formalism and utilitarianism

Question 22

Ethics are at the very center of police function. Police make discretionary decisions that must take into consideration the meaning of

Answer 22

justice, of community and of morality

Question 23

what number of studies indicate that what the police do is service and order maintenance oriented.

Answer 23

90 percent

Question 24

Anomie

Answer 24

feeling of normlessness

Question 25

Emile Durkheim conducted the study of suicide and came up with the label

Answer 25

anomie or a feeling of normlessness

Question 26

those who commit suicide react in a

Answer 26

negative, self deprecating way

Question 27

On the other hand, those suffering from anomie can react with outrage and in a positive way by

Answer 27

by denying their own problems and proclaiming that it is society that is lost and confused. A more healthy reaction.

Question 28

Many of the people in our society who are deviants and who act out in a antisocial way suffer from

Answer 28

anomie

Question 29

Fort Apache syndrome

Answer 29

police operate in an isolated reality, surround by the hostile savages of society.

Question 30

Social historians tell us that there has been more change in human affairs since World War 11 than if the previous five thousand year.

Answer 30

Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler

Question 31

Technological change in combination with the morphing of the social fabric into a new and different reality every few years, create?

Answer 31

anomic feelings of epdiemic proportions becuase people naturally react this way to instability.

Question 32

The greater number of people in society who develop anomic feelings, the more ?

Answer 32

unstable is that society’s social fabric

Question 33

It is anomie that drives such movements, created by change of both the _____ and ______ sort.

Answer 33

technological and sociological

Question 34

book Future Shock

Answer 34

Alvin Toffler- change had become so rapid in contemporary society that human experience was morphing into something unprecedented.

Question 35

3 different types of power that police can use

Answer 35

1. exhortation-convincing people thru logic and reason or morals
2. reciprocity- exchanging something to obtain desired behavior from another
3. coercion= using threats to harm something of value to person being coerced.

Question 36

using exhortation and reciprocity before using coercive power as last resort is

Answer 36

power prioritization

Question 37

Avoiding the use of coercive power. Berkeley PD 1980s.

Answer 37

frustrated with homeless people by using only coercive power, Police developed a program in cooperation with local businesses wherein people could be given coupons by police redeemable for free coffee. this reward for behaving themselves

Question 38

When police are using non-coercive power, the police are adapting themselves to nature of the situation in order to obtain the desired ends, they are using?

Answer 38

utilitarianism

Question 39

An arrest for a violent felony must be made irrespective of circumstances, and the identities of participants. This involves invoking?

Answer 39

ethical formalism

Question 40

Utilitarian principles suggest that behaving ethically involves ______ for and ______ others.

Answer 40

caring and nurturing

Question 41

Utilitarian suggests that their approach comes from a natural drive that helps society to proceed in the most _____ and ____ manner.

Answer 41

fair and equitable

Question 42

Utilitarians, when analyzing what to do in any circumstance that requires deciding what is ethical, rules are not ______

Answer 42

absolute

Question 43

Ethical behavior defines us, not just as intelligent and civilized, but as ______ ____

Answer 43

human beings

Question 44

All religions take the approach that conscience or the _____ _____, is the “spark” of the divine in human nature

Answer 44

moral sense. Bible tells us that we are created in His image, which theologians and philosophers take to mean that we can communicate with God and that, like Him, we are equipped with a moral sense, a sense of good and evil. This is of course different from the other two humanistic perspectives

Question 45

Because of mass anomie in America, the police are forever moralizing for other, applying norms, values and laws to human behavior, and deciding who deserves to be ______ and who does not.

Answer 45

sanctioned…Police base their decisions on their own ethics and view of justice in the world—based on their character.

Question 46

When the police give citizens the chance to decide to do the right thing for themselves, they are acting in an ________ manner

Answer 46

utilitarian

Question 47

The personal ______ of individual police officers are critical to the impact the entire criminal justice system has on life on the street.

Answer 47

ethics

Question 48

Within individual officers themselves, the _____ they possess forms the basis for the application of ethics to the everyday problems of people in America.

Answer 48

Character