NCJ Number
153377
Date Published
1994
Length
91 pages
Annotation
This survey of Illinois police officers was designed to examine how officers view ethical behavior among their colleagues.
Abstract
The survey covered the last 3 years and asked respondents about violations of ethical behavior they had observed during their careers, how serious they thought various hypothetical ethical violations were, and what punishments they thought officers should receive for various ethical violations. The results showed that officers had observed many more nonserious than serious violations; serious violations were considered to be infractions such as theft, bribery, drug use, perjury, and failure to respond to a call. Officers assigned harsher penalties for ethical violations they viewed as more serious. For most kinds of behavior, rank and years of service were not associated with observations of unethical behavior. Female officers, regardless of ranks, reported witnessing unethical behavior more often than male officers. 19 tables, 23 figures, 12 notes, and 4 appendix