Hovens (2014). Building Police Integrity; An Introduction. (original) (raw)
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Integrity problems in the police organization: Police officers' perceptions reviewed
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Exploring the public parameter of police integrity
Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2013
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of the public component of Klockars’ and Kutnjak‐Ivkovic's organizational theory of police integrity to the understanding of police integrity.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs a modified survey derived from “The Measurement of Police Integrity,” instrument developed by Klockars et al. Participants are constituted by a convenience sample of first‐year social studies students at the University of KwaZulu‐Natal (n=186) and 160 South African Police Service (SAPS) non‐commissioned officers throughout Gauteng Province, Republic of South Africa.FindingsOverall, the data present a mixed picture of integrity in the SAPS. The current study is certainly suggestive that the SAPS faces serious challenges to establishing and sustaining integrity and that based on either absolutist or normative criteria, the organization falls below desired levels of professional integrity. However, there are also indications that a sig...
Integrity management of police organizations
Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 2001
This article presents a conceptual framework for reviewing the integrity of police organizations, provides a general basis for developing specific activities and gives an overview of possible strategies and activities. Integrity management has to safeguard the conditions in the organization that enable police officers to find a responsible balance between three fundamental types of conflicting interests: the entangled hands dilemma; the many hands dilemma; and the dirty hands dilemma. We develop seven organizational qualities that encourage a prudent balance. An integrity audit can help in measuring these qualities. By examining the organization from this perspective, it is possible to work on improving the organization's integrity.
2005
The international community has invested considerable resources in reforming the police in post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This paper develops a typology of integrity problems in the BiH and measures the level of integrity among the police in the Sarajevo canton. The typology consists of six forms of police misconduct; it suggests the presence of serious and pervasive integrity problems. In 2003, 451 police officers evaluated nine scenarios describing police corruption and one describing the use of excessive force. Police officers’ evaluations of the seriousness of the police misconduct illustrated by these scenarios were directly related to their opinions about appropriate discipline. The results also indicate that the code of silence provides stronger protection for the acceptance of gratuities and use of excessive force than for opportunistic thefts and shakedowns.
Police ethics and integrity: Keeping the ‘blue code’ of silence
2020
This paper examines attitudes towards police ethics and integrity using the responses of police officers and support staff to some ethical dilemmas via an online questionnaire. The aim of the study was to explore potential connections between respondents’ beliefs about the seriousness or type of misdemeanour and their likelihood of reporting the behaviour. Using a series of scenarios, we explore professional ethics and integrity by analysing the evidence from our survey of around 1,500 police officers, police community support officers (PCSOs) and police support staff. Throughout, we aim to show which of the scenarios were considered the most ‘serious’, which are more likely to be reported, and offer some suggestions as to why the ‘blue code’ is significant. The findings suggest the persistence of a reluctance to report some misdemeanours; of the 10 scenarios created for the survey, there was a great deal of certainty around the reporting theft of cash, but respondents were less lik...
Expanding the measurement of police integrity
Purpose -Klockars et al. use scenario methodology to measure perceived seriousness, level of discipline warranted, and willingness to report fellow officers engaged in various negative behaviors. These data are used to characterize the occupational culture of integrity in a given agency, relative to other agencies. What remains unclear is whether these agency-level findings mask important meso-and micro-level variation in the data (i.e. at the precinct/district and officer levels) that may contribute to a more complete understanding of an agency's culture of integrity. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -This study replicates and extends Klockars et al.'s work using data from a survey administered to 499 Philadelphia police officers, with the goal of both validating their methodological approach and exploring the need for multi-level theory in the study of police integrity. In addition to comparing the results from Philadelphia to those obtained by Klockars et al., the authors test for differences across officer demographics, and explore variance in the willingness to report various behaviors at both the officer-and district-levels. Findings -Results indicate that bivariate relationships between officer-level demographics and willingness to report fellow officers are negated when controlling for theoretically relevant attitudinal variables such as cynicism and, consistent with Klockars et al., perceived seriousness of the underlying behavior. In addition, there is significant district-level variation in the average willingness to report fellow officers, and this variation can be explained by both organizational and environmental variables. On balance, the findings provide support for a multi-level approach to the study of police integrity. Originality/value -While the Klockars et al. approach addresses macro-level variation in police integrity, this study contributes important findings at the meso-and micro-levels.