Police reform: Key concepts I

Presented here is an overview of a family of related concepts: police corruption, police misconduct, police integrity, taken from the work:

Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (2015) "Studying police integrity" in Measuring police integrity across the world: studies from established democracies and countries in transition. Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (ed) and Haberfeld, M R (ed). New York: Springer Publishing.

At the bottom of the page, a reading is also provided that I have used personally to review and assimilate these concepts.

FIVE MAJOR FORMS OF POLICE MISCONDUCT 

Five major forms of police misconduct that have been identified from sociological studies, independent commission reports and court cases in the US (Ivkovic, 2015, 1):

1. Use of excessive force.
2. Racial profiling.
3. Perjury.
4. Sexual misconduct.
5. Generalized police corruption.

POLICE MISCONDUCT: DIFFICULTY OF ROOTING OUT 

The goal of police reform is the reduction and elimination of police corruption and misconduct.

Getting rid of police misconduct can be a difficult process.

The direct study of police misconduct and discovering what is actually happening is very difficult, if not impossible, because police refuse to talk about misconduct among their own ranks with outsiders.

A universal so-called police "code of silence" works to conceal misconduct "with police officers fearing ostracism from their colleagues if they reveal anything about the misconduct of their fellow officers or fearing disciplinary and/or criminal consequences if their own misconduct is uncovered." (Ivkovic, 2015, 2).

POLICE INTEGRITY: A MORE POSITIVE CONCEPT 

The complement or inverse of police misconduct, police integrity is a more positive concept that police are willing to talk about and can provide a more solid basis for police reform.

Police integrity is defined as "the normative inclination among police to resist temptations to abuse the rights and privileges of their occupation" (Ivkovic, 2015, 3).

Surveys featuring scenarios in which police officers are subject to these temptations have been presented to the police forces of different countries and to different units working in the same police force and significant differences in "police integrity" have been found across forces and units (see overview here as well as Johnson (2003); Seksan Khruakham & Joongyeup Lee, (2013); Narin Phetthong & Anja Kutnjak Ivkovic (2015))

POLICE MISCONDUCT: AN ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEM 

This transient success and ultimate failure of "good cops" in weeding out "bad cops" highlights a key finding of researchers working in the area of police reform.

Police misconduct is an organizational problem and not a problem of single isolated "bad cops" (bad apples, rotten apples).

Blaming the problem on a few "bad apples" is really a refusal to admit and accept that the problem exists in the first place.

Police misconduct is an organizational problem that needs an organizational solution.

ROAD TO POLICE REFORM & POLICE INTEGRITY 

The road to police integrity according an organizational theory of police misconduct involves working on four dimensions:

1. Organizational rules and enforcement of those rules.

2. Techniques for controlling police misconduct including reactive investigations of misconduct based on complaints and discipline of police officers who violated rules as well as proactive investigations, education and integrity testing.

3. Curtailing the police code of silence.

4. Acknowledging that the social, economic and political environment surrounding police work influences the level of police integrity.

Hong Kong's police force perhaps stands as the best example of a police force that has implemented such an organizationally-based program of police reform.

Citizen oversight has been key to Hong Kong's success and an ever diminishing record of police misconduct incidents (see Hui, 2015).

AUDIO READING ON POLICE REFORM CONCEPTS 

From: Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (2015) "Studying police integrity" in Measuring police integrity across the world: studies from established democracies and countries in transition. Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (ed) and Haberfeld, M R (ed). New York: Springer Publishing.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hui, D. L. H. (2015). "Hong Kong: Police corruption and reforms." In K. R. Hope (Ed.), Police corruption and police reforms in developing societies (pp. 143-156). Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (2015) "Studying police integrity" in Measuring police integrity across the world: studies from established democracies and countries in transition. Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (ed) and Haberfeld, M R (ed). New York: Springer Publishing.

Johnson, David T. (2003) "Above the Law? Police Integrity in Japan". Social Science Japan Journal (SSJJ) 6(1): 19-37.

Narin Phetthong & Anja Kutnjak Ivkovic (2015) "Police integrity in Thailand". in Measuring police integrity across the world: studies from established democracies and countries in transition. Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (ed) and Haberfeld, M R (ed). New York: Springer Publishing.

Seksan Khruakham & Joongyeup Lee (2013). "Cross-Nation Comparison of the Intolerance to Police Misconduct: Findings from a Thai Police Cadet Survey". International Journal of Police Science & Management. September vol. 15 no. 3 237-245.