NCJ Number
85082
Date Published
1981
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Ethics are identified and discussed for police agencies involved in international police cooperation, and general ethical principles for individual officers in any nation are presented.
Abstract
A code of international police ethics bearing upon cooperation between police agencies should include respect for national laws; compliance with the terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; nonintervention in cases of a political, military, religious, or racial nature; justification of requests for cooperation by reference to a violation of ordinary criminal law; and indirect sanctions in the form of refusal to cooperate. For individual police officers in any nation, the most obvious ethical rule is to respect and obey the law, which involves officers never using their positions to further personal interests or special interests. Officers should also be objective and impartial, which means they should be nonpolitical in the exercise of their duties. Finally, officers should treat the citizens they serve with dignity. Crucial to the promulgation and implementation of any code of ethics is the leadership provided by management personnel. The conditioning, motivation, and role model for ethical behavior must be continually supplied by supervising officers. Specifically, the cultivation of police ethical conduct can be accomplished through the proper structuring of staff recruitment, training, the development of career professionalism, staff management policy, and police-public relations.