Unit 8 Assignment

CJ340 06 Professor Anthony Scarpelli

Peter bisher

January 06, 2011

My first interviewee officers jack Davidson, patrolman from Somers point police department. When interviewing Patrolman Davidson, I found the following to be his impressions of the police force in general. Officer Davidson spoke of why ethics and character are important in the field of law enforcement. His response was that ethics and character go hand in hand. In law enforcement it seems that there are so many reasons to do the right thing. The reasons began with public opinion and also should include their influence on the youth who will be growing up to be citizens of the city, state, or country. If a police officer does not behave with
He sees police officers every day that are not living in entirely ethical ways. They need refreshers and reminders, because there are temptations all over the place that cause the behavior of police officers to back-slide into less than ethical ways. In concluding my interview with Officer Davidson, I inquired; do you feel that education and/or training in ethics would reduce incidents of police corruption? He thought a few moments about this question before he answered me. His response was that he believes that training would help to reduce the amount of corruption. He believes that a lot of corruption comes from lack of information. If police officers do not have any training or input from others in how they are expected to behave, then their only source of information is their own belief structure from their personal experiences. When an officer is trained with ethical knowledge they have a better foundation in which to develop ethical behaviors. Unfortunately though some people are just unscrupulous, and will be corrupt no matter how much education and training is provided. These people do not have any place in police work and need to be removed from their prospective forces as quickly as they are identified as troublemakers who will not change with training. During my interview with