Understanding the psychology of police misconduct

[JonLP24]

By Brian D. Fitch, PhD, Lieutenant, Los Angeles, California, Sheriff’s Department

Law enforcement is a unique profession, with officers experiencing a host of freedoms not available to the general public, including the application of deadly force, high-speed driving, and seizing personal property. While these liberties may be necessary, they also can create opportunities for wrongdoing, especially if such behavior is likely to go undetected because of poor supervision. The embarrassment caused by misconduct can damage the public trust, undermine officer morale, and expose agencies to unnecessary—and, in many cases, costly—litigation.1 Consequently, a clear understanding of the psychology underlying unethical behavior is critical to every law enforcement supervisor and manager at every level of an organization, regardless of one’s agency or mission.

Law enforcement agencies go to great lengths to recruit, hire, and train only the most qualified applicants—candidates who have already demonstrated a track record of good moral values and ethical conduct. Similarly, most officers support the agency, its values, and its mission, performing their duties ethically while avoiding any misconduct or abuse of authority. Yet despite the best efforts of organizations everywhere, it seems that one does not have to look very far these days to find examples of police misconduct, particularly in the popular press.2 Even more disturbing, however, is that many of the officers engaged in immoral or unethical behavior previously demonstrated good service records, absent any of the “evil” typically associated with corruption or abuse.

While it is probably true that at least some of the officers who engage in illicit activities managed somehow to slip through the cracks in the hiring process and simply continued their unethical ways, this account fails to explain how otherwise good officers become involved in misconduct. The purpose of this article is to familiarize law enforcement managers and supervisors with the cognitive rationalizations that can contribute to unethical behavior. The article also offers strategies and suggestions intended to mitigate misconduct, before it actually occurs, by developing a culture of ethics.

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Decades of empirical research have supported the idea that whenever a person’s behaviors are inconsistent with their attitudes or beliefs, the individual will experience a state of psychological tension—a phenomenon referred to as cognitive dissonance. 4 Because this tension is uncomfortable, people will modify any contradictory beliefs or behaviors in ways intended to reduce or eliminate discomfort. Officers can reduce psychological tension by changing one or more of their cognitions—that is, by modifying how they think about their actions and the consequences of those behaviors—or by adjusting their activities, attitudes, or beliefs in ways that are consistent with their values and self-image. Generally speaking, an officer will modify the cognition that is least resistant to change, which, in most cases, tends to be the officer’s attitudes, not behaviors.

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=2290&issue_id=12011

Fair article that addresses the reality of the situation, explains how the rationalization process snowballs to where you see misconduct widespread across the force. That site is also an excellent resource with countless links to studies in the archives.

[safeinOhio]

1. Good stuff, really good stuff.

A great place to start is with what many cops call "Professional courtesy". It starts with not writing tickets to other cops and ends up not reporting serious crimes by other cops along with stealing and assaults. Once you open that door it grows and grows. Some chiefs and sheriffs know and practice putting a stop to it, but not enough of them, because they have benefited from it themselves for years. A great cop writes a ticket to his or her boss and even the mayor. A great top brass of the department fires the cop that doesn't write the ticket on the spot. Until this becomes the norm, corruption will continue and grow.
As citizens, it is our job to ALWAYS report misconduct to the brass. Trust me, enough complaints and action will follow.

[JonLP24]

2. I came across more from a Wayne State Professor dealing with what he calls "noble cause corruption"

Noble Cause Corruption, Discretion, and Privacy Expectations

Noble cause corruption in policing occurs when good officers substitute in their personal values for the values of the profession and the law. It is an ends-justifies-the-means rationalization associated with public service wherein officers break the law to enforce the law. It is unconstitutional policing; an illegal use of authority and power, but not for personal gain. Rather, the objective is to rid society of its predators, no matter what the means, as an ultimate goal.11 This is when officers cut corners to circumvent the constitutional guidelines promulgated for them in their profession and rationalize such illegality as a means to an ordered end. Granted, the end is a noble cause (cleaning up the streets they police), but the means used is the less-discussed side of noble cause corruption.

Such street-level rationalizations cloud the police mission and, when discovered, undermine the efforts of those in the profession who are committed to just ends. Whether citizens arrested are murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, or terrorists, they are society’s predators and it is law enforcement’s job to put them away. Yet bending (or breaking) of the law under a police rationalization that such ends (incarcerating society’s predators) justifies the use of illegal means (violation of predators’ constitutionally protected rights) is a critical issue that must be addressed in training curricula. The planting of evidence, falsified testimony, privacy violations in information gathering, and the arbitrary detention of citizens without legal justification are examples of noble cause corruption.12 Illegal fishing expeditions by law enforcement can result in exclusion of evidence, as so-called “fruits of the poisonous tree,” and dismissal of all criminal charges. The American Exclusionary Rule was specifically carved out in U.S. Supreme Court case law to prevent constitutional noncompliance by the police.

For years, academicians have been researching and writing about noble cause corruption, and yet it still is not a common topic in academy training. Some would argue that low-ranking subordinates should never have the option to engage in such occupational rationalizations,13 while others have suggested that street-level decisions are made without regard to “the formal administrative and legal protocols.”14 Others have suggested that poor administrative attention to this problem and the occupational stressors it produces have fueled its existence through a looking-the-other-way supervisory mentality: “[F]ormal organizational values impose pressures that may lead to noble cause corruption. Aspirations for promotion, ‘implicit quotas for arrests, directives from administrators, self-esteem, [and personal] moral ideological commitments all put pressure on the individual officer to lie or otherwise subvert the formal values of law enforcement and lead to violation of suspects’ rights or other unethical behaviors” (emphasis added).15

Police discretion involves legal, educated decision-making processes. Whether to enforce the full letter of the law, to simply advise a citizen, or to choose a middle ground, street-level officers must incorporate all of the tools of their trade and select the plan of action most appropriate or reasonable on a case-by-case evaluation. Though there are many factors to consider regarding officer discretion, personal biases, prejudices, and values are not to be employed in this decision-making process. Nor can police rationalizations be used to breach the constitutional line regarding citizen privacy expectations. Cutting corners regarding policy and procedure implementation has proven to be costly. Ethics training must incorporate the critical importance of comporting to the specific dictates of the legal process, the philosophy of the profession, the ethical expectations of the organization, and the need to keep personal values in check while wearing the badge.
http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=2339&issue_id=32011

<snip>
Noble cause corruption in policing occurs when officers circumvent the profession’s mandatory constitutional restrictions. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from “unreasonable” governmental intrusions into their private lives in order to prevent arbitrary and malicious police actions. Noble cause corruption is a felony, not a misdemeanor, because it is an abuse of police powers, “it is the corruption of police power when officers do bad things because they believe that the outcomes will be good.”2 It is not a “bending” of the constitutional rules, as some try to suggest, but rather a breaking of those rules in an effort to get the upper hand on society’s terrorist and criminal element: “NCC is intended to cover a certain type of corruption with the mantle of respectability, much as the designation of a lie as white is usually intended to sanitize it.”3 It is not misconduct for personal gain; rather, “it is a misguided rationalization that such behavior is part of the job description, in a utilitarian sense, to get the criminals off the streets no matter what the means.”4

Such rationalized corruption has been in policing for years and has been an ongoing challenge for police administrators educated in the nuances of this occupational rationalization.

Street-level NCC occurs when officers plant evidence, use their “sixth sense” as opposed to establishing probable cause facts, describe the elements of misdemeanor in such a way that it becomes a felony;5 and commit testilying.6 All of these are police felonies based on the passion to prevent crime, a rationale that is the linchpin of noble cause corruption.

However, each action violates the U.S. Constitution, the officer’s oath of office, and the public’s trust in the policing profession. One of the most egregious cases in recent times was the Los Angeles Police Department’s Ramparts case.7 This incident cost the city millions of dollars in lawsuits, settlements, investigative hours reviewing previous convictions, and an overall decrease in organizational morale. Further, the agency suffered long-term distrust issues with the media and with the citizens they served.

http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&article_id=1917&issue_id=102009

There is a lot more, I'd recommend typing the professor's name in the search site box for more articles done by him.

[ncjustice80]

3. A cop that receives a ticket should be fired as well.