Building Police-Community Trust: Ethics and Integrity Strategies

Introduction: The Crisis of Police-Community Trust

The death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York police, and the shootings of 12-year-old Tamir Rice and Michael Brown in Ohio and Missouri, respectively, have continued to fuel a wave of public mistrust in the police service. Such incidents often spur massive public protests that ultimately destroy relations between police and the communities they serve. A study conducted by Reuters on 3,600 citizens between December 2014 and January 2015 found that a significant 27.6% of adult Americans do not trust the police to be fair and just (Reuters, 2015). In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed an executive order creating the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, whose primary aim is to build confidence and trust in local police. This paper explores the specific strategies that the task force, and individual police departments, could use to achieve this objective.

Creating a Culture of Ethics and Integrity

Community trust is an honored relationship between an agency and the community it is meant to serve, and it is crucial for effective policing. As such, it is prudent that police executives take steps to ensure competence, honesty, and integrity within their departments. They need to foster an environment in which ethical behavior is expected and individual officers are held responsible for meeting those expectations. They need to be transparent and open about the internal affairs processes of their departments (IACP, 2010). They ought to develop a culture of acknowledging misconduct, dealing with it appropriately when it occurs, and involving the public in the response to it (IACP, 2010). When local communities know the procedures and policies that the police use, and are involved in ensuring that officers follow those procedures, they are more likely to begin trusting the force again.

Additionally, police executives need to ensure that the agency's principles and core values are communicated and reinforced throughout the various aspects of the department's administration. This can be accomplished by adopting clear and precise mission statements to direct the activities of their departments (Raines, 2011). These mission statements need to clearly articulate the department's core values and principles, including commitments to service and integrity. Moreover, the ethical standards guiding the department ought to be set forth in a code of conduct or manual for all personnel (Raines, 2011). These manuals should identify conduct considered unacceptable and define acceptable standards of behavior. All personnel within the department should understand that they represent the agency and must, therefore, embrace the values and principles governing ethical behavior. Culture-changing policies such as these go a long way toward fostering integrity and ethical decision-making, while also earning the confidence and respect of citizens.

Ethics and integrity training is also crucial in making police departments more principled in their conduct. Such training equips officers with knowledge of how to act ethically in specific situations (IACP, 2010). Examples of courses that departments could adopt include: the cultural competency 101 training package, which raises awareness of class, race, and cultural issues within a community and teaches officers how to maintain healthy relations; the domestic violence and law-enforcement ethics course, which enhances ethical decision-making by discussing issues common to the field; and the ethical leadership course, which uses exercises to help individuals discover and apply their ethical values on the job.

Departments could also use new technologies and social media to encourage officers to act ethically. Body cameras and CCTV technologies can be used as mechanisms for accountability and for identifying use-of-force incidents (IACP, 2010). Moreover, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide opportunities for police to connect and interact with local communities, while also giving citizens platforms to voice their concerns. Trust is built when communities feel that the police listen and respond appropriately to their valid opinions and concerns.

Citizen Police Academies

Citizen police academies are platforms through which residents learn about their local law-enforcement agency's core values, culture, and overall operations (Miller & Hess, 2007). They provide local communities with a first-hand look at the regulations, policies, and guidelines to which officers must adhere (Miller & Hess, 2007). Moreover, they allow citizens to better understand what being a police officer is like, including the stresses of the occupation (Miller & Hess, 2007). Citizens who graduate from such academies often become ambassadors and advocates for police practices and policies within their communities (IACP, 2010). This kind of advocacy ultimately helps to enhance the relationship between police and the public.

Conclusion

It is prudent that police departments act swiftly to rebuild the public's trust in the police force. To achieve this, they need to employ a number of external and internal strategies, including cultivating cultures of ethics and integrity, offering ethics education and training to officers, expanding the use of citizen police academies, making greater use of community-oriented policing strategies, and involving citizens in internal decision-making. Together, these approaches offer a comprehensive framework for closing the gap between law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve.

References

IACP. (2010). Building trust between the police and the citizens they serve. The International Association of Chiefs of Police. Retrieved from

Miller, L., & Hess, K. (2007). Community policing: Partnerships for problem-solving (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

Raines, J. (2011). Ethics in policing: Misconduct and integrity. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Reuters. (2015). Do Americans trust their cops to be fair and just? New poll contains surprises. Reuters.com. Retrieved from http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/01/15/one-third-of-americans-believe-police-lie-routinely/