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Individual Perspectives on Police Ethics: Ethics and Policing, Study 2

NCJ Number
165552
Author(s)
M G Frank; K M McConkey; G F Huon; B L Hesketh
Date Published
1995
Length
33 pages
Annotation
This report presents findings on Australian police perspectives on police ethics, based on semi-structured interviews with 32 individual officers, ranging from recruits to commissioned officers, across South Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales.
Abstract
The researchers were interested in their individual perspectives on police ethics because acting ethically or unethically is ultimately an individual choice, and it is important to know which factors individuals say influence that choice. Also, as an organization, the police service may have limited avenues for individuals to come forward in confidence, and it is important that the messages of individual officers be heard by the police service. Further, the policies and procedures that are designed to prevent and punish unethical actions and to encourage and reward ethical ones will be most successful if they fit with the perspectives of individual officers. The study met its aims by providing information about the training, knowledge, understanding, and application of ethics in the situations that individual officers face. It also elicited particular comments about the application of ethics by individual officers and their views on dealing with ethical dilemmas. Further, it highlighted the issues to be examined further in a survey about practical ethics in the police service and allowed specific key points to be made about the management of ethical and unethical actions in the police service. The interviews focused on subjects' knowledge of ethics, temptations to behave unethically, breaching of ethics, resisting temptations to behave unethically, getting caught for behaving unethically, personal role in maintaining ethics, and improving ethical behavior. 8 tables, 2 references, and appended interview protocol