NCJ Number
176990
Date Published
1995
Length
60 pages
Annotation
This study compares the responses of cross-cultural samples of respondents who completed a questionnaire designed to determine respondent attitudes toward various scenarios of police misconduct.
Abstract
The study has two purposes: to determine perceptions of offense seriousness and to ascertain whether the police "code of silence" would prevent officers from reporting a fellow officer for any misconduct presented in the scenarios. The questionnaire presents 11 brief scenarios that encompass a range of corrupt police practices that are common in modern, industrial societies. One scenario describes an incident of excessive use of force, and another describes a behavior that may be permitted by policy in some police agencies and prohibited in others (conducting an off- duty security system business). Respondents were asked seven questions about each of the scenarios. To date the survey instrument has been administered to four groups--three in Croatia and one in the United States. The Croatian respondents consisted of 370 students in the Croatian Police High School; 223 students in the Croatian Police College; and 1,649 Croatian police officers. In the coming year, an equivalent number (n=2,500) of U.S. police officers and police academy students will be surveyed. The questionnaire has already been administered to a sample of 269 undergraduate students enrolled in criminal justice courses at the University of Delaware. Preliminary results are presented in this paper. A preliminary analysis suggests two promising hypotheses. First, there is a relatively stable scale of seriousness that police as well as citizens apply to instances of police corruption. Second, there is a systematic tendency to regard most police officers as less impressed by the seriousness of corrupt behavior than the person who is making the assessment, even when the assessor is a police officer. A second analysis focused only on the responses of the 1,649 Croatian police officers. It considered whether police officers are governed by a "code of silence" when it comes to reporting fellow officers for misconduct. The study found a general norm in the occupational culture that enjoins police officers not to report the misconduct of fellow officers. As the seriousness of the misconduct increases, however, the power of the injunction against reporting the offense decreases. Extensive graphic data are provided.