Ethics In Policing

In policing, policies, procedures, rules, regulations, and discipline are necessary components of oversight and accountability, and also serve to promote the overall departmental mission, goals, and objectives. However, too many guidelines and rules or overly restrictive policies can not only create confusion, conflict and low morale, but also detrimentally impact agency goals. According to Skolnick (2011), morale is of paramount importance in the administration of police due to officers’ tendency to regard team-mentality over administrative policy. Therefore, problems, which generally occur as the result of violations of key administrative principles, can contribute to inefficiency and ineffectiveness in both personnel and departmental goals.

If left unchecked, these counterintuitive directives foster an environment of confusion and decreased morale which would likely lead to administrative dilemmas, such as Rixton, where Chief Eager’s policies were largely ignored by subordinates. Within my own department, the Criminal Investigations Division in which I work, is under direct supervision of both the sheriff and the chief deputy, despite the presence of a division captain. On several occasions, investigators have been instructed to ignore directives issued by the captain, effectively removing his authority to carry out his job, yet these orders are difficult to reconcile with one another because the captain is largely responsible for assigning investigations and on-call responsibilities to

Although without discipline, agencies would be ill-equipped to enforce their policies and mandates, disciplinary practices focused on “training, guidance, and correction” are more beneficial to organizational goals and objectives than the arbitrary punishments employed in the past (Cordner, 2016, p. 137). Additionally, research involving more than 50 police departments in communities of 250,000 or more residents revealed that administrative review and disciplinary procedures had no statistically significant effect on officer conduct regarding use of force (Mays & Taggert, 1985). While rules and regulations are more restrictive and allow for less discretion with regard to specific situations, they are not absolute or inflexible, and according to Cordner (2016), invariable and uncompromising enforcement of rules and regulations, particularly in instances when an officer has erred in good faith, can discourage officer creativity, diffuse interest, or enthusiasm, and further contribute to decreased morale. All of which, negatively influence both the organization’s and individual officers’ efficacy and desire to carry out the department’s