Flashcards in Forensic Psyc Police Deck (30)
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Ethics in Policing
• Justice James Wood appointed
Commissioner of the Royal Commission into
the NSW Police Service in 1994.
• Justice James Wood concluded that “a state
of systemic or entrenched corruption”
existed in the NSW Police Service
• This suggests a massive failure of personal
and professional ethics
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Explanations for Unethical Behaviour
• Shift away from “bad apples” view
• System supports corruption via:
– On-the-job socialisation of recruits
– Policing as a subculture
– Peer group reinforcement & encouragement
of rule violations
– Policing as a “brotherhood”
Justice James Wood highlighted other factors:
Job of policing is itself corrupting (temptation and
contact with criminals)
Victimless crimes do not attract complaints about
police inaction
The demands of law and order campaigns and
“results-style policing” compromise due process
Generally low risk of being detected and punished
Much police work is unsupervised and discretionary
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AUS Research: What is Unethical?
• But are police perceptions of ethics clear and
consistent?
• From 1992, researchers from UNSW, conducted
4 studies on police ethics:
Study 1: Perceptions of ethical dilemmas
Study 2: Individual perspectives on police ethics
Study 3: Practical ethics in the police service
Study 4: Public perceptions of professional ethics
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Study 1: Perceptions of Ethical
Dilemmas
Method
• Read 20 scenarios describing unethical
behaviours (e.g., Corruption of authority,
kickbacks, opportunistic theft, work
avoidance)
• Rated how serious each violation was for:
Typical working officer
Typical instructor
The Department
Personal view
• Rated each scenario from “0” Not at all
serious” to 10 Extremely serious)
Study 1: Main Findings
1. ‘Typical officers’ rated as viewing situations
as least serious, followed by personal views,
then instructor, then department
2. On almost all incidents, recruits rated most
serious, constables/snr constables/sergeants
as least serious; snr sergeants &
commissioned officers midway
3. Females gave more serious judgements of
incidents, viewing the typical officer and
instructor as less scrupulous than themselves
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Study 2: Individual Perspectives on
Police Ethics
• Purpose: To investigate individual officers’
training, knowledge and understanding of
ethics in everyday policing situations
• Participants: 32 participants (26 males, 6
females); Recruits to superintendents;
Exposure to ethics from 11 weeks to 30 years
• Method: Detailed, semi-structured interview
Findings and Implications
• Junior officers reported receiving more ethics
training than senior officers, although training was
not viewed as relevant or practical
• Rules and regulations need to be written in a way
that is easier to understand
• Many temptations: opportunity and financial for
senior officers, emotional and peer pressure for
junior officers
• Resisting temptation: getting caught and being
punished for senior officers, personal integrity for
junior officers
• Getting caught: not smart enough, by outside
bodies not your mates
• Improving ethical behaviour: training,
organisational change, supervision
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Study 3: Practical Ethics in the Police
Service
• Purpose: To investigate individual and
organisational influences on ethical and
unethical behaviour among police officers
• Participants: 4655 participants from
NSW, QLD, SA; 91% male, M age 37
years; Exposure to ethics from 11 weeks
to 30 years
• Method: Survey study
Findings and Implications
• Estimated that 13%-28% of police acts
involve breaches of ethics
• Recommendations from survey:
Improve work conditions: reduce stress and increase pay
Improve selection (although recruits more ethical!)
Make ethics training more practical and improve supervision
Reward those who display ethical behaviour
React less stridently to minor breaches (tolerate error)
• Need individual and organisational change
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Research Outcomes
• In Aug 99, NSW Police
introduced revised “Code of
Conduct and Ethics”
• Has it helped?
Public perceptions of
police (compared to other
professionals) improved
from 1995 to 1999 (Study
4)
Pattern of complaints may
have changed
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• Police discretion
involves knowing when
to enforce the law and when to allow for
some latitude
• Those who support the use of discretion
argue that laws cannot take into account
all the situations police officers will
encounter
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Discretion is commonly used for:
1. Youth Crime
2. Offenders with mental illness
3. Domestic violence
4. Use of force
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1. Youth Crime
• Discretion is encouraged with youth
• 30-40% currently handled informally
• Belief that formal sanctions are not the
most effective response
• Responses include community referrals,
resolution conferences, and arrests
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2. Offenders With Mental Illnesses
• Encounters with the police more common
since deinstitutionalization
• Responses include informal resolution,
escort to psychiatric facility, or arrest
• Problems with institutions leads to
frequent use of informal resolution and
jail (Teplin, 2000)
• Often results in criminalization
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3. Domestic Violence
• Historically, domestic violence was often
ignored by police
• Recent changes in policy encouraging
arrest
• Discretion is still important
• Responses include separation,
community referral, and arrests (Melton,
1999)
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4. Use of Force
• Has received much attention but only
accounts for a small number of police citizen
interactions (U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics, 2005)
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Factors Influencing Arrest Decisions
• Seriousness of crime
• Strength of the evidence
• Whether victim supports arrest
• Relationship between victim and offender
• Degree of suspect resistance
• Race, gender, neighbourhood
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Police Stress
• Policing involves high levels of stress
both on officers and their families
(Brown & Campbell, 1994)
• Perception, responses, and coping
strategies regarding stressors varies
from officer to officer
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Sources of Police Stress
• Occupational stressors:
E.g., Having to use a weapon
• Organisational stressors:*
E.g., Paperwork
• Criminal justice stressors:
E.g., Frustration with court system
• Public stressors:
E.g., Uncooperative witnesses
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Consequences of Police Stress
1. Physical
2. Psychological and personal
3. Job-related
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1. Physical Consequences of Stress
• Police officers may be at an increased risk
of developing cardiovascular disease and
digestive disorders
• High blood pressure, ulcers, weight gain,
and diabetes are other ailments that may
develop
• However, it is hard to distinguish if the
causes are stressors or lifestyle
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2. Psychological and Personal
Consequences of Stress
• While some research indicates the
following problems are especially
problematic for police officers, other
studies do not:
Drinking and substance abuse
Depression, anxiety, suicide
Violence
Marital problems
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3. Job-Related Consequences of
Stress
• Consequences include poor morale,
absenteeism, reduction in effectiveness,
turnover, and early retirement
• These problems may result from physical,
psychological, or personal consequences of
stress
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Preventing and Managing Police
Stress
• Many programs are in place to prevent
and manage police stress. These include:
Physical fitness programs
Professional counseling services
Family assistance programs
Teaching adaptive coping strategies*
Critical incident debriefings*
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Adaptive Coping Strategies
• Attempt to change maladaptive coping
(e.g., substance abuse)
• Teach adaptive coping skills (e.g.,
better communication)
• Has been shown to result in general
health improvements and increased
work performance (McCraty et al., 1999)
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Critical Incident Debriefing
• One of the most commonly used methods of
debriefing is Critical Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD;
Mitchell, 1983)
• CISD is a group debriefing procedure in which
members discuss the traumatic event in a controlled
and rational environment
• There are many positive aspects of CISD
However…
• Some research has shown that CISD shows no
positive effects on PTSD levels (e.g., Rose et al. 2000; van Emmerik
et al. 2002)
• Some research has even shown that CISD may have
a negative effect on psychological wellbeing (e.g., Hobbs et
al., 1996)
• Research on civilian witnesses suggests that people
report misinformation that is mentioned during
psychological debriefing (Devilly et al., 2007)
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The Contradiction
• While the legal system incorporates procedures
designed to reduce or prevent civilian co-witnesses
from discussing an incident with each other, postincident
debriefing, a standard procedure within the
emergency services, is designed to actively promote
co-witness discussion.
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Problematic Stages of CISD?
• Since there are many good aspects of CISD, we don’t
want to through the baby out with the bathwater!
• Stages:
– Introduction
– Facts
– Thoughts
– Reaction
– Symptom
– Teaching
– Re-entry
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Problematic Stages of CISD?
• Fact Phase:
where participants each describe their
memories of the event witnessed. By the end of this
stage a consensus must be reached on exactly what
happened during the event.
Hypothesis #1: Discussing facts may lead to memory
conformity.
27
Reaction phase:
where participants discuss their
emotions as they remember experiencing them
during the height of the trauma.
Hypothesis #2: Discussing emotions may have a
negative effect on psychological wellbeing.
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Study (Paterson, Whittle, & Kemp, 2015)
Purpose
• To determine the impact of two stages of CISD on
psychological wellbeing and recall of the event.
Participants
• 74 undergraduate psychology students
(42 females, 32 males)
Procedure
1) Stimuli: Autopsy Video (two versions)
2) 1st Delay: 5 minutes
3) Debriefing Condition:
i. Emotion-focused debriefing
ii. Fact-focused debriefing
iii. No debriefing control
4) Individual Questionnaires:
i. Memory
Free recall
ii. Psychological Reactions
Impact of Event Scale (IES)
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Stress/Anxiety Measures
• The Impact of Events Scale measures PTSD
symptoms and has two subscales:
– Intrusions: Frequent re-experiencing of the event
through thoughts. Flashbacks, and repeated
nightmares or dreams
– Avoidance: Persistent avoidance of stimuli
associated with the trauma and a general numbing
or deadening of emotions (feeling detached or
estranged from others)
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