For the first administration of the instrument when the police officer had been employed for two months, no significant difference emerged between the idealistic and realistic views of ethical decision making for the seven case scenarios. There was a significant difference between the idealism and the realism scores after 3 years of employment. Female officers, older officers, officers with higher education, and officers who had received some form of police ethics instruction were significantly more ethical in their idealistic decisions, that is, what should be done. Police officers essentially held the same idealistic ethical view of the seven scenarios for 3 years, but what did appear to change was the realistic viewpoint as expressed by police ethical decisionmaking. Most of the officers responded morally or ethically to the case scenarios regarding what they should do, but the same officers responded less ethically to what they actually would do. 2 tables, 39 references, and 1 appendix