Noble Cause Corruption - An Ethical Dilemma - Essay Example

 Noble Cause Corruption - An Ethical Dilemma The word corruption is derived from the Latin word ”corruptus”. The word means “spoiled or broken or destroyed” (Hodgson and Jiang, 2007). Corruption really means moral deterioration in the Concise Oxford Dictionary. Public and private organizations have evidence of corruption which is done for a private gain. Law enforcement has standards and professional values that are exhibited by all police officers. The words of David Burns, the Director of Police Studies at Massey University, New Zealand, to his recruits quite rightly explain the perspective of the traditional police officer (A case, GRC-RCMP). “The office of constable is held by you as a public trust, and the uniform you wear and the commission, you carry are symbols of public faith. If you dishonor, disgrace or disregard the faith placed in your office, you become more dangerous than any criminal you will ever confront”. Mr. Burns advocates a proactive problem-solving approach to manage the police ethics. Simply reacting to problems should not be the method of handling them. Shared ethical standards must be established for all the staff and ways must be developed to ensure that the officers conform to those standards and show a willingness to learn and to change (A case, GRC-RCMP). The press never spares a police officer who has a criminal conduct. Most of the incidents reported are misconduct and civil rights complaints which occur due to ethical dilemmas. Drunkenness, racism, sexual misconduct, harassment and unreflective enforcement are some of the moral failures of the police. The public feign to look down upon them and the reputation of the police force is in jeopardy. This is the situation that leads the policeman to indulge in noble cause corruption in order to escape the controversies that could arise if he were truthful. Two types of noble cause corruption could occur: those due to flattering self-appraisal and failure of nerve. Great advances have been improving police professionalism in the United States in technology, orientation in the community and reduction of corruption (Fitzpatrick, 2006). All the efforts to maintain police culture, value-based recruitment, police ethics and the community policing have been effective and yet there has been one section of ethics which has confused all concerned; noble cause corruption is an ethical dilemma in the criminal justice department. The strong ethical standards and the values of law enforcement are put to shame by it (Rothlein, 2008). A difference exists between the usual corruption and the noble cause corruption. Abuse of rank and position for personal privileges describes corruption while noble cause corruption is a less obvious phenomenon. It is not for any private gain. Police officers who indulge in it actually believe that they are doing society a good turn. They justify their actions by holding aloft the benefits to the general population. The self-defined role of the police against a backdrop or a hodge-podge of rules and expectations often conflict with one another” (Fitzpatrick, 2006). This grave misconduct is associated with a highly threatening frame of mind. Even the most efficient of police officers have been known to indulge in noble cause corruption. “Noble cause corruption is a mind-set or a subculture which fosters a belief that the ends justify the means (Rothlein, 2008). Some officers believe that using methods that are a little out of the way are justified as the aim of the criminal justice department is to clean the streets and make the community safe. For them it is morally right to put into prison anyone who may prey on society. The philosophy of such officers is that truth must not be allowed to stand in the way of justice. Officers have falsified reports and testified wrongly in court so that certain people may be put behind bars (Rothlein, 2008). By doing so, they may be putting away a person who is innocent of the crime which he is reported to have done. The officer’s prejudice may be that he has not been punished for a previous crime. The Innocence project has shown that 200 prisoners in the United States have been wrongfully confined through fabricated evidence. (Rothlein, 2008). Noble cause corruption was behind most of the crimes. Some of the prisoners were even in Death Row. Officers of the Boston Police Department had a search arranged at Lewin’s house on the basis of a warrant. A police officer, Sherman Griffiths, was murdered when he and his colleagues were attempting to arrest the man, Albert Lewin, from his home on February 17th, 1988. (Rothlein, 2008). On entering the house they were resisted by Lewin who then shot the officer Griffiths in his attempt to evade arrest. Lewin was guilty of murder and was booked for it. The investigation after the murder revealed the truth of the circumstances. The attempt to arrest with a search warrant had been based on false information and a fictitious format, a case of noble cause corruption (Rothlein, 2008). The court found no cause for punishing the murderer. He was set free. Detective Luna who had filed the search warrant had been indicted for perjury. Whether this was a just end to this episode is questionable. The case ended like this because of the implication of fabricated evidence for the search. Had the search warrant been authentic, the murderer would have been punished duly. Just for the reason that a police officer had misused his office to arrest a person who was probably a frequent offender; the crime of murder had been dealt with in a completely different manner. Lewin could have resisted the arrest as was his usual response to an approach by the police. Here the social learning theory probably had worked to cause the response of resistance to the police. Fear of arrest could also be attributed to a behavioral response pertaining to the biological theory. Lewin at the time of facing the police officer definitely did not know that the search was on a trumped-up charge and his reaction of shooting was done spontaneously as he probably had done previously. What he had committed was murder which is a punishable offence. Forgetting this, the significance of the false reason for arrest had been highlighted and everyone had forgotten that a murderer had got off with no punishment. Most murders for that reason have some authentic causes justifiable by the murderer’s perceptions which cannot be taken as excuses for murdering. A lighter punishment could have been given instead of allowing him to go free as if the officers had triggered him to murder one of them. It is accepted that noble cause corruption cannot be justified: it is corruption and rules are broken allowing character and moral justification to be sacrificed. (Hodgson and Jiang, 2007). Morally, the act may appear smaller than the moral outcomes but it is still illegal. History tells us that Schindler bribed the Nazi soldiers to set free many prisoners. His act may have been justified in that the Nazi regime itself was not legal and the moral violation was for a bigger cause. (Hodgson and Jiang, 2007). Ethical dilemmas require the establishment of inarguable and fundamental principles to resolve moral conflicts: the harsh authority of the police or the legislature will not resolve the crisis. Cohen and Howard have indicated four principles which contribute to the Unified Theory of Policing and could pave the way for a police officer to do things within the law and refrain from indulging in ethical dilemmas like noble cause corruption.(1991, cited in Fitpatrick, 2006). The principle of fair access states that all people including wrong-doers should have equal and fair access to the police. The principle of public trust is compared to the social contract theory. The public have entrusted the police force with certain responsibilities with which it is bound to comply. All the actions taken or the exercising of power or making decisions are all done in the interest of the public. (Fitzpatrick, 2006). The principle of objectivity requires the police to set aside their preferences to perform official duties. The principle of safety and security requires the policeman to practice good judgment in arrests, stopping and questioning or searching citizens and using coercive means for these. Conclusion Policing has come to a critical juncture with the unprecedented challenges of the 21st century. The decision-making of the police officers influences the daily life of the citizens. The complex moral rules must be adhered to in their practice to reduce or eliminate ethical dilemmas. The acceptance of the four principles by Cohen and Howard which provide the Unified Theory of Policing could guide them to face the challenges coming from social, political and legal sources. Falling back on noble cause corruption to justify their actions should not be allowed. An illegal action whether by the common man or by the police should be seen in that light which subjects the police officer to a punishment which is meted out to the common man for the same crime. References: A case for proactive management of ethics in the New Zealand Police, Dated 23/9/98, Retrieved on 14/10/09. http://www.rcmp-learning.org/docs/ecdd1138.htm, GRC-RCMP Fitzpatrick,D.P. (2006). Moving beyond the noble cause paradigm: Providing a unified theory for ethics for the 21st century American policing. Forum on Public Policy: A journal of the Oxford Round Table Hodgson, G.M. & Jiang, S. (2007). The economics of corruption and the corruption of economics: An Institutionalist perspective, Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 41, No. 4, Association for Evolutionary Economics Rothlein, S. (2008). Noble cause corruption. Public Agency Training Council, Retrieved on 14th October, 2009. http://www,patc.com/weeklyarticles/noble-cause-corruption.shtml Risk Management Institute Read More