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Law Enforcement Code of Ethics

The code of ethics for law enforcement outlines several key principles. Officers must uphold the law fairly for all people regardless of identity and not abuse their power or show improper favoritism. A precinct's values around crime control or community policing will influence how resources are allocated and officer behavior. The police subculture can also emphasize extreme views, so codes provide discipline through perfect professionalism, guiding principles, and mandatory rules like duty oaths. Ideally an officer's decisions are guided by their ethics, but real-life challenges the application of ethics in grey areas around loyalty, discretion, and building community trust.

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131 views1 page

Law Enforcement Code of Ethics

The code of ethics for law enforcement outlines several key principles. Officers must uphold the law fairly for all people regardless of identity and not abuse their power or show improper favoritism. A precinct's values around crime control or community policing will influence how resources are allocated and officer behavior. The police subculture can also emphasize extreme views, so codes provide discipline through perfect professionalism, guiding principles, and mandatory rules like duty oaths. Ideally an officer's decisions are guided by their ethics, but real-life challenges the application of ethics in grey areas around loyalty, discretion, and building community trust.

Uploaded by

Atorni Dod Oy
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Law Enforcement Code of Ethics

The way in which police treat citizens have a ripple effect on community opinions, as these citizens impart their experiences to friends, family, and neighbors.
One’s moral principles on right and wrong behavior are a form of discipline. Morals and ethics are often used interchangeably, and everyone has his own value
system (Thomson and Wadsworth, 2005). Moreover, the code of ethics is an officer’s behavior of his credibility and validity. The officer must uphold the law
regardless of the offender’s identity.

According to Sykes (1989), a law enforcement informal code of ethics generally covers several aspects. The most important one being the principle of fairness
and justice: An officer must uphold the law regardless of an offender’s race, social status or identity. One must not abuse his powers to take advantage or give
special treatment to citizens, which turn out to be the main source of solicitation and acceptance of gratuities (pp.

141-142). In addition, a precinct with a value system empathizing crime control may allocate resources differently from one with a value system promoting
community-oriented policing (p. 139). In fact, officers within these two precincts would be rewarded differently, and the formal culture of the agency would
encourage different behavior patterns (Thomson and Wadsworth, 2005, p. 140).

According to Scheingold (1984), law enforcement typically forms a homogenous social group in a closed social system. This leads to the extreme nature of
police (formal ethics) subculture (p. 144).

The three distinctive codes: First, the perfect professional, second, guidelines or his principles, and third, mandatory rules that serves as discipline. For example,
an oath of duties and the sacred trust of an officer. An individual officer’s code of ethics is more specific to his behavior, whereas a professional code allows
discretionary practices and unique issues of that particular profession (Thomson and Wadsworth, pp. 139-140, 2005).

One knows that unpleasant experiences with the police affect individual opinions. Ideally, an officer’s decision-making is based on his code of ethics. However,
within many grey areas, the issues of loyalty force and discretion makes the process very difficult. Sykes (1989) states, “Professional ethics is extremely crucial
to the image of law enforcement as a professional” (pp. 141-142). An officer has a responsibility to the whole community in a manner such as will inspire trust
and confidence.

References

Axia College of University of Phoenix. (2005). Chapter 7: Corruption and the Code. Retrieved September 1, 2008, fromAxia College, Week Three reading
AXcess, ADJ 235- Ethics and the Administration of JusticeAxia College of University of Phoenix. (2005). Chapter 6: The Ethics of Social Control. Retrieved
September 1, 2008, fromAxia College, Week Three reading AXcess, ADJ 235- Ethics and the Administration of Justice

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