The Ethics of Protecting the Guilty - Essay Example

?Running Head: ETHICS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT The Blue The Blue Shield: The Ethics of Protecting the Guilty in the Execution of their Duties Date The Blue Shield: The Ethics of Protecting the Guilty in the Execution of their Duties Introduction The ‘Blue Shield’ or the ‘Blue Code of Silence’ are terms used for the fraternal protections that police officials provide for one another in order to support the mistakes and behaviors of fellow officers. The ‘Blue Shield’ comes from the unique experiences that officers share and in that they have an understanding for the reasons that bad, illegal, or unethical behaviors occur among the ranks. This need to protect police officers is then carried into the public, trials against their actions often ending in acquittal even when they are guilty of wrong doing. Police ranks often pull together to support their own and when that does not work, the community will justify their actions by not holding them responsible for the outcomes of bad decision making. The ethics within the police rank appears to be teleological, supporting the concept of the means justifying the ends, despite all Constitutional efforts to dissuade this type of thinking. In a world that is becoming ever increasingly violent the service that is entered into by the police should reflect a higher standard of responsibility instead of a shield that protects them from the outcomes of their poor decision making processes. Incidents Death and Justification In the year 2000 Shannon Smith, a mentally disabled man of 27 who often forgot to pay for the gas he would pump into his Cadillac. The $15 dollars in gas was not the first that he had forgotten to pay, but he would remember and go back, or his father would take care of the bill for him when called. On this particular occasion, however, the clerk called the police and a slow pace pursuit began chasing the mentally disabled man across jurisdictions. Shannon, by all accounts, was a non-violent man and was prone to fear more than anything else. On that day, the policemen came at him with guns drawn and had broken out one of his windows, which is father reported would have severely frightened him. He was shot in the back of the head five times by Officer Jeffrey Gabor Jr. as Smith tried to back out of the situation in his vehicle hitting a police car. Gabor was later charged with his murder (Reynolds, 2001). Despite evidence that Gabor had used his nightstick to pound on the car window and to kick at the car, he was acquitted of the charges. Smith’s family received $675,000 in a wrongful death settlement against Gabor from the police department who settled on Gabor’s behalf (Reynolds, 2002). On August 31st of this year Michael Vincent Allen was shot 41 times after a high speed chase that included a bashed in front end to a police vehicle. Police contend that at the end of a cul de sac Allen tried to make a u-turn which ended in the damage to the front of the police car, but witnesses contradicted that version and stated that it was the police car that rammed into Allen’s vehicle. The officer’s name, that has yet to be released, stood with his fellow officers and fired 41 times at the suspect while the other officers did not fire off a single shot (Peterson, 2012). The initial police reports supported the officer through police accounts, but a wider investigation showed that he was aggressive and that he was the only one shooting is suspicious. Officer Mathew Jacob Marin, who has been a police officer for five years, shot and killed a man with only one arm and one leg in a wheelchair when he was cornered by the man who was waving around a metal object which turned out to be a pen. Marin was involved in a previous shooting death during his career when in 2009 he shot a suspect who was stabbing his neighbor and refused to drop the knife when confronted. In the same year, a poll taken by the Chicago Tribune found that 59% of police officers never fire their gun during their career. While the first incident seems justifiable for Marin, having a second incident of taking a life when the man was clearly in a position to be controlled suggests that something is wrong in his experience as a police officer. Excessive Force One of the most notorious cases of police brutality, and the beginning of an era that was marked by citizen photos and video of what used to be done without witnesses, was the beating of Rodney King after a 100 mph chase through Los Angeles. King was on parole from having done time for robbery and had consumed a few drinks which was in violation of his parole. He had an expectation that they would beat him so he drove into an apartment complex so that he would be in a more public spot. The four white police officers hit him more than 50 times with their batons and someone in the complex had the foresight to begin videotaping the brutality. It took three surgeons five hours of fighting for him before King could survive his injuries. When a state jury acquitted the four involved officers of wrongdoing, the federal government charged them with violations of civil liberties. Two of the officers were convicted at the federal level and spent time in jail (Reinhold, 1992). The acquittal at the state level is typically considered the instigation for the riots in 1992 that led to death, injury, and the burning and looting of multiple businesses. It is not time that distances the public from these kinds of incidents, however. In August of 2011 police in Fullerton, California tased a man until he died while onlookers videotaped the incident. In addition to tasing him more than five times, they punched and kicked him while people watched. The man was mentally ill and tried to run when police searched his backpack and found several items that were not his. Commentary by onlookers included phrases that were sympathetic to the man, but no one tried to interfere. There were a total of six officers involved in the incident (Sewell, 2011). Themes There are several similarities that can be seen in these public uses of force that can be used to support the problems that exist with the shield that both the internal and external forces of control allow for the police. Trying to evade police, being in a socially vulnerable demographic, and police officers who are in groups working towards an arrest seem to pervade these public episodes of bad decision making and violent behaviors. In addition, there is evidence in the nature of the language of the reports on these incidents that protection, to an extent, is officially available for those who have indulged in the violent violation of rights for citizens. In addition, there seems to be higher cause for concern where the disenfranchised are concerned. Several of the incidents listed occurred against those who are mentally challenged, suggesting that the management of the mentally ill is a difficult and misunderstood set of methodologies. The results of the interactions with those who are mentally ill are that they are brutalized when they are victims of their own mental instability. As in the example of Shannon Smith, the man was terrified and could not be socialized to understand that the threat from the police could be mitigated through cooperation. Cooperation is not always possible for the mentally ill and this causes a problem in the interactions that they have with the police. The language of public relations is to mitigate concerns of the public. The job of the representative of the police department is to both accept that there may be culpability on the part of the officers involved but to not state any acceptance of responsibility on the part of the police department. Most of the officers involved in these incidents were investigated, and some by outside agencies, but few were convicted of crimes in their own jurisdiction where concern should have been placed. Citizens as well as the force contrived to support those they have put into the position of authority because when authority breaks down there is a feeling of chaos that is not desired in society. Psychology Instinct There is no doubt that the first instinct of the socialized citizenry is to protect the protectors. In that same vein, there is no doubt that those hired to protect want to protect one another because they all know how hard the job is and how it affects their personal psychology to work in such a high pressured, public position. Watching the frustration of one officer as he beats the information out of a suspect provides for empathy among other cops who also feel that the system is too hard and too many are getting away with very terrible crimes. Watching any crime drama shows that not only the police feel this way, but the public appreciates it when cops take a shorter route to justice. This reflects a teleological framework of ethics through which the ends justifies the means. While constitutional rights are based on ethics that include Kantian philosophies about the value of the individual, reality often means that a teleological approach has been used to seek a resolution. A teleological approach suggests that the outcome is the core of the assessment of good and evil and the means by which that is reached are not relative to that outcome (Pojman, 2012). Caldero and Crank (2011) write that “the value basis of line officer decision making is teleological. They are committed to good ends. The problem is that ends-oriented decision making can be self-defeating. A central problem with ends-oriented thinking is that it may not get you what you want. Where does that leave you morally?” (p. 175). In using this type of value-based judgments, officers are making decisions about people based on the social worth of citizens that are often defined by behaviors predispositions, and social status (Caldero and Crank, 2011). The treatment of someone who is a home owner will be different than that of a person who is living on the street. The power that is given to make those judgments comes with a heavy price. It is a reality that no one enjoys a long process. That it can sometimes take years to see someone to justice can be very frustrating. The evolution of the teleological approach can be seen as a method of reacting to the environment of injustice, setting the police on courses that include the restriction from rights that are afforded to suspects. As a people, we cheer when the good guy enacts revenge, punches the suspect to get him to reveal the whereabouts of the kidnap victim, or when the hero looks the bad guy in the eye and says “make my day”. It is an instinct to want to see immediate resolution. Power The reality is that it is an imbalance of power that supports the insular ‘Blue Shield’ and the response of the citizenry to support the police authority. The imbalance of power is well illustrated in an incident that is reported in the biography of Robert F. Williams, one of the leaders in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He watched as Jesse Helms Sr, the Sheriff in the town in which he lived, punched a black woman in the face, and then dragged her across the concrete, her dress slipping up over her head as flesh was torn from her body by the concrete, and putting her into jail. The crime is unremembered and so is the name of the woman, but the sight on the eyes of a child revealed a great deal about the society in which he lived and the imbalance of power that law enforcement held over the public. The strongest part of the memory was based on the inaction of anyone, black or white, to stop the incident (Tyson, 1999). Wilson (2000) quotes Stephen Crane who wrote that: Everyone who thinks is likely to know that the right of arrest is one of the dangerous powers which organized society can give an individual…Theoretically the first result of government is to put control into the hands of honest men and nullify as far as my be the ambitions of criminals. When government places power in the hands of a criminal it of course violates this principle and become absurd (Wilson, 2000, p.1). In other words, the act of government to give the power to arrest is the act to imbue trust. If the power to arrest is given to those without honor and lawful mind, then it has been given to a criminal and that act is contradictory to the purposes of that power. One of the first ways in which the issue of protecting the police from recriminations from their actions is based is on the idea that to have that power suggests that they are good and worthy of it, but to reveal mistakes, emotional responses, or corruption is to admit that they were not worthy of that trust. The Police Personality In an exploration of the idea of the police personality, Thomas (2000) did a study to determine if there was one type of person who typically became a police officer. What was determined is that there are a wide variety of types of people who become police officers, but what happens is that their personalities begin to homogenize after the culture begins to create change within the individual so that they begin to conform. This is not all a negative experience as the training and experiences form teams that can effectively work together. Negative experiences form points of bonding, and some of these experiences are in the form of secrets that are shared as officers form bonds of trust Trust is essential where life and death are concerned. The bond of trust often overrides the need to reveal misbehaviors on the part of fellow officers because without being included in the bond of trust, exclusion could mean that the officer is left without support in life or death situations. Negative experiences and shared knowledge of anti-social behaviors on the part of fellow officers often forms bonds of trust that insulate the culture and isolate it from those who do not understand the culture (Lyon, Mollering & Saunders, 2012) . Citizens have little knowledge of how the effects of their experiences change the personalities of those who enter into public service through law enforcement. The experience of service has been translated into entertainment, but the truth about that service still belongs within the ranks. The isolation that comes with an insular culture provides for many difficulties that continue the manifestation of retribution on those who defy them, creating further secrets that continue in an unending cycle. The Blue Shield Covering for law enforcement as they do wrong is a tradition that goes back into the history of the agencies that are intended to enforce the laws based upon extensions of the United States Constitution. In trying to manage those rights against the injustices of criminal behavior is a tension that is difficult to manage. One of the problems can be seen in the way in which these types of violations of ethics are managed. The problem is not the unethical behavior, but the public knowledge of unethical behavior. The International Association of Chiefs of Police (2012) (2000) consequences of unethical behavior is the subjecting of an agency to civil litigation”. That the unethical behavior is not the focus of ethics training may be a part of the language problems that continue an insular environment for those who work in the law enforcement field. Society has become acculturated to believe that the underlying violation of rights is a part of the overriding need for justice. Wilson (2000) writes that “an American child’s first idealization of political order, theorists of democratic socialization tell us, is liable to be the mythical beat cop” created through media interpretations of that role in society (p. 2). In watching the way in which police behave in unethical ways in the media, the perpetuation of social differentiation in order to support order is continued well past the time when social disparities through the civil rights of socially, racially, and engendered differences have been legally solved. Reflection One of the problems with this kind of an examination of the problems within the ‘Blue Shield’ both from an external and internal perspective is that it seems to levy condemnation against a culture of people who risk their lives to serve the public. Police officers choose their line of work for a variety of reasons, but most often they do so that they may serve. The ugliness that they experience during their time creates disenchantment, cynicism, and often results in depression and difficulty in interpersonal relationships (Thomas, 2011). The problem is not that law enforcement officials are violent and adversaries of the public, but that the training and on-going training of law enforcement denies a need for psychological methods of interacting with the public, nor meaningful support for them to deal with the issues that emerge when dealing with the kinds of stress that exist in the daily performance of their duties. One of the ways in which to solve the problems that occur on an ethical level of law enforcement would be to require college educations and an emphasis on understanding the mentally disabled along with the common reactions to trauma that ordinary citizens face when in the middle of chaos. While cooperation with police is ideal, emotions often deny that response to the police. Violent response from police could be avoided through understanding the psychology of those they interact with when in the middle of an event. Recognizing that the police are in an adversarial position and largely unwanted by the public because they represent trouble in the social realm would result in means to negate that representation by knowing how to effectively diffuse situations rather than creating incendiary environments. This means not chasing down a mentally ill man who failed to pay for 15.00 worth of gas, but using a more reasoned response. Another thing that must be mentioned is that on a daily basis unethical behavior is more than likely not a part of the interactions that law enforcement has with the public. Still, their interactions are the cause of a great deal of issues that should be frequently dealt with on a professional level. Although psychiatric support is looked down upon, the amount of stress and personal damage to the mental state that police officers go through would seem to suggest that weekly appointments that are mandatory with psychiatric professionals would allow some perspective on the multiple events of the week. Rather than having the perspective that needing help suggests some sort of mental failing recognizing that weekly intervention makes a stronger officer would support this type of resolution to the issues. Conclusion One of the most pressing issues in law enforcement is a culture that seeks to cover the failings of its members through secrecy and the closing of ranks. The public participates in this act by legal forgiveness in courts of law when the evidence supports guilt. This issue has developed because of the unique culture that has emerged in a profession that desires to serve good outcomes when the odds of doing so is against them. Through teleological ethics the nature of the police environment often supports the concept of the means justifying the end result. However, as shown, the end result cannot be guaranteed so this is a false logic on which to base decision making. Changing the culture of the law enforcement is difficult, but recommendations to help solve the problem would include mandatory education, new methods of dealing with mental issues, and making sure the mental health of each officer is maintained through psychiatric care that is frequent and meaningful. Resistance to these solutions would be high. Education might cause many to drop their interest, methods of non-violent response would be suspect, and mental health care would be considered a weakness. Still, change must come in some form or law enforcement will continue to help perpetuate anti-social behavior rather than heal it. Resources Caldero, M. A., & Crank, J. P. (2011). Police ethics: The corruption of noble cause. Amsterdam: Elsevier. International Association of Chiefs of Police. (2012). Ethics training in law enforcement. Retrieved from http://www.theiacp.org/PoliceServices/ExecutiveSer vices/ProfessionalAssistance/Ethics/ReportsResources/EthicsTraininginLawEnforcement /tabid/194/Default.aspx Lott, J. R. (2010). More guns, less crime: Understanding crime and gun-control laws. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lyon, F., Mo?llering, G., & Saunders, M. (2012). Handbook of research methods on trust. Northampton, Mass: Edward Elgar Pub. Peterson, M. (11 September 2012). 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