Discuss Whether It Is Ethical For Police Officers To Engage In Deception (Essay Sample)

Police officers and deception
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Police officers and deception
The role of police officers is to provide security services to the public by preventing crime from happening, stopping crime when happening and collection of security information. This role of the police can simply be described as maintenance of law and order within the society. In carrying out their mandates, police officers have specific rules and regulations articulated in the constitutions as well as the police service organs in which they serve. It is universally expected that all police officers should serve the public with dignity and transparency. This is a change from the previous approaches in policing, which has evolved in three major phases. The first phase was the political phase where police officers served the interests of the political personalities more than that of citizens. Later, improvements lead to the progressive phase which was an improvement from the original phase. Finally, the community policing that most police services use in the modern era. At the moment it may be considered as a high form of unprofessionalism whenever a police officer presents lies to the authorities or the public, which also applies to the entire police service. However, the roles and mandates of police may have many instances of dilemma that require information to be classified. Basing on such information and other personal reasons it is challenging establish whether police officers are justified to lie. Ethics is always an issue whenever the aspect of lies is involved regardless of the intentions of the lie. The consequences of lies may turn out to be adverse when reality finally emerged. This paper aims to establish the whether it is ethical for a police officer to lie.
In policing, lies may emerge from various sources, and the intentions of lying may also vary from one police officer to another or from one police service to another CITATION Wes10 \l 1033 (Western Australian Police, 2010). Lies may occur at all stages of policing which include the process of crime detection, interrogation of suspects or witnesses, investigation and finally in the presentation of testimony to the Judiciary. Lies may be presented by the police to protect the interest of the public, state or influential individuals through corrupt means. Despite the reason for presenting lies or the stages in which lies are presented, police engaging in lies is a vice that has to be condemned.
The Australian police officers have values that would be infringed incase police officers engage in lies CITATION Wes10 \l 1033 (Western Australian Police, 2010). The police are expected to exercise honesty at a personal level, organizational level, in duty and obligation. In presenting lies as evidence or to the public is against this value of honesty that all Australian police officers have to adhere to. Another value is empathy, which requires all the police officers to show empathy to the vulnerable individuals and victims within the society. Police who engage in deception lack empathy since their lies can infringe the rights of innocent citizens as well as vulnerable people within the society. Respect as an important value requires all police officers to dignify human rights, cultural rights, community needs and individual needs CITATION Tho16 \l 1033 (Pogge, 2016). Lies presented by any police officer are against the value of respect. All police officers in Australia are required to have the value of openness which is the direct opposite of lying. When an officer lies, he prevents the truth from getting to the interested parties. All police officers in Australia are required to exercise fairness in the when on duty. In case a police officer is bribed to present lies before a court of law, he or she denies justice to the qualified party. Similarly, a police officer who lies to have his or her way is preventing the qualified party from tasting the fruits of justice. A value that requires police officers to be accountable for whatever they do may never be achieved in a case police are allowed to lie. Police officers are required to be accountable to the public, the police service and also to personal conscience. A police officer who presents lies will be forced to invent another lie to serve the purpose of accountability. Any police officer who chooses to adhere to the guiding values of police service in Australia, then lying would never be considered as part of the practice.
Deception by police is a universally condemned as far as moral justice is concerned CITATION Jon07 \l 1033 (Haidt & Graham, 2007). The aspect of moral justice may not be explicitly articulated in the laws of Australia but has to be considered when the best interests of humanity are concerned. Police officers are in charge of handling some of the best interests of humanity, which is security. According to Haidt and Graham (2007), researchers have identified rights, harm, and justice as key elements of morality. Any act that would present harm to people or infringe on their rights is considered as immoral. When the police come out to protect the aspect of social justice, they are to be guided by the aspect of moral justice.The main question for any police officer is to determine whether lying stands in between justice and morality thus presenting moral justice. The reality of the matter is that any lie would stand in between justice and morality. It would be immoral for a police officer to deceive and give the position in the society, the lying affects the column of justice. The dilemma may exist in a situation where a police officer lies to protect a vulnerable individual or society due to the aspect of conscience. Police officers have to be trained to differentiate the aspect of conscience and morality in the field of justice. In the field of justice, no truth is ever immoral provided it is the truth. A police officer should only be concerned with telling the truth rather than the impacts of the truth. The issue of moral justice is very broad as it includes many aspects of dilemma but scholars have established that morality can be dispensable while justice remains indispensable. For instance, a police officer may find it immoral to witness against an elderly helps citizen may be due to the age difference. However, the justice is indispensable, which means the police officer is obliged to witness as required by law. Morality may also emerge where a conflict of interest emerges in the line of duty. It has been established that the police officers in Australia are required to maintain focus regardless of the parties involved. Family obligations such as protection must be separated from policing obligations such as investigating, reporting and provision of the witness statement. Therefore, police have no moral obligation to engage in deception regardless of the situation.
The role of the police officers in any society is intertwined with specific ethical obligation to the society. Whenever the question of ethics arises, people attempt to link it to the aspect of morality and in some way creates sense. However, ethics can be viewed in various perspectives such as work ethics, social ethics, cultural and moral ethics CITATION Ste03 \l 1033 (Sheppard, 2003). These perspectives may differ in some way but still stand to serve the best interest which includes an obligation to the truth. Police officers as individuals have a conscience which should help them understand the obligation of moral and social ethics. For instance, moral ethics considers lying as an unacceptable act since an innocent party is bound to suffer. Scholars have established the concept of ethics to be relative depending on situations, and at some point, questions have arisen with regards to people having or lacking ethics CITATION Mar00 \l 1033 (Hoffman, 2000). For instance, police officers who engage in deception resulting in a life sentence of an innocent person. In such cases, the police officer lacks moral ethics as the aspect of morality also surfaces CITATION ASa07 \l 1033 (Sangiovannni, 2007). According to the Western Australia police service, police officers have ethical obligations to the police service and honesty is one of the ethical obligations. Police officers are obliged to adhere to international standards of human rights, and any form of deception would derail the police service from this obligation. Police officers have to respect human rights, and in so doing they are entitled to honest to the citizens, the police service and the government.
According to Australia’s regulative articulations, police officers are bound to honesty when in the line of duty CITATION New162 \l 1033 (New South Wales Police, 2016). The police officers in Australia are required to adhere to the code of ethics articulated in code of ethics in the various states. For instance, the Western Australia Police officers are required to adhere to the code of ethics articulated in the Western Australia Code of Ethics. The codes of ethics have already been mentioned in this article. The police in this region are also required to adhere to the public sector standards articulated in the public sector management act of 1994. In this act, police officers are required to serve the best interest of the public which includes maintaining law and order. According to a publication by New South Wales Police Force (2016), the roles also extend to the provision of reliable information to the public or individual quest for justice at a court of law. In case a police officer decides to lie for other vested interest, he or she goes agents the law and as such stands to face the full force of the law. Considering the aspect of accountability as stipulated in the act, police officers are required to be accountable for their acts. This includes sentencing whenever proven guilty to have lied when dis...