Transcript Ethics, Force and Discipline

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A “homogeneous group”
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Working class and lower-middle class
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Conservative political views
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Assertiveness and physicality
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Taste for risk and excitement
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Some say authoritarian – others, not
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Looking for steady work with good benefits
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Idealistic, want to help others
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Prefer outside work – not be “cooped up”
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Lifetime interest (friends and relatives in law enforcement)
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Police learn norms and values on the job,
like other occupational groups
Recruits learn caution at the academy
 Police work can be dangerous
 Stories of officers hurt and killed
Patrol work teaches powerful lessons
 Constant exposure to the unpleasant aspects of human nature
 Reality vs. altruistic, “helping” orientation
 Badge + gun ≠ compliance; almost anyone can prove dangerous
 Justice not always possible
Some consequences
 Pre-existing characteristics interact with police environment
 Shortcuts to decision-making: profiling, the “symbolic assailant”
 Territoriality , solidarity, code of silence
Police Issues: When Very Hard Heads Collide
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Democratic values
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Balance of power between citizens and the State
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Public trust and confidence in the police
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Fairness to the weak – “the little guy”
Professionalism
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Avoid brutalizing the police
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Encourage craftsmanship and attention to detail
▪ Weak-willed or innocent may falsely confess to gain leniency
▪ Witnesses may shape their testimony to what authorities want
▪ Officers convinced of someone’s guilt might lie or shade the truth
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Avoid the descent to misconduct
▪ “Slippery slope”: “grass eating” to “meat eating”
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Police Issues: The Usual Suspects
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“Noble cause” of making the world safer
Are “bad” means justified to get “good” ends?
Police frustrated by laws and regulations
 Miranda v. Arizona (1966): If custodial interrogation must read rights
 Exclusionary rule (Mapp v. Ohio, 1961): Illegally gathered evidence is
inadmissible
 Conduct that “shocks the conscience”: Due Process clause, Fourteenth
Amendment
 Right to counsel: Sixth Amendment
 Criminal and civil law, agency regulations
Police frustrated by moral standards imposed by outsiders.
Police frustrated by practical obstacles
 Uncertainty, lack of information
 Uncooperative victims, witnesses and suspects
Blog post: “You Can’t Manage Your Way out of Rampart”
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So were Bentham and Mill
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Utilitarians acknowledge the rules of morality
but do not feel bound to them
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Utilitarians are much more concerned with the
consequences of behavior
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Utility (“greatest happiness”) to all concerned
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Calculus of costs and benefits
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Short-term (act utilitarianism)
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Long term (rule utilitarianism)
Difficulties
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Predicting consequences
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Calculating cost and benefits
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Individual rights may be overlooked
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No moral compass
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Categorical imperative (Immanuel Kant)
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Universality of decisions – same acts
would be taken regardless of circumstances
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Human beings are not just means to an end
Other tests
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Is one acting from a sense of duty?
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Is an act motivated or affected by self-interest?
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Is the decision based on underlying principles or on personal preferences?
Difficulties
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In the real world, consequences of an act are important
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Pressures and expectations on police
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Severely limit police practices and techniques
▪ Lying and deception
▪ Undercover
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What’s the worst kind of error?
 Type 1: Arrest and convict the
innocent (guilty not charged)
 Type 2: Failure to arrest or
convict anyone, or mistakenly
exonerate or acquit the guilty
Crime control model
 Maximize efficiency of crime control
 Prone to type 1 errors
Due process model
 Getting it right is more important
 Prone to type 2 errors
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Officer selection
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Personalities drawn into policing
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Weeding out unsuitable candidates
Workplace issues
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Pressures to produce (how work is measured)
▪ Police Issues: Too Much of a Good Thing?
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Meeting legal requirements for search and arrest
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Getting along with coworkers
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Citizen expectations
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Limited resources
Police culture
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Peer pressures  “code of silence”
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Solidarity - “us” v. “them” mentality
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In September 1999 officer Rafael Perez was
charged with stealing three kilograms of
cocaine from an evidence locker. In a plea
deal he accused fellow officers of Rampart “CRASH” (anti-gang unit) of framing
and beating suspects, planting evidence and covering up brutality, including
unnecessary shootings.
Investigation led to the dismissal of more than 150 felony convictions. $70
million was paid to persons, mostly gang members, who were unjustly arrested,
beaten or shot. Nine officers were charged with crimes, including filing false
police reports, and 23 were fired or suspended. Some of the convictions and
firings were later overturned.
Perez and his partner, Nino Durden, pled guilty to State drug charges for the
cocaine theft and to Federal civil rights violations for covering up a shooting.
Each served a total of five years.
Blog post: “You Can’t Manage Your Way out of Rampart”
Discussion about four of the fired officers
In March 2000 report by LAPD
LAPD Board of Inquiry Report page 14: “While it is
impossible to substantiate completely, it appears that the
application of our hiring standards was compromised when these
officers were hired during periods of accelerated hiring in the late
1980s and early 1990s. This is not to say that anyone intended to
do so. But, one need only look at the pre-employment histories of
these four people to see that something was seriously wrong when they were approved
for hire. The fact that these men were hired with egregious information in their
packages leaves only two explanations:
1) Recognize that erosion has occurred and shore up the systems to prevent it from
recurring; or
2) Insist that the application of our standards did not erode, which means that
criminal conduct, drug dealing, financial irresponsibility and violent behavior are
consistent with our standards.
Clearly, there has been erosion, the blame for which cannot be placed on one
indivdual individual or group, but rather on a multifaceted system with competing
interests. We must recognize that it has occurred and commit ourselves to never
sacrificing quality for the expediency of numbers.”
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On 2/9/06 a Federal court jury awarded
$5 million each to LAPD Sgt. Edward Ortiz,
former officer Paul Harper and former Sgt.
Brian Liddy, who were fired in 2000 and
tried for allegedly framing a suspect while working at Rampart.
After being acquitted or having their cases dismissed, each sued the City for
malicious prosecution. They accused prosecutors, detectives and former Chief
Parks of making them “scapegoats” by suborning false testimony from officer
Rafael Perez in exchange for a greatly reduced sentence.
Ortiz and Harper went back on the force. Liddy is now working in private
security.
In July 2008 the Federal awards to the three officers were upheld by the Ninth
Circuit, which agreed that disciplinary policies encouraged filing charges
against officers even if there was no probable cause.
Outcomes for other key players, from the Los Angeles Times (7/12/06)
Edward Ortiz — Convicted of obstructing justice (overturned). One of three
sued for malicious prosecution, shared a $15-million jury award.
Brian Liddy — Convicted of obstructing justice (overturned.) Shared in $15-million
award. Later fired for misconduct related to a narcotics arrest.
Paul Harper — Acquitted of obstructing justice, shared the $15-million award.
Michael Buchanan — Convicted of obstructing justice (overturned)
Manuel Chavez — Pleaded no contest to assault under color of authority for the 1996
beating of a gang member. Sentenced to 60-days in jail and three years probation.
Shawn Gomez — Pleaded no contest to filing a false report in the 1996
beating of a gang member. Sentenced to three years' probation and ordered
to serve 400 hours of community service.
Ethan Cohan — Pleaded guilty to obstructing justice and filing a false
report in the 1996 beating of gang member. Sentenced to one year in jail.
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On February 28, 2005 19 persons, including
five former cops, were charged with
committing twenty robberies during 1999-2001.
Led by LAPD officer Ruben Palomares, they
wore LAPD uniforms & used LAPD cars to stage phony raids, stealing drugs, guns
and money from drug dealers and others.
Those charged include former LAPD officers William Ferguson and Jesse Moya,
former LBPD officer Joseph Ferguson, and former LASD deputy Rodrigo Duran.
William Ferguson was appointed an LAPD officer even though his background
check turned up five prior arrests for theft and burglary.
Many of those charged have pled guilty. Palomares, serving 15 years for trying to
buy ten kilos of cocaine from DEA agents in 2001, is cooperating. He was originally
fingered as corrupt by Rampart figure Rafael Perez, who encouraged investigators to
check out all of Palomares’ arrests.
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4/29/09 Atty. General report on Maywood PD
It concludes that Maywood officers have
engaged in extensive misconduct
 Routine use of excessive force
 Lack of probable cause to justify searches and arrests
 Lack of cause to stop cars, punitive impoundments
 Sexual assaults by an on-duty officer
 Discouraging the public from filing complaints
Causes and enablers of these problems
 Hiring unqualified officers and those rejected from other agencies
 Poor supervision, including supervisory indifference to obvious problems
 Lack (until recently) of a professional Chief
In June 2009 Maywood consented to a court order
 Revamped selection, training and supervision
 Install cameras at station & police cars, officers to carry digital recorders
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Slippery slope
 “Grass eating” - passively accepting gratuities
 “Meat eating” - actively seeking illicit gain
Causes
 Rotten apples: one infects others
 Environmental: political atmosphere allows corruption to flourish
Most serious corruption is drug-related
 Large sums of money
 Social ambivalence about drugs
Neutralizers
 Drugs are “victimless” crimes
 Drug dealers don’t deserve profits; taking money punishes them
 Officers are heroes -- they’re poorly paid and deserve more
Article: “The Craft of Policing”
Police Issues: Before Jet Blue There was Major Dymovsky
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Impoverished high-crime drug sales area
Officer misconduct
 Illegal drugs and alcohol abuse
 New officers “tested” to see if they “measured up”
“Tough on crime” - extralegal means to punish offenders
 Falsification of arrest reports, perjury
Burning money - “psychological” abuse of suspects
Traditional corruption – payoffs, thefts of evidence, robberies of drug dealers,
resale of drugs, housebreaks disguised as “searches”
Dumping ground for problem officers
“Grass eating” to “meat eating”
 Began with burning and flushing confiscated dope
 Progressed to selling dope to other dealers
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Continuous dialogue within an agency
“Supply side” issues
 Officer selection
 Internal and external pressures
 Measuring performance
Agency climate
 Corrective or punitive?
 Distinguish between working mistakes & willful misconduct
 Communications must flow up as well as down
 Enhance bond between managers and subordinates
Supervision
 Quantity and quality
 Avoiding co-optation
Continued...
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Technology
 Early warning programs
 Recorders, cameras
Agency guidelines
 Explicit boundaries
 Thorough and realistic
 Enforce through inspection
 Disclose results of internal inquiries
High-risk units
 Oversight by command staff
 Careful merit-based selection
 Rotation
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Selection, training and supervision often fail
 Unsuitable candidates always slip through
 Internal controls ignored or insufficient
 Supervisors can’t be everywhere
Quantity v. quality
 Superiors just want numbers
 Craze for measurement and quantification far
outweigh quality concerns
Means v. ends
 Frustration over bad guys getting away with it
 Justification in media, culture and politics for
brutality (“Dirty Harry”)
 Problem of the “symbolic assailant”
Police Issues: Liars Figure
The Craft of Policing