In a fascinating article, psychologist and Lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Brian D. Fitch, offers an explanation of why cops lie. He begins with the mandatory caveat:
Most law enforcement professionals are, at their core, good, ethical, and caring people. Despite the overuse of a popular cliché, many officers do in fact enter law enforcement because they want to make a positive difference in their communities. Officers frequently espouse strong, positive moral values while working diligently—in many cases, at great personal risk—to bring dangerous criminals to justice.
From there, he goes on to provide a cogent and comprehensive explanation of the forces that turn a “good cop” into a liar. They are summed up in this chart:
| Table 1: Rationalizing Misconduct | |
| Strategy | Description |
| Denial of Victim | Alleging that because there is no legitimate victim, there is no misconduct. |
| Victim of Circumstance | Behaving improperly because the officer had no other choice, either because of peer pressure or unethical supervision. |
| Denial of Injury | Because nobody was hurt by the officer’s action, no misconduct actually occurred. |
| Advantageous Comparisons | Minimizing or excusing one’s own wrongdoing by comparing it to the more egregious behavior of others. |
| Higher Cause | Breaking the rules because of some higher calling—that is, removing a known felon from the streets. |
| Blame the Victim | The victim invited any suffering or misconduct by breaking the law in the first place. |
| Dehumanization | Using euphemistic language to dehumanize people, thereby making them easier to victimize. |
| Diffusion of Responsibility | Relying on the diffusion of responsibility among the involved parties to excuse misconduct. |
After this well-conceived explanation of the rationalization tools used by police to allow them to lie any time, anywhere, while believing with absolute certainty that they’re the good guys, Fitch offers a “remedy” to the problem.
Before officers can act ethically, they must recognize the moral nature of a situation; decide on a specific and, hopefully, ethical course of action; possess the requisite moral motivation to take action; and demonstrate the character necessary to follow through with his decision.
For most of us, this lesson is learned in nursery school. Apparently, a requisite of becoming a cop is to have been denied this formative year of education.
To further complicate matters, even the best of intentions can be thwarted by peer pressure or fear of retaliation.Because there is always one bad apple who makes all the good cops behave poorly.
Research has demonstrated that ethics education can assist officers in better navigating moral challenges by increasing ethical awareness and moral reasoning—two critical aspects of ethical decision making. However, conducting meaningful ethics education requires more than lengthy philosophical lectures on the importance of character. Rather, instructors should focus on facilitating a dialogue that challenges officers on key moral issues and assumptions; tests their reasoning and decision-making skills; and allows them to share their experiences in a safe, supportive environment.
While I’m as much of a fan of empirical evidence as the next guy, I have to wonder why teaching police officer that it’s wrong to lie demands rigorous training in a “safe, supportive environment.” What’s wrong with smacking them across the face with “don’t lie”? But then, I’m no psychologist, and likely not as supportive of the difficulties of being a good cop as Fitch.
Via Radley Balko and Pete Eyre, by way of an interesting post by Howard Friedman at CopBlock. Whew.
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I have to give Fitch credit for trying to address this issue. However, Fitch’s classification system seems to gloss over the role that police subculture (e.g. the “Blue Wall of Silence”) plays when it comes to lying in law enforcement. Christopher Cooper published an excellent article in the Criminal Law Bulletin in 2009 documenting the various ways in which police narratives in misconduct cases are frequently not credible. He mentions one case in which, during the trial of NYPD officer Michael Kelly for murdering an arrestee, prosecutors got Kelly’s fellow NYPD officers to admit that it was common for police to commit perjury in order to support their fellow officers. I’d be interested to see Fitch tackle the subculture issue, and what he thinks can be done to change it from an administrator’s perspective.
While Fitch’s effort was constrained by his blue religion, at least he conceded the existence of the problem. It’s a start, even if he doesn’t grasp that it’s not some individual personality flaw but a police cultural phenomenon. But it’s a start.
Why can’t it be both?
Boy oh boy! Just get the right sort of training and you’ll have that nasty ol’ lying problem licked!
If only there was someone out there who provided this sorted of training. Someone whose LinkedIn profile said:
“I have presented training to more than 5,000 law enforcement professionals from more than 100 agencies across the nation, as well as internationally in the countries of Dubai, Oman, and Qatar. I have presented workshops for the National Sheriff’s Assocation, California Regional Symposium on Teaching, Public Safety Leadership Development Consortium, National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, California Commission on POST, California Insurance Commission, California State Bar, California Jail Programs Association, and Hertz Corporation.”
Oh, and as a final touch, here are his specialties:
Leadership and ethics training
Facilitation/Adult-learing training
Critical thinking
It is not just a police culture problem the assumption is the accused is guilty and we will prove it by what means are necessary.