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Training Police in Professional Ethics

NCJ Number
164086
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 12 Issue: 3 Dated: (August 1996) Pages: 264-276
Author(s)
A E Hooke
Date Published
1996
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This article argues that although the objections to calling the police a profession and the disjunctures between public perceptions and those of the police themselves are sometimes great, claims to police professional status can be legitimate.
Abstract
The author clarifies possible sources of confusion over training police in professionalism. Those who offer the analogy that compares police to doctors or contend that police must emulate the business model of ethics mislead the public, because they obscure a central theme in professionalism, which establishes the relationship between an occupation's practitioners and its public. This perspective holds that the values of a profession are related but not identical to those of the average citizen. If this theme is not addressed in the training of recruits, then the expectations of the public and police will remain at odds. Consequently, the ethos of trust that characterizes professional relationships will elude law enforcement no matter how much it displays academic degrees, symbolic rewards, and other symbols of professional status. The author presents tables to show how police training can both identify tensions between the police and the public and provide ethical resolutions. Such training in ethics is a way to help police become professionals and minimize many of the errors that law enforcement agencies are criticized for committing or condoning. 4 tables and 26 references