Decoding the Code of Silence

Abstract

The code of silence—the informal prohibition of reporting misconduct by fellow police officers—has long been viewed as a serious obstacle in control of police misconduct and achievement of police accountability. The purpose of this article is to study the key correlates of police officers’ reluctance to report. Relying upon a theory of police integrity and the accompanying methodology to study the code, a police integrity survey was administered in 2013 and 2014 to measure the contours of police integrity among 604 police officers from 11 police agencies located in the Midwest and the East Coast of the United States. The questionnaire contains descriptions of 11 scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct, each followed by seven questions measuring officer views of scenario seriousness, the appropriate and expected discipline, and willingness to report misconduct. Multivariate analyses reveal that the key factor related to the police officers’ reluctance to report is the perception that the other officers would not report. The code is also negatively related to familiarity with the official rules, evaluation of misconduct as serious, and the expectation of harsher discipline. The methodology can be used either by the police agencies themselves or by the civilian oversights to assess the nature and extent of the code in the police agency.

A comparative study of the police code of silence

“…Our findings are in accordance with extant research concerning the role of peer culture in shaping police officers’ adherence to the code (e.g. Long et al , 2013; Lim and Sloan, 2016; Kutnjak Ivković et al , 2017). Police administrators interested in controlling the code of silence should seek to change both the police officers’ perceptions of peer culture and the peer culture itself.…”

“…We also found that the supervisory position was a statistically significant predictor of the officers’ willingness to report. Such results are in sync with prior literature indicating that if rank matters, supervisors are less likely to say that they would adhere to the code of silence than line officers are (Hickman et al , 2016; Huon et al , 1995; Klockars et al , 2006; Kremer, 2000; Kutnjak Ivković and Klockars, 1998, 2000; Kutnjak Ivković, Peacock and Haberfeld, 2016; Kutnjak Ivković, Cajner Mraović and Borovec, 2016; Kutnjak Ivković et al , 2017; Long et al , 2013; Lobnikar et al , 2016; Pagon and Lobnikar, 2000).…”

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“…In 2013 and 2014, Kutnjak, Haberfeld, and Peacock “surveyed 11 U.S. police agencies, primarily located in the Midwest and on the East Coast” (Kutnjak Ivkovic, Haberfeld, & Peacock, 2018, p. 179). The sample included police agencies of a wide range of sizes, from the very small (fewer than 25 officers) to the very large (more than 500 officers), in a distribution similar to that of LEAs nationwide.…”

“…Much of what the authors found was simply and straightforwardly heartening, such as the very low (less than 5%) proportion of respondents who stated they would not report “the most serious examples of police misconduct in the questionnaire (including both corruption and the use of excessive force)” (Kutnjak Ivkovic, Haberfeld, & Peacock, 2018, p. 185). Such results suggest that the “code of silence” rarely supersedes strongly and commonly held moral frameworks.…”

“…Equally important among Kutnjak and her coauthors’ findings was their discovery that “[t]he strongest predictor of the respondents’ unwillingness to report is their assessment that other officers in the agency would not be willing to report” (Kutnjak Ivkovic, Haberfeld, & Peacock, 2018, p. 187). Such a momentous result should give us pause, not as some cynical confirmation of the valence of peer pressure into adulthood or within the confines of paramilitary culture, but as a surprising indication of what police culture is, what it is not, and—most importantly—what it could be .…”