Edit my reflection essay about DOJ report

In the past decades there has been a significant erosion of public confidence in the police and their institutions (Vicchio, 2003). There are many studies that make this obvious. There has been a huge drop in police officer trust recorded from 1980 to 1995 (Vicchio, 2003). To make matters even worse especially in this day and age, many studies have also shown that there is a huge difference between African-American respondents and white respondents when it came to the question of whether they trust the police (Vicchio, 2003). The thing is, when we talk about integrity, how is it possible to instill integrity in the entire police department? One suggestion that many people in the academic world have is that the testing instruments that actually test police integrity at the time of recruiting need to be better than they are now (Vicchio, 2003). There should be an improvement in the way recruits are hired so that things from the beginning are a little bit less questionable.

Ethics testing in the academy is another issue that needs to be addressed because it appears as though there is not enough emphasis on police ethics in the academy (Vicchio, 2003). Many training officers at the Academy do not realize just how important instilling appropriate ethics can be. During training police recruits are subjected to a lot of resocialization (Norman & James, 2005). Often times in police academy training the term ethics simply means making a moral choice between what is right and what is wrong behavior (Norman & James, 2005). It is suggested that this is the kind of trap that must be avoided because the idea of ethics is much more complicated than that (Norman & James, 2005). It seems as though one of the things that is missing is the lack of individual character that those in command have (Norman & James, 2005). In a perfect world there would be a high degree of internal accountability and intense morality felt if a commander was to have some of his troops found to be dirty or found to be bad cops (Norman & James, 2005). In this situation it takes a commander that feels as though he is missed something by finding out that there were some dirty cops that came from his training class. Commander would then feel some obligation that there is a problem that needs to be fixed (Norman & James, 2005). If the idea of having bad cops under his command does not weigh heavily on his conscious then it will be difficult to fix the problem at any level in the department (Norman & James, 2005). There have to be training officers that understand and care about teaching proper ethics or else the entire training process is a lost cause.

Vicchio, 2003 takes on explaining how a police officer finds himself certain situations and eventually ends committing an ethical violation. He starts by talking about having a room full of police officers and asking them why they became cops. It doesn't matter they will all tell you the same thing, according to Vicchio. It doesn't matter if they are senior staff or probation officers, it’s likely that none of them are going to say they are in it for the money (Vicchio, 2003). The answer is going to be the same everywhere, just said possibly in a way that is the little bit different from person to person. There’s a good chance that they will say something about believing in doing the right thing or in contributing to society or in protecting society (Vicchio, 2003). There’s a good chance that they’re going to say that they want to do something important with their life that helps others or that protects the neighborhood that their families going to be growing up in. The thing is every single one of those officers might have a different perspective on what proper ethics is.             Most police officers when joining the force go into it thinking they are going to be super cops, they are going to arrest every person who breaks the law (Vicchio, 2003). Once these officers finally joined the force and are working on day-to-day police work they see that it is not as they assumed it was going to be (Vicchio, 2003). At first they start out by arresting people for the small crimes and for barely breaking the speed limit because they think that is the right thing to do (Vicchio, 2003). Eventually they start to realize that there is no way that they can catch everybody who breaks the law so it might be better to work on people that they think are breaking the law every day (Vicchio, 2003). This is when a police officer’s ethics must come into play (Vicchio, 2003). Police officers will start to ignore the small things and try to concentrate on bigger things thinking maybe that will start to teach people a lesson (Vicchio, 2003). But then they find out they can't stop all those people either. Finally, one day while arresting someone the law breaker offers the police officer money (Vicchio, 2003).

            Most police officers think they deserve a little more money (Vicchio, 2003). They think to themselves just this once and no one will know. So the police officer makes a deal with the law breaker and for letting the criminal go, the officer is going to get money (Vicchio, 2003). Is this ethical? Is this the way law enforcement should be done? Of course not in this situation the police officer is giving someone like a drug dealer all the power (Vicchio, 2003). This is how drug dealers become drug lords because of police officers who are telling themselves that ethically they are getting some of the bad guys off the street taking a little bit of money from one drug dealer to bust many others is a decent and ethical trade-off. This is where much of the failing is. These officers should give been taught in the academy to be prepared for this type of chain of events that seems to such a common chain that gets many officers into trouble.             Most police officers really do have good ethics and they come into the job with the best intensions (Vicchio, 2003). The thing is every day police have to deal with people that are in bad moods or the don’t like them or that think that they are doing the wrong thing by writing that speed. Every day police have to deal with seeing dead bodies, talking to victim’s things like rape, and just dealing in general public who gets angry at them for doing what they at first thought was the right thing to do. This is something that can change a person’s ethics and as that occurs police officers begin to care less and less about ethics and this is when corruption happens (Vicchio, 2003).

The fact of police misconduct has been well established over time (Donahue & Felts, 1993). It is the explanations for this misconduct that are not as well established and are the focus of a great deal of debate (Donahue & Felts, 1993). When looking at police deviance, corruption, and reform, all of these things touch greatly on the issues of ethical behavior and unfortunately there appears to be a significant amount of evidence that suggests that police departments are in a crisis in this regard (Donahue & Felts, 1993). Certainly the Baltimore police department is one of these glaring examples of how complete ethical breakdowns from the top to the bottom have destroyed any possibility of having the police department that treats its citizens in an acceptable manner.

One of the glaring problems that appears to be pervasive in the Baltimore police department is the problem of having those in management exercising any kind of rational discretion whatsoever. Those in charge with the hiring and firing need to be well versed in what appropriate ethical conduct and behavior is and also need to exhibit this in their day to day activities as many recruits are going to be looking up to them. When, as in the Baltimore police department, there is corruption all the way at the top and those who are in charge of instilling proper values and ethics are failing having an ethical police force is simply a lost cause. There are few ways that have been suggested in the academic community to start getting police officers to follow ethics on a more consistent basis. Hiring standards have to be tailored to better look out for people who are willing to be unethical on the job. There will be a few that slip through the cracks but as long as there is ethics in management those few that slipped through the cracks can be quickly and swiftly dealt with. Ethics should also be taught at police academies. Officers face ethical issues in their day to day patrol and need to be prepared into the room with these situations that arise. There is no better time to start instilling the proper way to deal with ethical dilemmas than in the Academy. Ethics preparation should be practical and should include discussions of problems faced by senior officers in the organization and lessons that have been learned in that regard (Vicchio, 2003).

Another controversy over very important improvement would be the requirement that all recruits have a college degree. If this is required then recruits will understand the moral rigors of police work better, and they will learn about ethics in an environment that will simply reinforce the common place self-serving view that the police have to bend the rules to catch the criminals (Vicchio, 2003). Another suggestion that is coming up fairly often in academic literature is the idea of keeping officers from getting mixed up in corruption midcareer by continuing their education in police ethics throughout their entire career (Vicchio, 2003). There are also very different ethical issues and situations experienced depending on whether it is a management position or experienced officer on patrol for the first time. Each of these situations should be dealt with individually and civic examples of things to expect and ways to react to those different possibilities that may arise during the course of the job.            The bottom line is that without ethics, expecting to do the right thing at the right times is a lost cause. Without ethics expecting the police to get along with the community is a lost cause. The only way that the police are going to be able to improve their reputation and prevent things are so pervasive in the Baltimore Police Department would be to instill ethics from day one, require college degrees before hiring anybody, doing better screening of the people that are hired, and conducting continuing education regarding police ethics throughout the course of the officer’s employment. Only then will police begin to regain community trust and begin to rebuild the reputation that is so often tarnished by agencies like the Baltimore Police Department.

References

Donahue, M. & Felts, A. (1993) Police Ethics: A critical perspective. Journal of Criminal Justice. 21:4. And in

Miller, L. & Braswell, M. (2002) Human relations and police work. Prospect Heights Ill: Waveland Press.

Norman, C., & James, N. (2005) Policing the Platonic Cave: Ethics and Efficacy in Police Training. Policing & Society. 15:2.

U.S. Department of Justice. Civil Rights Division. (2016) Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department. Findings Report.

Vicchio, S. J. (2003). Overview: Ethics and Police Integrity. In T. L. Roleff (Ed.), At Issue. Police Corruption. San Diego: Greenhaven Press. (Reprinted from Ethics and Police Integrity, Police Integrity: Public Service with Honor, 1997) Retrieved from http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?disabl eHighlighting=&displayGroupName=Viewpoints&currPage=&dviSelectedPage=&scanI d=&query=&prodId=&search_within_results=&p=OVIC&mode=view&catId=&limiter= &display- query=&displayGroups=&contentModules=&action=e&sortBy=&documentId=GALE% 7CEJ3010286202&windowstate=normal&activityType=&failOverType=&commentary= &source=Bookmark&u=asuniv&jsid=e7dfa6431fb66939da5db08e26d19905