Police Integrity in the United States

Ivković, Sanja Kutnjak; Haberfeld, M. R.; Peacock, Robert

doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2279-6_11

Cited by 8 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…A comparison with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2011) survey of local police agencies suggests that the distribution of officers in 11 surveyed agencies is similar, but not identical, to the distribution of police officers working in large, medium, and small cities in the USA (Kutnjak Ivković et al, 2015). For example, 2.5 percent of the respondents in our study were from small police agencies with fewer than ten officers, whereas nationally more than 5 percent of officers work in the smallest agencies (BJS, 2011 The survey was administered online on Survey Monkey.…”

Section: The Samplementioning

confidence: 93%

“…On the other hand, less than 10 percent of the non-supervisors were unwilling to report in only one-quarter of the scenarios (three out of 11 scenarios or 27 percent, Table III). The differences between the two codes were the smallest for the three scenarios evaluated as the most serious (Scenario 3: theft of knife from crime scene; Scenario 4: unjustifiable use of deadly force; Scenario 10: false report of drug possession; Kutnjak Ivković et al, 2015). These are also the scenarios in which very few respondents (less than 10 percent), be they supervisors or non-supervisors, said that they would not report behavior at all (Table III).…”

Section: Measuring the Code Of Silencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…and line officers and willingness to report misconduct (Klockars et al, 2006;Kutnjak Ivković et al, 2015).…”

Section: Us Supervisorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These scenarios describe a severe form of corruption (opportunistic theft; Roebuck and Barker, 1974) and the use of the most serious form of excessive force (deadly force). Indeed, these three scenarios have been evaluated as the most serious as well (Kutnjak Ivković et al, 2015). Table IV contains the percentage of supervisors and non-supervisors who selected each of the disciplinary options as the expected discipline.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The gap between supervisors' and non-supervisors' choice of discipline widened when the officers were asked what they thought the discipline for each case of misconduct should be ( supervisors and non-supervisors did not exhibit significant differences in the discipline they deemed appropriate, the supervisors' and non-supervisors' view differed significantly in five out of 11 scenarios (Table V). In all of these scenarios, ranging in their seriousness (Kutnjak Ivković et al, 2015), supervisors thought that the more severe discipline should be appropriate than non-supervisors did (Table V). Table VI shows that the majority of officers, both supervisors and line officers, evaluated the severity of the expected discipline as fair.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Does discipline fairness matter for the police code of silence? Answers from the US supervisors and line officers

Ivković

Peacock

Haberfeld

2016

Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies &Amp; Management

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Purpose -Following the theoretical model of reporting and disciplinary fairness developed by Kutnjak Ivković and Klockars (1998), the purpose of this paper is to use a survey of US police officers to explore empirically the contours of the code of silence and the potential relation between the code and perceptions of disciplinary fairness. Design/methodology/approach -In 2013-2014, a police integrity survey was used to measure the contours of police integrity among 604 police officers from 11 police agencies located in the Midwest and on the East Coast of the USA. The questionnaire contains descriptions of 11 scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct, followed by seven questions measuring officer views of scenario seriousness, the appropriate and expected discipline, and willingness to report misconduct. Findings -The results point out that the code of silence varies greatly across the scenarios, both for supervisors and line officers. While the supervisor code and the line officer code differ substantially, they are the most similar for the scenarios evaluated as the most serious. Compared to the respondents who evaluated expected discipline as fair, the respondents who evaluated it as too harsh were more likely to say that they would adhere to the code. On the other hand, compared to the respondents who evaluated discipline as fair, the respondents who evaluate the expected discipline as too lenient were as likely to adhere to the code. Research limitations/implications -The data were collected online, resulting in a lower response rates those typical of traditional paper surveys. Practical implications -The results of the research allow police supervisors interested in the controlling the code of silence to assess where the code is the weakest and easiest to break. Furthermore, the findings suggest to the supervisors who want to curtail the code that the strategy of meting out discipline perceived by line officers as too harsh will potentially only strengthen the code. Originality/value -Whereas the study of the code of silence has started several decades ago, empirical studies exploring the relation between the code of silence and perceptions of disciplinary fairness are rare.

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Section: The Samplementioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Measuring the Code Of Silencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…and line officers and willingness to report misconduct (Klockars et al, 2006;Kutnjak Ivković et al, 2015).…”

Section: Us Supervisorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%