NCJ Number
143034
Journal
American Journal of Police Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Dated: (1992) Pages: 27-46
Date Published
1992
Length
20 pages
Annotation
An instrument which consists of seven experiential case studies was administered to 66 law enforcement officers employed in the southern region of the United States to determine their perception of police ethics.
Abstract
For the first administration of the instrument when the police officer had been employed for two months, no significant difference emerged between the idealistic and realistic views of ethical decision making for the seven case scenarios. There was a significant difference between the idealism and the realism scores after 3 years of employment. Female officers, older officers, officers with higher education, and officers who had received some form of police ethics instruction were significantly more ethical in their idealistic decisions, that is, what should be done. Police officers essentially held the same idealistic ethical view of the seven scenarios for 3 years, but what did appear to change was the realistic viewpoint as expressed by police ethical decisionmaking. Most of the officers responded morally or ethically to the case scenarios regarding what they should do, but the same officers responded less ethically to what they actually would do. 2 tables, 39 references, and 1 appendix