dc.description.abstract |
A number of ethical issues and dilemmas are to be found in policing. Police
officers do engage in unethical behaviour which often originates from the
norms of the organisational culture. However, the working in the world of
policing provides officers with the ability to rationalise excuse and justify
unethical behaviour, while maintaining a moral self image.
Culture, values and norms as unconscious and conscious feelings are
terms which have different, though not unrelated meanings and manifest
themselves in human behaviour. In this article the significance of tensions
between the organisational culture and the dynamics of ethical dilemmas
inherent to public policing are discussed.
However, and despite evidence provided by structural and procedural
theories, it is important to understand that accountability, especially individual
level accountability, has profound implications for the development and
sustenance of police culture and ethics. Firstly, it misdirects problems away
from organisational sources towards the individual. The intense focus on
individual responsibility prohibits organisational assessments of problems that
might create conditions for their resolution. Secondly, it is argued that to
protect themselves officers will develop strategies that obstruct external enquiry
into their personal affairs. Then efforts aimed at the external imposition of
accountability will always engender the paradox of personal accountability.
The more officers are held responsible for the outcome of police-public
interactions, the more difficult it will be to hold them administratively
accountable.
Ethics provide the theoretical basis for the principles of moral behaviour
and sustain both the boundaries for morality and the pathways for proper
thinking about real life choices. Both ethics and morality are concerned with
the distinction between right and wrong. The difference between the terms is
similar to the difference between thought and action. Ethics are concerned with
analysis and reflection on the problems of human conduct. Morality is more
about the nature of the conduct itself. There should be a clear relationship
between an appropriate ethical system, individual and organisational moral
values, judgement and decision-making. Ethics are, therefore, concerned with
making the right judgements and do things right (rather than ritualistically
doing the right things) for the rights reasons.
The outlined principles provide a comprehensive ethical framework in
which a balanced way of thinking about policing, the need to consider
problems applying all the approaches and the consideration of a wider set of
arguments can be realised. |
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