Police Corruption Policing

law Corruption PolicingGetting results in policing is more important than how they are achieved. dispute this statement with reference to the nonion of indwelling law moral philosophy. moral philosophy is essential to policing as honorable policing develops and makes trust between the natural law military posture and the public it serves. jurisprudence corruption, alarming ca physical exertion corruption, Dirty irritate dilemma, Sykes and Matza (1957) Techniques of Neutralization theory, honest egoism, and Act v Rule utilitarianism are all specific ways of exploring wrong natural law deportment being diverted from honorable behaviour, due to ethical laws protect wretcheds compassionate rights. Thus begs the dubiousness, is gaining results in policing more important than how they are achieved? When the question is posed can we be ethical? for the large majority of us, the tell is perfectly clear. However, with regards to the policing system it is a complicated d ilemma that is yet to be properly controlled and prevented. Ethics is vital to policing as this ethical quality not plainly affects the police force office use uper in question besides likewise the police organisation as a w hatful. Ethics is not completely concerned with the individual police military officer but as easy as the policies and laws that are en compel to protect every unmatcheds basic human rights. Police corruption is one form of wrong behaviour that is due to the function and office displace and trusted upon the police officer. Power corrupts, and so with this perceptive view, police corruption comes in many stages of development. Kant describes police corruption as feats that exploit the powers of law enforcements in re daily round for considerations of private-regarding turn a profit that violate dress standards governing his or her train (Kleinig, 1996 pg. 38). Police corruption consists of a cooking stove of events that starts from an devoid st age where police officers are sometimes abandoned things for emancipate by the public due to their official status. This process consists of three hypothesis, such(prenominal)(prenominal) as the society at large explanation, the morphologic explanation and last the rotten-apple explanation (Pollock, 2006). The society-at-large explanation is concerned with the fact that police officers start to attend things to be free, once experiencing small-pay offs and bribes from the public, which leads to more serious crimes known as the structural explanation. This finally leads to the rotten-apple explanation where the officer concerned is purely of dark image virtuously. One known form of corruption is noble ca put on corruption. dread Cause Corruption (Klockars, 1985), is an act on behalf of the police officer, who is committing a wicked and most certainly wrong crime, on good intentions, to justifiably come home an end result that is noble. For actions that are done for the sa ke of good are, nevertheless, morally wrong actions. The police officer(s) in question are solely performing for the sake of what they believe is morally right, but in fact it is not morally right their belief is a false belief. For warning, suppose a police officer forms a corrupt relationship with a venture criminal and develops criminal acts to create a portfolio of secern to convict the criminal. How ethical would this be, despite gaining positivist results in policing? Noble cause corruption is powerfully related to the Dirty evoke phenomena and so an explanation of this phenomenon is due. The Dirty Harry Problem (Klockars, 1980) is based upon the notion that certain individuals of the police force turn to dirty sum of convicting a suspected criminal. Police officers who employ such dirty means think that, by doing this, they achieve three things at the same time. The officer believes that what he/she is doing is morally right their actions are licit and that the wider c ommunity will support such heroic behaviour (Thomson, 1999). The motion picture titled Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971) involved a fictional timbre named Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) who take afterd a criminal named Scorpio who kidnapped a 14 year old fille and demanded a $200, 000 ransom to release the girl who was buried with just enough air to last a some hours. Eventually Harry apprehends and tortures Scorpio into telling the location of the girl and gaining a forced confession from the suspect. An unethical procedure, but none the less, gaining results (Siegel, 1971).Dirty harry was purposely given this title to the character, harry Callahan, because of the fact that he employs dirty means of gaining positive results and infringing upon the criminals human rights. Dirty Harry, at the end of the film, took his badge and threw it into the river. This strongly suggested that he has lost faith in the effectiveness of the policing system and thus indicating his composur e (Siegel, 1971). When gaining positive results in policing, it can sometimes be in purport conflict with not hold fasting ethical boundaries, thus, being ethical is a loom that appears, according to the Dirty Harry movie plot, to be in the favour of the criminal, technically putting the police officer at a disadvantage due to criminal rights being made available to them. accord to Sykes and Matzas Techniques of Neutralization theory, unethical police officers justify their behaviour in one of five methods. Skyes and Matzas (1957) proposed the Techniques of Neutralisation theory which demonstrates five basic methods of justifying deviant behaviour from the delinquent individual. The theory is applicable to police ethics as considerably as the fact that gaining results within the police service can never exceed the ethics of policing itself due to morality and basic human rights for which the police was based and built upon. Techniques of neutralisation theory explains how law dashers are able to protect themselves from feeling of guilt and negative self-image by justifying their conduct. The five methods are defense force of certificate of indebtedness, denial of injury, denial of victim, condemnation of condemners, and appealing to higher loyalties.Denial of righteousness is concerned with how, within the context of the police work, violence may be regarded as an appropriate and necessary reaction to defiant citizens. Denial of responsibility is established when the police officer in question believes that, where excessive force is used, he/she was provoked by the citizen and therefore ethically demythologizedised his/her behaviour. This shifts responsibility for the use of force away from the officer to the citizen (Albanese, 2006). Denial of injury covers such areas as stealing and violating constitutional rights. Stealing from suspects for individualal gain with the threat of act upon if ever the suspect reported the officer to the police notes the power a police officer possess, given the position of the suspects situation. Kant suggests that Whoever tells a lie, however easy intended he might be, must answer for the consequences, however unpredictable they were, and pay the penalty for them (Klockars, 1996 pg. 79). Kant describes a perfect example that no proceeds what the situation may be, telling a lie is unacceptable. Fabrication of evidence is an excellent example as although it may help seal a conviction of a major known criminal, is none-the-less a false conviction.This brings Kantian ethics into consideration. Kant believed that the term motive is the most important variable when considering what is ethical and what is not. To be more exact, motives can be defined by playing in a sense of duty towards others. For example, helping a person out of pity or to promote ones self in fountain of others is not a ethical, moral action, but out of remorse and unethical means. When considering a complex situation, such as a police officer protecting a witness from murder, what does one do? Such an example goes against Kants beliefs on moral, ethical values.Denial of victim is concerned with those who run from police, use illegal drugs, or defy authority are threats predetermined as dangerous and are in need of punishment. This scholarship gives the notion of the police being the saviour of all deviant acts and that they are justifiable in the eyes of the law and that these aforementioned acts must be punished to sustain control and authority through the wider community and the state as a whole.Condemnation of the condemners lies with the notion that the problem lies not with the officers motives or behaviour but with the rules, motives, and perception of those who would control and judge them. The police argue that not only do they fight criminality but also have to do battle with public comment, judges who are too lenient, citizen lawsuits and citizen complaints against the police system. This gives a loophole for criminals which makes police work more difficult. With such added hurdles, condemnation of the condemners seem rational and logical from the police officers perspective. Appealing to higher loyalties is concerned with the fact that police officers will always protect their own against any case of accusations or complaints against a police officer. However, protecting another officer even when this involves unethical and illegal conduct is expected and regarded as noble as it demonstrates devotion and solidarity. Power corrupts, and so with this police power, the officer will use this power to appeal to higher loyalties for their own personal gain. Personal gain is a one of many attributes of human qualities to achieve our goals in whatever means necessary. Such natural behaviour is assessed by ethical egoism which critically examines our own hunger for wants and desires. Ethical Egoism (Neyround, 2001) is a theory of human nature that states that we all have a strong desire for furthering our wants and desires. By nature, we are motivated to pursue our own wants and desires and, therefore, should act in conformity with our nature by following them (Neyround, 2001). Despite living in a civilised world, living according to the laws of the system, inevitable human nature, it seems, takes a hold of our behaviour when presented with opportunities to further our desires. We all naturally possess wants and needs, however, the morally relevant question to consider (with regards to unethical policing) is when, where, and to what extents are we justified in move them? The claim being made by ethical egoism is not simply that we have wants and needs rather, it is that we are morally obligated to pursue them on all occasions. Due to individual egoism, it would appear that furthering ones personal desires seems to be the corruption of human nature that we are all out for ourselves on a majority. If ethical egoism theory is correct in its perceptio n of humans desire for pursuing our own interests then surely police corruption is on a course of eternal reoccurrences of continuous self-indulgent behaviour, placed in a unrealistic police system to put out the temptation of abusing ones position. A major critique of ethical egoism is that it does not provide a solution for conflicts that arise between competing self-interested individuals. Simply stated, this criticism suggests that our happiness and aspirations often comes into conflict with other individuals (Neyround, 2001). Further-more, this morality should establish rules of conduct that enables the peaceful and harmonious resolution of conflict. However, ethical egoism provides no such rules on principles. Instead, it understands life to consist of a never-ending series of conflicts on which each of us struggle to come out on top. By the nature of police officers everyday work, police officers are routinely placed in situations where personal advantages can easily be furt hered through unethical and illegal means.Act versus Rule Utilitarianism (Quinton, 2003) demonstrates an argument of why police officers break the law. Act utilitarianism states and argues that ethical laws are first decide whether public action would be taken if ever they disagreed with the laws were to be enforced upon the public. This is then, in turn, is further decided whether the law generates the most happiness for the public. However, critics of this theory argue that the minority, whether groups or individuals, would then be treated unfairly and biased upon, thus, not an ethical method to follow. This coincides with the notion of corrupt police officers fabricating evidence to convict an innocent civilian. It may please the majority of the population if this civilian was known for criminal acts in the past and present but it doesnt justify the action to falsely convict an innocent.Rule Utilitarianism (Quinton, 2003), on the other hand, determines whether a rule should be f ollowed. Rule Utilitarianism argues that if a rule (law) pleases the majority of the population, then, it is in the publics interest to follow this rule, despite the objectionable minority. Capital punishment was once a rule followed by UK citizens as it resulted in the happiness of the majority with regards to killing total deviant individuals, even if an innocent had their life taken by mistake, as this overall pleased the population despite the odd innocent want of life. Critics argue that this reduces rule utilitarianism to act utilitarianism and the rules become meaningless (Quinton, 2003). From such examples, and as an ethical based theory overall, utilitarianism is not a perfect system, thus, flawed.Ethics will either make or break an officer and the conclusion they make will either strengthen or weaken their ethical values. Police corruption, whether for noble or deviant reasons, weakens the officers moral values and only further leads to deviant temptation. However, temp tation and desire appears to be of humans natural instinct to come out top and a means of furthering ones brink over another. Ethics can very much go against the officer inclined to solve a case, such as the Dirty Harry dilemma, such as the criminals basic human rights (although non-deserving) benefits only the offender and develops a loop hole for the offender to escape from justice. Police officers can be taught ethics to a certain degree, but it is the officers own personal benefit to resist the urge of infringing upon criminals rights and also taking an advantage of ones position. This loop hole will promote a real dilemma for future policing and, thus, ethics is likely to play a prominent role in policing in the 21st century. (2124 words)