April 2, 2024

In Genesis 39, Joseph – a man of power and influence- refuses to compromise his morals, ethics, and integrity and is paid back harshly by man. Compare this with the Lord’s attitude toward

In Genesis 39, Joseph – a man of power and influence- refuses to compromise his morals, ethics, and integrity and is paid back harshly by man. Compare this with the Lord's attitude toward Joseph's behavior. Combine this with Proverbs 29:25 to explain your views on the responsibility of public servants in the criminal justice system to understand the importance of ethical behavior.

(250-300 words)

3/23/2021

Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in

Criminal Justice Tenth Edition

Chapter 7 Police Corruption

and Responses

Learning Objectives

1. Provide examples of two types of police misconduct:

economic corruption and abuse of authority.

2. Describe individual explanations of corruption and

potential solutions.

3. Explain organizational explanations of corruption and

potential solutions.

4. Describe societal explanations of corruption and

potential solutions.

Economic Corruption (1 of 2)

• Officers using their position to acquire unfair benefits

• 1973 Knapp Commission—New York City Police

Department corruption

• Includes:

– Gratuities

– Kickbacks

– Overtime schemes

– Misuse of dept. property

3/23/2021

Economic Corruption (2 of 2)

– Payoffs

– Ticket “fixing”

– Bribery/extortion

– Theft

Gratuities

• Items of value given because of role or position, rather

than personal relationship.

• A gift is personal and has no strings attached.

• Common police gratuities include:

– Free coffee

– Discounted or free meals

– Half-price dry cleaning

Graft

• Graft refers to any exploitation of one’s role, such as

accepting bribes or protection money.

– Examples include taking bribes for changing testimony

or “forgetting,” looking the other way when discovering

an illegal act, or taking kickbacks from a lawyer or tow

truck company for sending them business.

• Officers in the United States rated bribery as the

second most serious offense. Only theft from a crime

scene was rated as more serious.

3/23/2021

Abuse of Authority

• Physical abuse

• Psychological abuse

• Legal abuse

Professional Courtesy and Ticket-Fixing

• The practice of not ticketing an officer who is stopped

for speeding or for other driving violations

• Justifications for not ticketing other officers are diverse

and creative

• Professional courtesy tends to bleed over into other

forms of misconduct

• More serious than not ticketing, is “fixing” a ticket that

has already been written.

On-Duty Use of Drugs and Alcohol

• Police work factors that foster drug use:

– Exposure to a criminal element

– Relative freedom from supervision

– Uncontrolled availability of contraband

• Drinking on duty:

– Creates less vulnerability to corruption than drug use

– Creates an ethical dilemma for other officers

– May lead other officers to isolate themselves from or

avoid working with those who drink

3/23/2021

Sexual Misconduct (1 of 2)

Kraska and Kappeler continuum:

• Viewing a victim’s photos/videos for prurient purposes

• Field or custodial strip searches

• Illegal detentions

• Deception to gain sex

• Services for sex

• Sexual assault

Sexual Misconduct (2 of 2)

• Sapp’s inventory of sexual misconduct:

• Nonsexual contacts that are sexually motivated

• Voyeurism

• Inappropriate contact with crime victims

• Sexual demands of suspects or offenders

• Prostitutes, homeless, and minority women are

extremely vulnerable to sexual extortion by police

officers.

Criminal Cops

• “Miami River Rats”

• “Buddy boys” (NYC)

• Michael Dowd

• Rampart scandal

• Additional scandals in Indianapolis, New Orleands,

Boston, and Philadelphia

3/23/2021

Costs of Corruption

• The costs to communities are considerable.

• Many cities and police departments have also faced

large judgments or agreed to large settlements.

• No evidence to indicate lawsuits are a deterrent to

errant police officers.

Individual Explanations (1 of 3)

• Individual:

– “Rotten-apple” argument (Officer was deviant before

hiring)

– Development of a police personality (Officer became

deviant after hiring)

• Possible predictors: gender, age, education, race,

military experience, academy performance, and prior

history of wrongdoing

Individual Explanations (2 of 3)

• College-educated officers were less likely to be terminated.

• Women were more likely than male officers to be terminated

during their probation.

• Younger officers (those under 22 years of age when

appointed) were more likely to be terminated during

probation.

• Blacks (but not other minorities) were more likely to be

terminated.

• Those who had prior negative employment histories,

dishonorable discharges, and/or did poorly in the academy

were more likely to be terminated for misconduct.

3/23/2021

Individual Explanations (3 of 3)

• Factors involved in developing PTSD symptoms include:

– Witnessing the death of a friend or partner

– Accidentally killing or wounding a bystander

– Failing to stop a perpetrator

– Killing or wounding a child or teenager

– Viewing the body of a child victim

– Interacting with grieving family

– Feeling caught in a violent riot

– Viewing bloody or gruesome scenes

– Observing an event involving violence or murder

– Being undercover and constantly “on guard”

– Being threatened by suspects

Organizational Explanations

• Small work groups

• Perverse incentives

• Organizational culture

Societal Explanations

• If the public does not comply with the law, officers may

rationalize non-enforcement of the law.

• If the public engages in illegal activities, officers may

feel justified in doing the same.

• If the public believes crime control is more important

than due process, police will act on that message.

3/23/2021

Reducing Police Corruption (1 of 2)

• Increase pay

• Eliminate unenforceable laws

• Establish civilian review boards

• Improve training

• Set realistic goals

• Provide ethical leadership

• Perform audits

• Have financial disclosure rules

• Provide written code of ethics

• Provide whistleblowing procedure

Reducing Police Corruption (2 of 2)

• Improve internal affairs

• Rotate staff in some positions

• Better evidence handling procedures

• Early warning systems

• Use video cameras in patrol cars

• Use covert high-tech surveillance

• Targeted/randomized integrity testing

• Conduct surveys of police and public

• Decriminalize vice crimes

“Rotten Apple” Responses (1 of 6)

Improving screening:

• Background checks, interviews, credit checks,

polygraphs, drug tests

• The most common pre-employment screening tool is

the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

• The so-called “Big Five” (extroversion, neuroticism,

agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness)

• Conscientiousness seems to be the most relevant to

job performance.

3/23/2021

“Rotten Apple” Responses (2 of 6)

Education and training:

• Higher formal education standards are not, themselves,

the key to ethical behavior.

• Academy and in-service ethics training are common and

recommended for all departments.

• Many courses use a moral reasoning approach.

• Some advocate an emphasis on character.

• Others recommend case studies.

“Rotten Apple” Responses (3 of 6)

Integrity testing

• Very controversial

• Not well-received by most officers

• Comparing integrity testing to undercover operations

reveals that:

– Most officers oppose integrity testing

– Most officers support undercover operations

“Rotten Apple” Responses (4 of 6)

Early Warning or Audit Systems

• Look at number of complaints, use-of-force reports,

use-of-weapon reports, reprimands, or other indicators

to identify officers.

• Intervention may include more supervision, additional

training, counseling, reassignment, transfer, referral to

an employee assistance program, fitness for duty

evaluation, and/or dismissal.

3/23/2021

“Rotten Apple” Responses (5 of 6)

Body cameras

• Powerful tool to support citizens who allege brutality

• Officers can turn off the camera when they want

• Cost of the cameras and storing the unimaginable

amount of video make widespread use unfeasible

• Invasion of privacy with such cameras

• Rules regarding whether and when police officers

should turn off the cameras is being worked out

“Rotten Apple” Responses (6 of 6)

Public Databases of “Bad” Cops

• As a result of many people not trusting police

departments to root out individuals who should not

have the power and authority inherent in the position,

individuals and groups have constructed databases of

wrongful actions.

• Police argue instances of serious wrongdoing are rare

and problem officers who have a pattern of wrongdoing

are rarer still.

• Such efforts are designed to bring light to the subject of

police misconduct.

“Rotten Barrel” Responses

• Internal affairs model, civil service, and arbitration

• Civilian review/complaint boards

• Changing the culture

• Ethical leadership

• Societal Responses

• Consent Decrees

• Other Societal Responses

3/23/2021

Consent Decrees (1 of 2)

• Civil rights cases against police officers are rare.

Prosecutors must be able to show that police officers

had a clear intent to violate constitutional rights.

• Consent decrees are mandated reforms, approved by

a federal judge, with a court-appointed monitor to

oversee progress.

Consent Decrees (2 of 2)

• The most common targets for change involve policies

concerning use of force, citizen complaint procedures,

in-car video use, racial profiling, data collection, early

warning systems, and expanded training.

• The major complaint that police and city officials have

against DOJ investigations that end in consent decrees

is that they are extremely expensive.

Discussion Questions

• Is it ever acceptable to take gratuities? What about

coffee at a gas station that is free to anyone who

purchases fuel? Would it be wrong for a law

enforcement officer to take the coffee if he or she

purchased fuel?

• Does this police officer deserve to have the charges

dropped in this case? Why or why not?

https://www.metro.us/news/local-

news/philadelphia/philadelphia-police-officer-arrested-

dui

• If you were pulled over in your car and smelled alcohol

on the officer’s breath, what would you do?

3/23/2021

Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in

Criminal Justice Tenth Edition

Chapter 8 Law and Legal

Professionals

Learning Objectives (1 of 2)

1. Describe the justifications for law, including protections

against harm to others, offensive conduct, harm to self,

and harm to societal morals.

2. Explain the role of law in society and the paradigms

that have developed to understand how law is formed

and enforced.

3. Compare the idea of our criminal law system as an

adversarial system to other descriptions of how the

courtroom works and the relationships between the

legal professionals.

Learning Objectives (2 of 2)

4. Discuss the controversy concerning the role of

advocate as legal agent or moral agent.

5. Describe the history and source of legal ethics for

attorneys and judges. Explain the types of ethical

rules that exist and compare them to the subculture

of winning.

3/23/2021

The Role of Law

• Administers justice

• Enforces rights

• Is a tool of behavior change

• Is educative

• Natural law: Laws inherent in the natural world that can

be discovered by reason.

• Positivist law: Laws written and enforced by society.

• Good Samaritan Laws, common in Europe, are

legislation that prohibits passing by an accident scene

or witnessing a crime without rendering assistance.

Justifications for Law

• The harm principle: to prevent harm to persons other

than the actor (assault, robbery, arson)

• The offense principle: to prevent serious offense to

persons other than the actor (public indecency or

lewdness)

• Legal paternalism: to prevent harm to the actor (seat

belts)

• Legal moralism: to prohibit conduct that is inherently

immoral (gambling)

• Benefit to others: to provide some benefit to persons

other than the actor (toxic waste dumping)

Preventing Offensive Behavior

• There are some actions that do not exactly harm

others, but give rise to disgust or offense.

– Public lewdness, disturbing public behavior, noise, or

other actions that infringe on the quality of life of

others can be the subject of laws.

• Vagrancy laws have been overturned by the Supreme

Court

• Courts have upheld “no camping” ordinances to

dissuade the homeless from congregating in a

downtown area.

3/23/2021

Preventing Harm to Self (Legal

Paternalism)

• Laws that protect people from their own behavior.

– Seat belt laws, motorcycle helmet laws, speed limits,

drug laws

• The rules try to create a balance between an

individual’s liberty and government control.

• Paternalistic laws can be supported by an ethics of

care.

Preventing Harm to Self (Legal Moralism)

• In legal moralism law is a moral agent of society, some say in areas where there is no moral agreement.

• Whether an action is moral or immoral is a different question from whether there should be laws regarding the behavior.

• In limited legal moralism there are laws only when violation is of universal standard of morality, as opposed to merely a conventional standard (prevents the situation of some groups forcing their moral code on others).

• Discretion in enforcement patterns is most pronounced in these “gray” areas of crime.

Paradigms of Law

• A paradigm is a fundamental view of the world around

us. It is a model of how ideas relate to one another

forming a conceptual model of the world around us.

– In a consensus paradigm, society is a community

consisting of like-minded individuals who agree on goals

important for ultimate survival; law is functional.

– In a conflict paradigm, society is made up of competing

and conflicting interests; law is a tool used by those in

power.

– In a pluralist paradigm, society is made up of competing

interests, but more than two basic interest groups; law is

tool of power group or coalition.

3/23/2021

The Consensus Paradigm

• Law serves as a tool of unification.

• Law contributes to the collective conscience by showing

us who is deviant.

• In the consensus paradigm:

– Law is representative. It is a compilation of the do’s and

don’ts that we all agree on.

– Law reinforces social cohesion. It emphasizes our

“we-ness” by illustrating deviance.

– Law is value-neutral. That is, it resolves conflicts in an

objective and neutral manner.

The Conflict Paradigm

• Criminal definitions are relative and determined by

those who control major social institutions.

• The regulation of business, instead of the

criminalization of harmful business practices arises

from the ability of those in powerful positions to

redefine their activities to their own advantage.

• Law is repressive, a tool of the powerful, and is not

value-neutral.

The Pluralist Paradigm

• Law arises from interest groups that are in flux.

• The definition of crime may change, depending on

which interest groups have the power to define criminal

behavior and what is currently perceived to be in the

best interests of the most powerful groups.

3/23/2021

First, Let’s Kill All the Lawyers

• Public has little confidence in lawyers’ abilities to live

up to ideals of equity, fairness, and justice.

• Perhaps the best explanation for the longstanding

distrust of lawyers is that they typically represent

trouble.

• People don’t require a lawyer unless they believe that a

wrong has been done to them or that they need to be

defended.

Law and the Legal Professional (1 of 2)

• Indigent Defense

– The system of indigent defense in the country is

extremely underfunded.

– Funding public defenders adequately would cost

money initially, but might reduce mass incarceration.

• The “Criminalization of Poverty”

– Municipalities have begun to utilize the criminal justice

system as a revenue stream by turning court

personnel into debt collectors.

– When fees from offenders are necessary to fun city

services, there is no incentive to reduce crime.

Law and the Legal Professional (2 of 2)

A “Confidence Game”:

• Advocacy a pretense

• Individualized justice a pretense

Bureaucratic Justice:

• Bureaucratic efficiency supplants goal of justice

• Presumption of guilt (plea bargaining)

The Wedding Cake Model:

• The few "serious" cases are the top layer

• Bottom of the cake represents the majority of cases

• Bottom receive mere token of justice process

3/23/2021

Legal Agent or Moral Agent?

• The Legal Agent model defines the lawyer as neither

moral nor immoral, but merely a tool.

• Under the Special Relationship model, the lawyer places

loyalty to the client above all other considerations.

• Under the Moral Agent model, the lawyer must adhere to

his or her own moral code.

Legal Agent vs. Moral Agent (1 of 3)

• “Hired gun”

• Promotes client’s interests and performs client’s will

• Argument that this is the role of the attorney and ethical

standards and rules keep attorneys from doing illegal or

unethical acts

• Maintains own values of t

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In Genesis 39, Joseph – a man of power and influence- refuses to compromise his morals, ethics, and integrity and is paid back harshly by man. Compare this with the Lord’s attitude toward

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