NCJ Number
178787
Journal
Behavioral Sciences and the Law Volume: 16 Issue: 4 Dated: Autumn 1998 Pages: 479-496
Date Published
1998
Length
18 pages
Annotation
The targeting of selected police officers for proactive undercover investigations is being championed by internal affairs (IA) departments who see it as an innovative approach to preventing corruption, but a critical look at the approach suggests that with IA's discretionary powers and lack of decision-making guidelines for initiating administrative undercover investigations there is a risk of adverse legal, social, and ethical consequences.
Abstract
The role of cognitive and organizational factors in decisions of police managers to initiate internal undercover investigations was studied empirically. Three cases of police misconduct involving a shakedown of drug dealers, extracting sexual favors from a female, and minor misconduct involving a police officer's suspicious acceptance of free meals at a restaurant were reviewed by 217 police managers. While 90 percent of the police managers endorsed an undercover investigation in cases of serious misconduct, 45 percent also supported an undercover probe to see what might be behind a police officer accepting free meals. Endorsing an undercover probe for minor misconduct was associated with a police manager's Machiavellian and bureaucratic attitudes and was unrelated to familiarity with IA or criminal undercover investigations. Although pre-emptive undercover inquiries to identify problem police officers may reduce corruption, study findings suggest the absence of guidelines for establishing when these inquiries are unacceptable may lead some dedicated IA investigators to exceed legal and ethical bounds. 45 references, 2 tables, and 1 figure