According to Velasquez, Andre, Shanks and Meyer (1987) Ethics Is Two Things: First, Ethics

Police face ethical questions everyday – many of which only they will ever know about. It may be as simple as letting a person off a traffic ticket with only a warning or as complex as not secretly pocketing drug money from a recent bust. Serious or not, the ethical standards police live by must not conflict with the morally and legally right thing to do. “Police officers shall not compromise their integrity or that of their Department or profession, by taking or attempting to influence actions when a conflict of interest exists,

(FDOE, n.d., www.fdle.state.fl.us).

According to Velasquez, Andre, Shanks and Meyer (1987) Ethics is driven by two sides: “First, ethics refers to well based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards…ones own moral and values…” weighted at times against peer and social pressure” (www.scu.edu). As leaders who have the power to imprison people and thereby take away their freedom, it is especially important that police are ethical. This means police understand and psychologically embrace the value of ethics both on and off the job.

As citizens sworn to uphold the law, police are required to not only follow their internal moral standards, but they have an ethical business code of conduct to follow as well – one that is written on legal paper. For example, a police officer’s “fundamental duty is to serve mankind; to safeguard lives and property; to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men…” (FDOE, n.d., www.fdle.state.fl.us). 2

Another ethical standard police are sworn to is that they will provide not only truthful information under testimony, but that any information gathered on a person (suspect or not) is not to go beyond those with a legal right to know. This means nothing sinister should be used against someone to benefit a police officer (such as blackmailing someone).

Despite all the rules on ethics (along with sworn police testimony to always be ethical, moral and tell the truth) once good police can and do go bad. They allow their ethics to go by the way aide and incomes conflict of interest, favoritism and perhaps even blackmail (i.e. sexual favors in lieu of getting a ticket). When police “go bad” they begin to show deviant behavior. According to Wikipedia (n.d.) deviant behavior are “behaviors that violate cultural norms including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime) as well as informal violations of social norms (such as picking your nose” (www.wikipedia.org).

Author Gilman (n.d.) comments on police deviant behavior when he writes, “One of the central traits to values deterioration is the development of a culture of perceived

"Entitlement". This belief would permit law enforcement officers to rationalize and justify to themselves behavior that is clearly unacceptable and would warrant enforcement action if engaged in by members of the community at large” (www.rcmp- learning.org).

Deviant behavior involves corruption, misconduct and brutality – or a mixture of all three. Corrupt police may be into blackmailing citizens and using their authority for personal financial or social influence gain. Police misconduct may be something that occurs off the job (i.e. domestic violence) or occur on the job – meeting at a “nudie” bar on the job. Police brutality is simply using too much force where it is not needed. All of 3 these bring a black eye to the police and have the public questioning the ethical and moral standards of their local police force.

In closing, police who act in a deviant manner are violating ethical and moral standards of not just their uniform, but the community in which they serve. Police who cannot gain the trust of their community will have a harder time making cases “stick” in court. After all, it is the “community” that makes guilty or innocent decisions on court cases. Much like the OJ Simpson trial in the early 1990’s, if the line of questioning is focused more on police ethics than it is on the facts of the case (prosecution versus defense) than the police officer (or department as a hole) has not effectively served their uniform. 4

References

Florida Department of Law Enforcement. (n.d.). Ethical Standards of Conduct – Law

Enforcement Officer. Retrieved February 8, 2009 at:

http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/cjst/OfficerRequirements/LE_Conduct.htm

Gilmartin, Kevin. (n.d.). Ethics Based Policing – Undoing Entitlement. Retrieved

February 8, 2009, at: http://www.rcmp-learning.org/docs/ecdd1220.htm

Velasquez, Manuel et al. (1987). What is Ethics. Retrieved February 8, 2009, at:

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.html