Keywords

Introduction

Studying police integrity and police misconduct has been a steady staple of learning about the policing profession for quite a few decades now, including the seminal works of Maurice Punch (1985, 2000, 2009), Jerome Skolnick (2002), O.W. Wilson (Cohen & Taylor, 2014), Kappeler et al. (1998), David Bayley and Robert Perito (2011), Sam Walker (2012), Klockars et al. (1997, 2000, 2004, 2006), and, most recently, Geoffrey Alpert and Kyle Mclean (2021). Numerous high-profile scandals shook the American public in the past few decades, including the infamous Rodney King beating caught on a video camera in 1991, as well as more recent events, such as the shooting of Michael Brown (Ray et al., 2017), the death of Eric Garner (Fulton-Babicke, 2018), and the brutal death of George Floyd (Samayeen et al., 2020). These scandals resulted in the creation of some high-profile commissions such as the Warren Commission (Goldsmith, 2005), the Christopher Commission (1991), the Mollen Commission (1994), and, more recently, President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015). The establishment of these commissions has been preceded with public revelations of police misconduct of individual police officers, the so-called “bad apples.” These revelations prompted the city governments to establish the commissions and empower them to investigate the nature and extent of police misconduct, as well as to propose ways in which the police agency could be reformed. These events have also resulted in a number of Consent Decrees negotiated between the Department of Justice and police agencies (Rhodes et al., 2019; Alpert et al., 2017). Consent decrees, based on “pattern and practice lawsuits” in which the Department of Justice is one of the parties, have been used as a tool to reorganize the departments based on the findings of the external monitors.

In the aftermath of these high-profile incidents, the focus seemed to be primarily on the individual police officers involved; only more recently did the focus shift on the organization itself, or, even more broadly, the police profession as a whole. The scope and magnitude of calls for reform have intensified in the wake of high-profile deaths at the hands of the police. Yet, as was the case with prior reform efforts, these foci are not often based on empirical research and promising practices (Jacobs et al., 2021; Samayeen et al., 2020). Instead, these calls for action are often driven by passionate voices of the community, sometimes following misguided and uniformed rhetoric, where slogans like “defund the police,” “reimagine policing,” or “abolish law enforcement,” are used to spearhead changes. If the public, politicians, and police administrators want to “reimagine the police” by reforming the institution, such reforms should be firmly based on strong scholarly evidence about what works.

Probably the most disheartening aspect of the attempts to reform police organizations around the world is best summarized by Alpert and Mclean: “The more things change, the more they stay the same…” (2021). Although Alpert and Mclean’s work (2021) focuses on the Australian police forces, the events across the United States in 2020 clearly demonstrate that the situation in American policing is analogous to that in Australia. Over a century-long story of independent police commissions in New York City provides further evidence of cycles of misconduct and reform; since 1890s, there was a twenty-year cycle in which, upon the public revelations of police misconduct and the scandal that followed, an independent commission was formed to investigate the NYPD and propose ways in which it should be reformed (e.g., Lexow Committee, 1894; Curran Committee, 1913; Seabury Report, 1932; Helfand Investigation, 1955; Knapp Commission, 1972; Mollen Commission, 1994). About two decades later, another discovery of serious police misconduct surfaces, followed by a new scandal, a new commission, and a new set of reforms.

What we knew about police misconduct, both in terms of its scope and intensity, pales in comparison to the knowledge we are gaining now, with the release of various police disciplinary records, like those recently made available by the New York City Police Department (Southall, 2021). The nation’s largest police department released partial disciplinary records dating back to 2014 in an online dashboard containing profiles of all 35,000 active police officers. Separately, officials posted redacted copies of more than 200 decisions by judges in administrative trials, going back to 2017. For forty-four years, a section of the civil rights law known as 50-A had prevented the public from seeing most disciplinary records. However, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in the spring of 2020, the public demands and the political landscape started to change.

Within weeks, the New York State Legislature repealed the 50-A statute and a federal appeals court rejected the last effort of a legal challenge from police unions, which argued that releasing the records would put officers in danger and harm their careers. This decision created unprecedented access to police disciplinary records. In the eyes of many police critics, this development was perceived as “proof” of the systemic nature of police misconduct. A myriad of “experts” expressing their views on how police profession needs to be reimagined emerge almost on a daily basis. Community organizers and activists, potential victims of police misconduct and their families, politicians from various levels of government, and many others appear to uphold the view that this change can be predicated upon the scope of the complaints rather than solid empirical research and best practices.

At the heart of the problem lies the code of silence, the police cultural norm that prohibits disclosure of fellow officers’ misconduct to supervisors. Recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research public opinion polls about police reforms (2020, 2021) revealed that the American public is strongly in favor of controlling the code of silence; over 80% of the respondents on both polls said that they strongly or somewhat favor that police officers be required to report peer misconduct. Although the code, based on loyalty and brotherhood, may have a positive effect because it serves to protect police officers from outside threats (e.g., Kleinig, 2001), this camaraderie and loyalty can also have detrimental consequences for controlling the behavior of police officers—especially misconduct (Christopher Commission, 1991; Mollen Commission, 1994; President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, 1967; Skolnick, 2002). The Mollen Commission (1994) identified the code of silence as a pervasive element throughout the NYPD and pointed out that it “influences the vast majority of honest and corrupt officers alike.” In fact, as Chin and Wells (1998, p. 237) argue, the code “prohibits disclosing perjury or other misconduct by fellow officers, or even testifying truthfully if the fact would implicate the conduct of a fellow officer.” In fact, Chin and Wells view the code of silence as “evidence of bias and motive to lie” (1998, p. 233). The code of silence is not unique to the NYPD. To the contrary, the 2016 report by the Chicago Mayor’s Police Accountability Task Force (2016, pp. 69–70) concluded that the code of silence “is institutionalized and reinforced by CPD rules and policies.”

Moreover, the code of silence seems to be a pervasive part of police culture not only in the United States, but also across the world. While analyzing police-related scandals in Amsterdam, London, and New York, Punch (1985) discussed the role that the code of silence played in allowing police misconduct to exist. The Australian Fitzgerald Inquiry (1989, p. 216), which engaged in a systematic investigation of police and political corruption in Queensland and resulted in numerous prosecutions and convictions of top-ranked police officers, detected the code of silence among the Queensland police officers as well. The Fitzgerald Inquiry (1989, p. 216) connected the strong code of silence with the low level of police integrity: “[t]he unwritten police code is an integral element of police culture and has been a critical factor in the deterioration of the Police Force.” Shortly after the Fitzgerald Inquiry, the Wood Royal Commission (1997) was tasked to investigate the existence and extent of police corruption within the New South Wales Police. The Commission faced an extensive code of silence, demonstrated through explicit detectives offering testimony at the hearings that directly conflicted with the undercover recordings of their misdeeds. In the report, the Wood Royal Commission (1997, p. 108) described the code as a serious impediment to investigating police misconduct.

The death of George Floyd in the spring of 2020 (Samayeen et al., 2020) and the subsequent 2021 conviction of Derek Chauvin, a former police officer from the Minneapolis Police Department, for Floyd’s murder pointed to a small crack in the “blue wall of silence.” In particular, many officers from Derek Chauvin’s own department, including the Chief, testified that the tactics Chauvin used to subdue Mr. Floyd were inappropriate and inconsistent with training and policy (Sanchez et al., 2021). This was a very visible and rare moment in the history of police (dis)loyalty and solidarity.

The main goal of this book is to provide empirical research on and policy recommendations about the code of silence and police misconduct. We first assess the extent of the code of silence in a police organization and then, based on the findings, recommend changes that would lead toward the creation of an environment less tolerant of, and conducive for, police misconduct. We present an empirical case study that can provide a potential template for what needs to be done. Building upon over two decades of dissemination of a similar instrument in dozens of departments around the United States and in over 30 different countries (e.g., Kutnjak Ivković, 2015; Kutnjak Ivković & Haberfeld, 2019), we posit that the first step in creating change needs to the assessment and proper analysis of the attitudes of police officers in a given department, paired with the analyses of the ways in which the organization itself addresses police misconduct. The importance of this book lies in the empirical knowledge grounded in a case-study analysis that identifies the contours of the organizational subcultures that need to be addressed if transformational change is to be realized. If these recommendations are properly implemented, things might not “stay the same.”

The Code of Silence

The code of silence, the informal prohibition of reporting misconduct by fellow police officers, is also called the “blue curtain” (Goldstein, 1970), “blue code” (Skolnick, 2002), and “blue wall of silence” (Bittner, 1970; Westley, 1970). Regardless of the term used, this concept refers to the informal cultural rule prohibiting police officers from blowing the whistle on the misconduct committed by fellow police officers. When Bernard Cawley, a former NYPD police officer, testified before the Mollen Commission entrusted to investigate allegations of police corruption in New York, he described the code of silence simply as “Cops don’t tell on cops” (Mollen Commission, 1994, p. 53). The Christopher Commission, established after the beating of Rodney King and entrusted to investigate the use of excessive force and racism in the Los Angeles Police Department (1991), reported that the code of silence was described by an LAPD police officer as “a non-written rule that you do not roll over, tell on your partner” (Christopher Commission, 1991, p. 168).

Police subculture and its key element, the code of silence, have been a subject of steady inquiry for decades. As Crank (2014) points out, various subcultural themes of morality, solidarity, and fear influence individual behaviors of police officers. The beginnings of the scholarly approach to studying the code of silence in the United States date back more than 50 years. When Westley asked police officers in one of the first studies of police culture whether they would report a fellow police officer who stole money from a person arrested for drunkenness, the overwhelming majority of the officers—about three-quarters—reported that they would not, thus suggesting that “illegal action is preferable to breaking the secrecy of the group” (Westley, 1970, p. 113). More recent studies (e.g., Trautman, 2000; Weisburd & Greenspan, 2000) demonstrate that the code of silence is still strong. In a 2000 study by the U.S. National Institute of Ethics (Trautman, 2000, p. 1), 79 percent of the recruits nationwide agreed with the statement that the code of silence “exists and is fairly common across the nation.” In a national study of more than 900 police officers from 121 police agencies, Weisburd and Greenspan (2000, p. 3) found that, although over 80% of the police officers said that they did not accept the code “as an essential part of the mutual trust necessary to good policing,” the majority of the surveyed police officers agreed that it is not unusual for police officers to keep silent about misconduct by fellow officers, thus confirming the existence of the code of silence in police culture. At the same time, Weisburd and Greenspan’s study (2000) demonstrated that the failure to abide by these cultural rules would probably result in informal negative consequences as most of the respondents agreed that police officers who decided to report misconduct would be given a cold shoulder from fellow officers for doing so. However, despite its seeming prevalence, the contours and the extent of the code may vary across police agencies, requiring careful assessment and measurement.

The research on the code of silence was jumpstarted when Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (2004) proposed that the control of the code is an integral part of building of a police agency of integrity. They developed the theory of police integrity and the associated methodological approach for studying it. We now outline this theoretical and methodological approach because it is a foundation of the case study we present in the book.

The Code of Silence and the Theory of Police Integrity

The code of silence is also closely tied to the theory of police integrity (Klockars & Kutnjak Ivković, 2004). Based on the early work by Herman Goldstein about the organizational nature of police corruption (1970) and decades of empirical research on police misconduct, Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (2004) developed the theory of police integrity that incorporates the code of silence as one of its four crucial dimensions. The theory of police integrity proposes that the level of police integrity in a police agency is closely tied to what the organization does, thus emphasizing the organizational nature of the theory. Police integrity is defined as “the normative inclination among police to resist temptations to abuse the rights and privileges of their occupation” (Klockars et al., 2006).

The first dimension of the theory establishes the importance of the police agency’s organizational rules and the way they are established by the police administration, how they are communicated to the police officers, the degree to which police officers understand and support them, and the consistency with which they are enforced (e.g., Klockars & Kutnjak Ivković, 2004; Klockars et al., 2000, 2006; Kutnjak Ivković, 2015). A police agency of high integrity is viewed as a police agency in which the official rules contain detailed prohibitions of police misconduct, in which police officers are familiar with the official rules and support them, and in which official rules are consistently enforced for violations of these rules (Kutnjak Ivković, 2015).

The second dimension of the theory of police integrity emphasizes various techniques of controlling police misconduct (Klockars & Kutnjak Ivković, 2004; Klockars et al., 2000, 2006; Kutnjak Ivković, 2015). These control mechanisms could be reactive, such as internal investigations of police misconduct and imposition of discipline on police officers found to be in violation of the official rules, as well as proactive, such as police training on ethics and the use of early warning systems. A police agency of high integrity is expected to be a police agency that actively and consistently uses both proactive and reactive mechanisms to control police misconduct in the police agency (Kutnjak Ivković, 2015).

The third dimension of the theory of police integrity emphasizes the role of the code of silence and the police agency’s ability to control it (Klockars & Kutnjak Ivković, 2004; Klockars et al., 2000, 2006; Kutnjak Ivković, 2015). While the code of silence develops in virtually every police agency as a consequence of the agency’s paramilitary organization (Klockars et al., 2006), factors that differentiate police agencies of high integrity from police agencies of low integrity are how extensive the code is and what is protected by the code. In a police agency of high integrity, the code of silence is not strong, and it does not protect serious forms of police misconduct (Kutnjak Ivković, 2015). On the other hand, in police agencies of low integrity, the code of silence is strong, and it protects even the most serious forms of police misconduct.

The fourth dimension of the theory explores the connection between the society at large and the level of police integrity in the police agency (Klockars & Kutnjak Ivković, 2004; Klockars et al., 2000, 2006; Kutnjak Ivković, 2015). The authors argue that legal, political, economic, and societal conditions outside the police agency affect the level of police integrity within the police agency. Societies at large could enact the laws prohibiting misconduct by governmental employees, enforce these rules, and establish external agencies in charge of controlling misconduct, as well as develop cultural norms intolerant of misconduct of their public employees. Police agencies operating in such an environment will be more likely to have higher levels of police integrity as well.

Thus, the theory of police integrity reaffirms the importance of controlling the code of silence in police agencies as one of the tools critical to establishing a high level of integrity within police agencies. For scholars, policy-makers, and police executives interested in measuring the nature and strength of the code of silence, as well as the level of police integrity in general, Klockars and colleagues (1997, 2004, 2006) have developed a methodological approach that allows an empirical assessment. Because it is based on the measurement of fact and opinion, it is much less likely to be faced with resistance from police administrators and police officers alike than previous approaches that bluntly asked about the police officers’ engagement in misconduct.

Measuring the Code of Silence

Because the theory assumes that police integrity is perceived as a belief, rather than the actual behavior (Klockars et al., 2006), it is easier to measure both police integrity in general and the code of silence in specific than if the focus were on actual police misconduct. The basic idea of this methodological approach is to develop a questionnaire that contains hypothetical scenarios describing examples of police misconduct and ask respondents questions directly measuring theoretical dimensions.

The first questionnaire, called the police corruption questionnaire, was created in the mid-1990s. It contains 11 scenarios, most of which described examples of police corruption (Klockars & Kutnjak Ivković, 2004; Klockars et al., 1997, 2000). It was based on Roebuck and Barker’s typology of police corruption (1974). Because police integrity includes resistance to temptations of various sources and not only the for-gain variety (Klockars et al., 1997, 2000), the second version of the questionnaire—the police integrity questionnaire—contained a range of forms of police misconduct, including police corruption, use of excessive force, and falsification of the official report (Klockars et al., 2006). To allow for retesting, the same five scenarios were kept in both versions of the questionnaire.

The third version of the questionnaire—the basis of this book—expands the study of police integrity by incorporating not only scenarios describing police corruption and the use of excessive force, but also scenarios describing organizational deviance and interpersonal deviance (Kutnjak Ivković et al., 2019). There are three scenarios within each group, ranging in their seriousness from the least serious case of police misconduct to the most serious case of police misconduct within each group (Table 1.1). Scenarios addressing police corruption and the use of excessive force have originally been developed by Klockars et al. (2006) as a part of the police integrity questionnaire. Scenarios addressing organizational deviance and interpersonal deviance have been developed by Kutnjak Ivković et al. (2019).

Table 1.1 Scenarios
Full size table

After the respondents have read each scenario, they were asked the same seven questions. Three questions measured the first dimension of the theory of police integrity, that is, the role of the organizational rules, as they ask the respondents to evaluate how serious they view each of these behaviors, to estimate how serious they think that most police officers in their agency would evaluate these behaviors, and indicate whether these behaviors violate the official rules. The second dimension of the theory, focusing on the control mechanism, is measured through two questions in the questionnaire. The first question asks the respondents to state what they think that the appropriate discipline is for such behaviors and to predict what discipline they think that their police agency would mete out for such behaviors. Finally, the third dimension of the theory, tapping into the strength of the code of silence, was measured through two questions. The first question asked the respondents whether they would report such behavior to the supervisors and the second related question asked them to predict whether most police officers in their agency would report as well.

This third version of the questionnaire also contains questions that have previously not been included in the police integrity questionnaire. In particular, it measures organizational justice and police self-legitimacy. These concepts could potentially influence the level of police integrity within a police agency. The inclusion of these additional questions in the questionnaire opens the possibility to assess their importance in the shaping of the police agency’s integrity. In the subsequent chapters, we explore these concepts in more detail and test the degree to which they are tied to police integrity.

Police Officer Sample

In December of 2018/January of 2019, the questionnaire was distributed online to police officers in a medium-size municipal police agency in the United States. Because of the conditions of our agreement with the police administration, we have to protect the confidentiality of the police agency and are limited in the extent of the information we may provide about the police agency and its officers. The police agency, a municipal police agency with between 250 and 500 sworn officers, serves a Southern urban community of 50,000 to 250,000 people, mostly composed of White residents.

Our sample of 148 respondents consists of experienced police officers; two-thirds of police officers in the sample have been police officers for at least 10 years (Table 1.2). They are also mostly male police officers (87%) and non-supervisors (69%; Table 1.2). They are primarily assigned to patrol (50%) and investigation (24%; Table 1.2). In terms of their education, our sample consists of educated police officers with about 60% having either a bachelor’s degree or a master’s/professional degree (Table 1.2).

Table 1.2 Sample demographic characteristics
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Overview of the Book

The policing profession is under a great deal of scrutiny and criticism. Given the decentralized nature of the police profession in the United States, and the level of current unrest that generates outbursts of violent behaviors toward and against police officers, regardless of their actual involvement in perceived or actual misconduct, it is critical to address these grievances from an empirically informed perspective. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, Klockars and colleges (1997) launched a study of police integrity that focused on, among other factors, the source, scope, and prevalence of the code of silence. The code of silence was found in over 30 police departments throughout the United States (Klockars et al., 1997). Although its scope and prevalence differed from one department to another, its existence was found to be empirically undeniable.

In the follow-up studies (Datzer et al., 2019; Donner et al., 2016, 2018, 2020; Ekenvall, 2003; Hickman et al., 2016; Kremer, 2000; Klockars et al., 2004, 2006; Kutnjak Ivković & Haberfeld, 2015; Kutnjak Ivković et al., 2018; Kutnjak Ivković & Klockars, 1998, 2000; Kutnjak Ivković et al., 2000, 2019, 2020; Kutnjak Ivković & Shelley, 2008, 2010; Kutnjak Ivković & Sauerman, 2011, 2012, 2013; Lim & Sloan, 2016; Long et al., 2013; Marche, 2009; Maskály et al., 2019; Micucci & Gomme, 2005; Pagon & Lobnikar, 2000, 2004; Porter & Prenzler, 2016; Schafer & Martinelli, 2008; Tasdoven & Kaya, 2014; Van Droogenbroeck et al., 2019; Westmarland, 2006; Westmarland & Rowe, 2018; Wu et al., 2018), researchers tied the code of silence and the explanations for its existence to a number of police officers’ individual traits and, even more importantly, to organizational traits of their respective police departments. This book builds upon this body of research and ties the current state of affairs, based on our case study, to the individual factors and organizational factors that influence the code of silence prevalent in the twenty-first century.

This book addresses the need to update our knowledge about the prevalence of the code of silence. It focuses on the empirical findings linked to the creation of the theory of police integrity and tests the importance of traditional measures of police integrity. In addition, it explores the effect of perceptions of self-legitimacy from the individual and organizational standpoints. It also links police integrity with the police officers’ perceptions of organizational justice and fair treatment by their supervisors. Finally, the book offers some insights for the path forward that are empirically, rather than emotionally driven.

Chapter 2 nests the code of silence within the discussion of police integrity. It starts by presenting an in-depth overview of the extant literature using the police integrity theory and the methodology developed by Klockars et al. (2004, 2006). Based on the data from one mid-sized police department in the United States, the chapter empirically examines the extent of the code of silence across 12 different scenarios depicting lapses in police integrity, including police corruption, use of excessive force, interpersonal deviance, and organizational deviance. It also explores the strength of respondents’ perceptions of organizational factors and demographic factors predicting adherence to the code of silence.

Chapter 3 expands the traditional police integrity approach by looking at the effect of disciplinary fairness on the code of silence. Based on the theoretical model by Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (1998), the chapter tests three potential theoretical approaches hypothesizing the nature of the relationship between the respondents’ willingness to report misconduct and the evaluations of disciplinary fairness, namely the simple deterrence model, the simple justice model, and the discipline indifference model. The analyses in the chapter explore the effect of the perceptions of disciplinary fairness on the police officers’ adherence to the code of silence while controlling for the traditional police integrity correlates.

Chapter 4 focuses on how the police officers’ willingness to report is shaped by their perceptions of organizational justice. The notion of organizational justice has been a key factor driving the relationship between the employees and their organizations. A review of the extant literature indicates that police officers who believe that they receive fair treatment by their supervisors have higher levels of productivity, job satisfaction, and commitment to their organizations. The chapter builds on this body of literature by examining how perceptions of organizational justice relate to the adherence to the code of silence, while controlling for traditional police integrity variables.

Chapter 5 expands the police integrity approach by linking the police officers’ willingness to adhere to the code of silence and their perspectives of their own legitimacy as police officers. Research suggests that a police officer’s perception of self-legitimacy may influence how they interpret, evaluate, and respond to various situations. Hence, an emerging body of extant research suggests that the concept of self-legitimacy plays an important role in various outcomes associated with police officer attitudes and behaviors. The analyses in this chapter contribute to this body of literature by looking at the potential role that self-legitimacy may play in explaining why police officers decide to adhere to the code of silence.

Chapter 6 discusses the findings of a case study of a mid-size U.S. police agency in the context of extant research and elaborates on the lessons learned from our study. Based on an empirical study of the contours of the code of silence across behaviors that violate tenets of police integrity, including police corruption, use of excessive force, interpersonal deviance, and organizational deviance, the chapter illustrates the interconnectedness between the code of silence and the police agency’s organizational and cultural perspectives. The study emphasizes the role that the police officers’ cultural and organizational attitudes play in their willingness to adhere to the code of silence, from their perceptions of how willing other police officers are to report misconduct and the severity of the disciplinary threat that their police agency is making to their perceptions of self-legitimacy and organizational justice.