This chapter revisits data from my survey of police officers who were asked about their attitudes towards police corruption, unethical behaviour and minor infringements of police rules (Westmarland, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 15: 145–165, 2005). It was published in an academic policing journal, the year after some of the material appeared in the Contours of Integrity volume (Klockars et al., The Contours of Police Integrity, Sage, Thousand Oaks CA/London, 2004). Some of the discussion is taken from that journal article, ‘Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence’. It reveals that most of the officers who took part in the study regard certain actions, such as those involving the acquisition of goods or money, as much worse than behaviour involving illegal brutality or bending of the rules in order to protect colleagues. Three types of corruption are discussed—administrative, acquisitive and noble cause. The data shows that officers who responded to the survey are relatively unwilling to report potential rule breaking or unethical behaviour by colleagues unless there is some sort of acquisitive motive or outcome predicted. Overall the findings support the existence of cultural ‘blue code’ and the effects of a noble cause corruption beliefs systems surrounding police rule bending. The chapter also discusses definitions of police culture, the blue code and tensions between the two concepts.

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Noble Cause Corruption and the Blue Code of Silence

  • Louise Westmarland

摘要

This chapter revisits data from my survey of police officers who were asked about their attitudes towards police corruption, unethical behaviour and minor infringements of police rules (Westmarland, Policing and Society: An International Journal of Research and Policy, 15: 145–165, 2005). It was published in an academic policing journal, the year after some of the material appeared in the Contours of Integrity volume (Klockars et al., The Contours of Police Integrity, Sage, Thousand Oaks CA/London, 2004). Some of the discussion is taken from that journal article, ‘Police Ethics and Integrity: Breaking the Blue Code of Silence’. It reveals that most of the officers who took part in the study regard certain actions, such as those involving the acquisition of goods or money, as much worse than behaviour involving illegal brutality or bending of the rules in order to protect colleagues. Three types of corruption are discussed—administrative, acquisitive and noble cause. The data shows that officers who responded to the survey are relatively unwilling to report potential rule breaking or unethical behaviour by colleagues unless there is some sort of acquisitive motive or outcome predicted. Overall the findings support the existence of cultural ‘blue code’ and the effects of a noble cause corruption beliefs systems surrounding police rule bending. The chapter also discusses definitions of police culture, the blue code and tensions between the two concepts.