Keywords

Studying Police Misconduct and Police Integrity

Various forms of police misconduct and its related causes or correlates have been the focus of studies for a considerable time. Indeed, sociological studies (for a summary see, e.g., Adams 1995; Garner et al. 2002; Worden and Catlin 2002; Kutnjak Ivković 2003), independent commission reports (e.g., Knapp Commission 1972; Mollen Commission 1994; Christopher Commission 1991) , and court cases (e.g., Kraska and Kappeler 1995; Harris 1997) clearly demonstrate that police officers engage in police misconduct, from police corruption , use of excessive force , racial profiling, to sexual misconduct and perjury. While the prevalence and nature of police misconduct varies from source to source and across agencies, the common feature prevails that a certain percentage of police officers engage in some form of rule-violating behavior.

The body of research exploring each of these forms of police misconduct has grown substantially during several decades, with most of the attention devoted to the use of excessive force and police corruption . Consistent in these studies is the phenomenon that whenever direct questions about police misconduct are posed, be it about police corruption, use of excessive force, or police testifying, the researchers are bound to experience similar forms of opposition: police administrators are reluctant to open their doors to researchers raising questions about police misconduct, possibly fearing that any misconduct uncovered will be interpreted negatively for the administration/agency; police officers fearing ostracism from their colleagues if they reveal anything about the misconduct of their fellow officers or fearing disciplinary and/or criminal consequences if their own misconduct is uncovered. In addition, typical witnesses and victims of police misconduct, such as prostitutes, drug dealers, and other career criminals, may not be credible witnesses in court.

Several studies document the types of hindrances scholars or investigators encounter when police officers are confronted with direct questions about police misconduct. Numerous independent commissions (e.g., Christopher Commission 1991; Knapp 1972; Mollen 1994; Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974) have already noted and described the presence of a strong code of silence among police officers. In fact, the Mollen Commission (1994) wrote about the code of silence as the most serious challenge to corruption control .

Similarly, there are examples of research projects in which strong codes of silence interfered with the research. Martin (1994) and Knowles (1996) planned to conduct a three-state study, asking police officers about the frequency of misconduct by other police officers in their police agencies. Because of the opposition from the police union , Pennsylvania did not participate in the study. Furthermore, even within the two participating states (Illinois and Ohio), the police union in Chicago objected, and Chicago, which accounts for about 25 % of police officers in Illinois, was excluded from the study (Martin 1994). Fabrizio (1990) conducted a study of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Academy participants—experienced police officers from police agencies across the country—about their experiences at the Academy. He asked them a series of questions, inquiring not only about their experiences but also about police misconduct. Whereas the respondents were generally eager to respond to most questions, none was willing to provide any examples of graft or corruption in their police agencies.

In 1994, Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković developed an alternative methodology to the study of police misconduct, an approach that does not face such serious challenges because it measures its opposite—police integrity. As such, it boasts several distinctive advantages (Klockars et al. 2006). First, the definition of police integrity is broad enough to allow a comparison of the contours of police integrity across different police agencies. At the same time, it is specific enough to enable scholars to engage in empirical data collection with the purpose of testing the theory. The definition is applicable not only to individual police officers but (and perhaps even more importantly) also to police agencies and groups of police officers (e.g., shifts, service areas, and units). Second, the theory of police integrity is organizational in nature. It generates specific steps that a police agency striving to be an agency of high integrity ought to follow, from creating a culture of integrity to controlling the code of silence . The theory is also amenable to empirical testing (Klockars et al. 2006). Third, the theoretical framework is accompanied by the methodological framework. The methodology can be used to measure the level of police integrity in an empirical and systematic way, both among individual police officers and within groups of police officers or police agencies. A critical feature of the methodology is that it is seldom met with the resistance that accompanies direct questions of police misconduct . Fourth, Klockars et al. (2006) have already demonstrated how to use the accompanying theoretical and methodological approach successfully to measure police integrity. As such, the integrity levels of numerous police agencies in over 20 countries have been successfully measured.

The Concept of Police Integrity

Klockars et al. define police integrity as “the normative inclination among police to resist temptations to abuse the rights and privileges of their occupation” (Klockars et al. 2006). This definition spans six dimensions.

The first dimension is the normative indicator, proposing that integrity is perceived to be a belief rather than a behavior (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 10), “[w]hen it is held by an individual it is often called an attitude or opinion, when it is shared by a group it is often called a norm.” This implies that conduct may be viewed from a moral perspective as either right or wrong; it captures the belief of what police officers should do in certain circumstances. A close relation between police integrity and morality further implies that police officers who believe in “doing the right thing” should also behave in such a way and support reporting and disciplining the officers who behave contrary. However, “the norm of integrity may compete with and be tempered by norms that urge forgiveness, mercy, loyalty, reciprocity, tolerance, gratitude, compassion, and proportion, to name but a few” (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 2), resulting in a moral dilemma.

The second dimension reflects the inclination to resist (Klockars et al. 2006). It acknowledges that attitudes and behaviors do not always match; “people who believe in honesty sometimes lie; people who believe in fidelity sometimes are disloyal; and people of integrity sometimes do things they know are wrong” (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 2). A potential mismatch between attitudes and behavior stems from the fact that other reasons may exist (e.g., lack of opportunity, lack of imagination, fear of discovery, and fear of public punishment) that lead people to behave in a way that emphasizes high integrity. Nevertheless, attitudes and behaviors are related; attitudes of high integrity should at least partly guide police officers to behave accordingly. However, the causality of this relation between attitudes and behavior may be two-sided; attitudes could cause behavior and behavior could cause attitudes.

The third dimension is the very word police (Klockars et al. 2006). Its deliberate choice (instead of “police officer” or “police agency”) reflects that police integrity is a characteristic of individual police officers, groups of police officers, or entire police organizations. However, the dynamics and correlates of integrity depend on the unit of analysis: “[h]ow one understands and explains the psychology of integrity of an individual police officer will most certainly differ from the understanding and explanation of the sociology, politics, or history of the evolution of a culture of integrity in a police agency” (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 3).

The fourth dimension rests on temptation (Klockars et al. 2006), focusing on the different environments in which police officers and police agencies operate and the specific enticements to misconduct they offer. While gain is the most obvious temptation, it is certainly not the only one. In fact, the range of possible temptations could be quite diverse and the corresponding contours of police integrity could be very different across agencies (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 4).

The fifth dimension focuses on abuse (Klockars et al. 2006). In severe circumstances, the abusive nature of behavior may be obvious. In other, less extreme situations, police officers may tend to offer excuses or completely deny its abusive nature. Opinions about whether certain forms of behavior should be classified as abuse could also vary from agency to agency.

The sixth dimension highlights the rights and privileges of their occupation (Klockars et al. 2006). Policing is a highly discretionary, coercive activity that routinely takes place in private settings, out of the sight of supervisors , and involves witnesses who are often regarded as unreliable (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 5). As such, being a police officer will create many opportunities in which the police officer may be tempted to abuse the rights and privileges of his or her occupation and succumb to temptations.

Organizational Theory of Police Integrity

In the 1970s, the views of the majority of police administrators regarding police corruption fell squarely in the doctrine of the “rotten apple” or “bad apple” theory . According to the “rotten apple” theory (Vollmer 1936; Goldstein 1977; Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974; Knapp Commission 1972), police corruption is a result of character defects of individual police officers—“bad apples” or “rotten apples”—while the majority of the police officers (“apples in the barrel”) are “healthy.” Once corrupt police officers are detected, they should be swiftly removed from the agency before they “spoil” the rest of the “barrel.”

The Knapp Commission (1972, p. 7), the Pennsylvania Crime Commission (1974, p. 393), and the Mollen Commission (1994) argued that the police administrators’ acceptance of the “bad apple” theory presents a virtually insurmountable obstacle for meaningful reforms . By maintaining and supporting this theory, police administrators nullify efforts against police corruption because they essentially refuse to recognize and acknowledge that the problem exists in the first place. In addition, administrators’ refusal to acknowledge that corruption is a widespread and serious problem in the department creates a circumstance in which official denial undermines the confidence and trust that the leadership of the police department once may have enjoyed; the administrators are perceived to be naive, incompetent, and/or corrupt (Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974, p. 394), and the code of silence is subsequently reinforced (Knapp Commission 1972, p. 7).

An alternative theoretical view of police corruption has emerged in the late 1970s (e.g., Goldstein 1975; Punch 2009). It is organizational, occupational, and cultural in nature. Based on Goldstein’s view of the organizational nature of police corruption , Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (1999) proposed an organizational theory of police misconduct which stretches beyond the understanding of police corruption/police misconduct as a problem of individual police officers. Such an approach opens “horizons to a substantially different understanding of the problem, suggest[s] alternative control mechanisms, and allow[s] for the development of a novel methodological approach to the study” (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004, p. 1.4). This theoretical approach, upon which a substantial body of research has been built, evinces the following four dimensions.

Organizational Rules

This first dimension of the theory of police misconduct focuses on the way a police agency’s organizational rules are established by the administration, how they are communicated to the police officers, and the way in which they are understood by the police officers (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004, p. 1.4). According to this theory, a police agency of high integrity is one in which the official rules prohibiting misconduct have been established, these official rules are taught and enforced, and its police officers know and support the official rules.

Typically, the conduct of police officers across the world is regulated by two types of rules . First, a country’s constitution restricts the police officers’ powers by establishing certain fundamental rights and guarantees of adherence to human rights in the actions of its employees. Separate laws then contain specific norms further regulating police officers’ work, ranging from the limitations on the use of force to direct prohibitions of corrupt behavior. Second, regardless of whether the police agency is part of a centralized or decentralized system, additional rules, typically internal to the police agency, elaborate and determine the standards of appropriate and expected behavior of police officers. However, in decentralized police systems, such as the USA , in which each police agency makes its own official rules, the nature of official agency rules varies across police agencies to a greater extent than in centralized police systems such as Croatia , Poland , or France, in which all police agencies are part of the same police system (e.g., Croatian Police, Gendarmerie) and thus adhere to the same rules.

Virtually every country in the world evinces the basic set of laws and official agency rules. Dimensions along which countries differ, however, are reflected in the extent to which these rules prohibit misconduct, the way these official rules are made, how often they are enforced, the level of police officers’ familiarity with the rules, and the extent to which police officers support them.

Quite likely, official rules would not provide equal coverage to different forms of police misconduct. By their nature, legal rules governing the use of force and the use of excessive force will be more complex to design and enforce than explicit prohibitions of corrupt behavior. Even within the same form of police misconduct, police agencies across the world will be more likely to prohibit consistently the most serious forms, such as the acceptance of bribes , kickbacks , and thefts from crime scenes (Roebuck and Barker 1974) than the lesser transgressions, the so-called mala prohibita , such as the acceptance of gratuities , small gifts, and discounts (Roebuck and Barker 1974).

The way in which the official rules are made influences how supportive police officers are of them. If they perceive that the rules are imposed by a detached administrator who is unaware of the realities of police work, police officers will be much less supportive of them than if they perceive the rules to be made by an administrator who understands the complexities and nuances of law enforcement. In addition, the way in which and the extent to which official rules are taught, may vary across countries, within the same country, and across time. During periods of rapid hiring, for example, the devotion to detailed knowledge and teaching of the official rules is more likely to be jeopardized, than it would be at times of steady and systematic hiring.

However, merely enacting the laws and updating the official rules is not sufficient to achieve high integrity; the enforcement of official rules is also critical as the reality shows that police agencies could differ greatly in their enforcement of these rules. In addition, whenever the police agency’s official rules prohibit certain behaviors, and unofficial practice allows such actions to continue, a large discrepancy between the official rules and the unofficial policy is created (e.g., Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974; Mollen Commission 1994) and, in the words of the Mollen Commission (1994, p. 63), “the Department’s commitment to integrity is more rhetoric than reality.” Police officers, particularly the new ones, will be the most likely to exhibit doubts and confusion in the situations in which “the Commander of the Internal Affairs Bureau and the officer in charge of the Police Academy cannot agree on the proper guideline” (Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974, p. 240). By not enforcing certain rules or, even worse, by being involved in the officially prohibited behavior, police administrators are sending a very clear message to the police officers that they de facto tolerate such behavior.

Techniques of Controlling Police Misconduct

This second dimension of the theory of police misconduct focuses on various techniques used by the police agency to detect and investigate police misconduct (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004, p. 1.4). According to this theory, a police agency of high integrity is an agency which uses various mechanisms of control, be they reactive, such as investigations of misconduct and discipline of police officers who violated the official rules, or more proactive , such as education in ethics , integrity testing, and proactive investigations .

Stories of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the Philadelphia Police Department, depicted by independent commissions (Knapp Commission 1972; Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974; Mollen Commission 1994), illustrate typical problems of corruption control techniques in police agencies riddled with corruption. The Mollen Commission (1994, p. 62) found that most corrupt police officers do not join the police department with the intent of becoming criminals; rather, most start as honest police officers and circumstances lead them to change their values. In accordance with the organizational theory of police misconduct, the Mollen Commission (1994, p. 63) concluded that, “[t]he Department must necessarily share the blame for this situation. It failed to take the necessary actions to keep its honest cops honest, through effective supervision, training, deterrence, personnel management and other means.”

All three commissions found the cause of the collapse of the departmental machinery for investigating police corruption vested in the police departments’ subscription to the “rotten apple” theory (Knapp Commission 1972; Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974; Mollen Commission 1994), leading to the supervisors’ ignorance of corruption evidence and the collapse of the principle of command accountability, thereby effectively broadcasting to the police officers that corruption is tolerated. In addition, the perceived consequences of police corruption disclosure affected the internal corruption control mechanisms; the departments did not view their mission as that of uncovering serious corruption, but, rather, as that of engaging in “damage control” (Mollen 1994, p. 71).

As the Knapp Commission (1972) and the Pennsylvania Crime Commission (1974) noted, the criminal justice system protected corrupt police officers. In the departments in which the commissions found widespread and systematic police corruption , less than one tenth of 1 % of the police officers were arrested and/or tried on charges of police corruption each year; “[i]n the view of the pervasive corruption which the Commission has uncovered, the number of arrests is very low” (Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974, p. 446) .

A recent book (Mesko et al. 2013a) on police reforms in 12 Central and East European countries in transition (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia , the Czech Republic , Estonia , Hungary , Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Russia , Serbia , Slovakia, and Slovenia) demonstrates the diversity of two types of control mechanisms across a dozen countries relatively similar in a number of dimensions (Kutnjak Ivković 2013). Although the existence of internal mechanisms of control seems to be prevalent across these countries, the effectiveness of these mechanisms is quite diverse. In addition, a few countries also include a combination of internal and external mechanisms of control , both domestic (e.g., ombudsman , constitutional court, and parliament) and international (e.g., European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture).

The development of the control mechanisms in two countries in transition , part of the same country until 1991, illustrates this point. On the one hand, Serbia’s police had a long history of protecting the regime (Kesetović 2013), violating citizens’ human rights, and avoiding any accountability to either internal or external control mechanisms (Kutnjak Ivković 2013). Since 2001, however, the police have undergone a systematic reform . Yet, while the police officials evaluate the reform in positive terms, independent scholars, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international police experts are critical of it (Kesetović 2013). On the other hand, Slovenia’s reform of the police started very early in the country’s transformation process; as the country was learning how to become a democracy, the police were also transformed. In addition to the internal control mechanisms, the Slovenian police are subject to both domestic external control (e.g., the Constitutional Court, the ombudsman, and the prosecutors) and international external control (e.g., the European Court of Human Rights and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture; Mesko et al. 2013b).

Curtailing the Code of Silence

The third dimension of the theory of police misconduct focuses on the police code of silence, or the blue curtain, and the police agency’s efforts of curtailing it (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004, p. 1.4) . The code of silence, or “the unwritten rule that an officer never give incriminating information against a fellow officer,” seems likely to be, “perhaps the greatest barrier to effective corruption control: the code of silence, the unwritten rule that an officer never give incriminating information against a fellow officer” (Mollen Commission 1994, p. Exhibit 6 at 6). Klockars et al. (2000, p. 2) argued that:

The parameters of The Code—precisely what behavior it covers and to whom its benefits are extended—vary among police agencies. For example, The Code may apply to only low-level corruption in some agencies and to the most serious corruption in others. Furthermore, whom and what The Code covers can vary substantially not only among police agencies but also within police agencies. Particularly in large police agencies, the occupational culture of integrity may differ substantially among precincts, service areas, task forces, and work groups.

According to the organizational theory of police misconduct , the code of silence in a police agency of low integrity is strong, protecting various forms of police misconduct. Whereas the code of silence develops as a consequence of a semi-military police organization in each police agency, the code of silence in police agencies of high integrity is neither strong nor protects serious forms of police misconduct.

The code of silence was very strong in the NYPD in the 1990s, just as it had been in the 1970s (Knapp Commission 1972; Mollen Commission 1994). It serves as a clear illustration of the influence of the code on both honest and dishonest police officers in the department; even police officers like Michael Dowd, a drug dealer earning such staggering amounts of money from his illegal activities that he forgot to collect his from the NYPD paychecks, were never reported either by fellow police officers or by supervisors , although fellow officers silently hoped that Dowd and other officers who exhibit similar behavior would be removed from the force (Mollen Commission 1994, p. 4) . Peer pressure creates solidarity which, in turn, is linked to the code of silence; honest police officers show great reluctance, if not unwillingness, to report dishonest behavior of fellow police officers (Pennsylvania Crime Commission 1974, p. 432). Indeed, the Mollen Commission (1994, p. Exhibit 6 at 7) argued that the existence of the strong code of silence and the “us versus them” mentality in some parts of the NYPD , “largely explain how groups can openly engage in corruption for long periods of time with impunity.”

Klockars et al. studied police integrity in 30 U.S. police agencies (e.g., Klockars et al. 2000). They found that the majority of the police officers in the sample would protect least serious forms of corruption, while, at the same time, reporting on corruption of intermediate to high levels of seriousness (Klockars et al. 2000, p. 6). However, the findings for the overall sample masked some substantial differences across the agencies. To illustrate this, Klockars et al. (2000, p. 7) have selected two agencies from the opposite sides of the integrity spectrum:

Agency 2, which ranked 8th in integrity of the 30 agencies surveyed, and Agency 23, which ranked in a 5-way tie for 24th place, are both large municipal police agencies. Agency 2 has a national reputation for integrity, is extremely receptive to research, and is often promoted as a model of innovation. Agency 23 has a long history of scandal, and its reputation as an agency with corruption problems persists despite numerous reform efforts. Although a local newspaper once dubbed Agency 23 “the most corrupt police department in the country,” six other agencies in the sample appear to have integrity environments that are as poor or worse.

While the code of silence was similar in some aspects, the authors found systematic and dramatic differences between the codes of silence measured in the two police agencies (Klockars et al. 2000, p. 8):

In both agencies, few officers said that they or their police colleagues would report any of the least serious types of corrupt behavior… Officers from Agency 2 reported that they and their colleagues would report the behavior described in the seven other cases. In Agency 23, however, there was no case that the majority of officers indicated they would report. In sum, while The Code is under control in Agency 2, it remains a powerful influence in Agency 23, providing an environment in which corrupt behavior can flourish.

Further interpretation of these dissimilarities can also be found in another publication by Klockars et al. (2004, p. 36):

It is clear that in Agency 23 “The Code of Silence” is so strong that the officer who takes a kickback , a bribe , steals from a found wallet or a crime scene may do so without much worry that his police colleagues will expose his misconduct. By contrast, a police officer in St. Petersburg probably will not be reported for taking a free meal or a discount, accepting a holiday gift from a merchant, or for not reporting a police officer for driving under the influence, but every other offense described in the scenario runs a substantial chance of being revealed by a fellow police officer.

Klockars et al. (2004) put together a coedited book with 14 country chapters, exploring measurement of police officers’ willingness to report . Although the book pertained to the measurement of police integrity in general, the measurement of the code of silence seems to reveal the most dramatic differences across the countries. Klockars et al. reported (Klockars et al. 2004, p. 17):

In five of the countries not a single incident of the eleven described in the survey would be very likely to be reported by fellow officers. In nine out of fourteen countries fellow officers would not be certain to report a fellow officer who took a bribe from a speeding motorist. In fact, in every one of the countries surveyed an officer could accept free drinks to overlook a bar, which remained open past the official closing time or strike a prisoner in confinement without assuming that his police colleagues who witnessed the offense would be sure to report him. It appears that in few places in the world will a police officer turn in a fellow police officer who accepts free meals, discounts, or holiday gifts.

Influence of Social and Political Environment

The fourth dimension of the police integrity theory holds that the social, economic, and political environment in which police agencies operate, influences the level of integrity in the police agency (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004). Societies shape the level of misconduct of their public servants by establishing and nurturing a culture intolerant of misconduct, promulgating governing rules for ethical behavior of its employees, and by teaching and enforcing these rules (or, conversely, failing to do so).

Since 1995, each year Transparency International has ranked countries across the world based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived by various stakeholders, ranging from citizens and business people to analysts and experts. Countries are ranked from those at the bottom of the scale, wherein the public sector is perceived as highly corrupt (e.g., Afghanistan, North Korea , Sudan, and Somalia; Transparency International 2014) to those at the top of the scale, wherein the public sector is perceived as almost clear of corruption (e.g., Finland, Sweden, Norway , Denmark, New Zealand, and Australia ; Transparency International 2014) . Clearly, countries at the top of the scale create very different expectations in terms of integrity of their governmental employees than countries at the bottom of the scale do. As such, police agencies are strongly affected by the views shared and control mechanisms put in place by their larger societies and, consequently, it can be expected that more police agencies of high integrity would be found in the societies that put a high premium on ethical conduct of their governmental employees, rather than in the societies that are more acceptable of misconduct of their governmental employees.

Table 1.1 helps explore this relation further. It denotes two broad categories of the integrity spectrum for both societies (rows of the table) and police agencies (columns of the table). It is expected that most police agencies of high integrity would be placed in the cell of the table associated with societies of high integrity. Conversely, it is expected that most police agencies of low integrity would be located in the cell of the table associated with societies of low integrity. Still, there might also be agencies that should be placed into one of the two remaining cells. If a police agency of low integrity is found in a country of high integrity (e.g., the NYPD), the society would create sufficient pressure to investigate the agency, propose a set of reform recommendations, and implement them (e.g., Knapp Commission 1972; Mollen Commission 1994) . In other words, it is not expected that an agency of low integrity in a society of high integrity would remain at such a low level of integrity for an undetermined period of time. On the other hand, it is possible to find police agencies of high integrity in the societies of low integrity. For example, while nepotism and corruption were rampant throughout the American society in the 1920s and 1930s, the reform efforts that J. Edgar Hoover undertook as the newly appointed head of the FBI, dramatically changed not only the state of integrity within the agency but also the perceptions of the agency (Kelling and Moore 1988, p. 4).

Table 1.1 Police agency integrity levels by society integrity levels
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Indeed, the results in the Contours of Police Integrity (Klockars et al. 2004) do reveal that police agencies from the countries typically ranked near the top of the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Scale (e.g., Sweden, the Netherlands, and the USA) exhibit much higher levels of police integrity than police agencies from countries typically listed toward the bottom of the scale (e.g., Pakistan) or in the middle of the scale (e.g., Croatia, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa ; Transparency International 2005) do. In fact, Klockars et al. (2004, p. 17) find that, “In Croatia , Hungary , Pakistan, Poland, and South Africa the code of silence is so strong that in those countries officers are actually estimating just how unwilling most officers are to report the misconduct described in the scenarios.”

Organizational theory allows scholars to extrapolate and hypothesize that in large and diverse countries with autonomous subunits, such as the USA, social expectations could be quite different across these units. While discussing the diversity across the USA, Klockars et al. (2006, p. 10) argued that:

Even within the same country, as United States history illustrates, there are areas with long and virtually uninterrupted traditions of persistent police corruption (e.g., Chicago, New Orleans, Key West), equally long traditions of integrity (e.g., Milwaukee, Kansas City), and still others that have undergone repeated cycles of scandal and reform (e.g., New York, Philadelphia, Oakland). From such histories we may conclude two things: not only public expectations about police integrity exert vastly different pressures on police agencies in different areas, but also police agencies of integrity may effectively resist such pressures.

The Methodology of the Measurement of Police Integrity

The theoretical approach was coupled with a novel methodology that facilitates the studying of police integrity as an organizational concept in a systematic and empirical manner. At the same time, this approach avoids the pitfalls that direct questions about police misconduct will likely stand to generate. Thus, instead of placing such questions about misconduct, scholars can rely on the measurement instrument built around the key question: What is the level of intolerance for misconduct in the organization?

The questionnaire solicits police officers’ responses to hypothetical scenarios describing different examples of police misconduct. Prior to questionnaire completion, the respondents are informed that the police officer featured in the scenarios has 5 years of experience, that the officer has no prior disciplinary record, and that the officer has an overall satisfactory working history.

Because this project originally started as a way to measure the opposite of police corruption, the majority of the scenarios in the questionnaire (9 out of 11) describe forms of police corruption. Relying on Roebuck and Barker’s typology (1974), descriptions of various forms of corruption ranging from the acceptance of gratuities and internal corruption to kickbacks and thefts from a crime scene (Table 1.2) were included in the questionnaire. In addition, the questionnaire contains one scenario describing the use of excessive force and one scenario, which may not be a violation of official rules (being employed off duty).

Table 1.2 Scenario descriptions: first survey
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The goal was to create hypothetical scenarios appropriate to the functions of a line police officer walking the beat. At the same time, the scenarios should be amenable to comparative research and, thus, should be culturally natural and realistic in modern, industrial societies.

Nine out of 11 scenarios deal with examples of police corruption, a form of police misconduct characterized with the acceptance of gain (e.g., Kutnjak Ivković 2005a). Therefore, it was critical that, if at all possible, the value of the gain achieved through a corrupt transaction be incorporated into the description of the scenarios. One of the scenarios (scenario 3) includes a description of a bribe from a motorist caught speeding. The value of the bribe could have been shown in an absolute amount, described in U.S. dollars or the local currency equivalent. Such an approach would create perceptions of different seriousness in different countries, depending on the average salary of police officials. Rather, this value has been expressed in relative terms. In scenario 3, the police officer accepted a bribe “for half of the amount of the fine .” Similarly, the watch stolen from the crime scene in scenario 5 is worth about 2-days’ pay for the responding police officers. In addition, the auto-repair kickback in scenario 6 generates a reward equivalent to 5 % of the value of the repair.

Despite the goal of making the scenarios suitable for comparative research , several scenarios had to be modified for the sake of realism in the survey’s application. For example, scenarios 7 and 8 require police officers to drive cars, but, as scholars discovered in the application of the survey in Pakistan (Chatta and Kutnjak Ivković 2004), police officers typically do not own cars. Consequently, cars were substituted by motorbikes in Pakistan. In addition, in scenario 9, a police officer finds a bar that serves drinks after its official closing times. In Poland , the closing hours for bars are not clearly defined (Haberfeld 2004). Instead, the police officer in question encounters a situation in which the bartender serves drinks to minors.

Although the definition of police integrity includes the resistance to temptations of various sources, the scenarios in the questionnaire (with one exception) include examples of officers not being able to resist only one category of temptations—the abuse of police officer position for a gain (i.e., police corruption; Klockars et al. 1997, p. 79). To ameliorate this problem of measuring only the resistance to corruption, the second version of the questionnaire has been designed (Klockars et al. 1997, p. 79):

Will police who steal, accept bribes or take kickbacks also succumb to the temptations to lie in court, forge records, fabricate evidence, or make unwarranted searches or unjustified arrests even though gain provides no motive for doing so? Will police who lie in court, forge records, fabricate evidence, or make unwarranted searches or unjustified arrests resist temptations to steal, accept bribes, or take kickbacks? Or will the same integrity that inclines police to resist the temptations of corruption also incline them to resist temptations to abuse their rights and privileges in most other ways and for most other reasons as well? All of these questions (and their answers) now appear quite visible on the near research horizon.

Scenarios for the second survey include police abuses motivated by a range of motives, including those driven by motivations other than gain, and have thus encapsulated different forms of police misconduct. At the same time, the motives had to be unambiguous, compelling to the officers who read them, and easily expressed within two to three brief sentences (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 137). Four scenarios describe the use of excessive force, ranging from verbal abuse to the use of deadly force (scenario 4, scenario 6, scenario 7, scenario 11; Table 1.3). Two additional scenarios describe falsification of an official report (scenario 10) and failure to execute a search warrant (scenario 2). To allow for the potential test–retest measurements of the first and second questionnaire (Klockars et al. 2006), five police corruption scenarios (scenario 1, scenario 3, scenario 5, scenario 8, and scenario 9) from the first questionnaire were kept in the second questionnaire as well. They are only slightly changed from the first survey (e.g., a police officer steals a watch in the first version and a knife in the second version; tune-up of the supervisor’s personal car and the running of errands for the supervisor).

Table 1.3 Scenario descriptions: second survey
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Every scenario is accompanied by a series of seven questions, each measuring the normative and proportionate reflections of police integrity (Table 1.4). Unlike the limitations of a direct study of police misconduct, these questions focus on factual issues and opinions. The questions ask for factual answers about the police officers’ knowledge of the official rules, and solicit the officers’ opinions about the seriousness of rule violation, the punishment such misconduct deserves or is likely to receive, and their estimates of the willingness of officers to report such behavior without asking them directly about their own or others’ (mis)behavior (Klockars et al. 1997).

Table 1.4 Wording of questions and answers
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The first two questions inquire about the police officers’ own and other officers’ perceptions of the seriousness of each case. They are followed by a question whether the behavior described in the scenario constitutes a violation of official rules. Next, the officers are asked what discipline they think such behavior should merit and what discipline they think would be meted out by the police agency. Finally, the last two questions focus on the police officers’ adherence to the code of silence by asking whether they and their fellow officers are likely to report a police officer who engaged in such behavior (Table 1.4).

Possible answers to five out of these seven questions included Likert-type scales ranging from one to five (see Table 1.4). The two questions about discipline have answers that depend upon the legal norms. Thus, they have to be adjusted to fit the legal environment. As Klockars et al. (2004) point out, these answers could range widely and even include a different number of potential answers. However, all these disciplinary scales start with “no discipline” and end with “dismissal .”

Current State of Police Integrity Research

Already, the National Research Council of the National Academies (2004, p. 274) evaluated this research approach as showing “considerable promise.” Indeed, since Carl Klockars and Sanja Kutnjak Ivković started the project in the mid-1990s, a significant body of research following the theory and methodology has been created. A search of various electronic sources to date uncovered four books, 14 dissertations, 20 book chapters 42 journal articles, and eight reports published utilizing this approach.

Most of the existing research used the first questionnaire, be it exactly as it was designed (e.g., Klockars et al. 2004; Micucci and Gomme 2009; Schafer and Martinelli 2008) or in some modified form. For example, Greene et al. (2004), McDevitt et al. (2011), and White (2008) used only a few or several scenarios from the original group. On the other hand, Charles (2009) added a few scenarios, while Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (1999), Kutnjak Ivković et al. (2004), and Rothwell and Baldwin (2006) modified the questionnaire to fit civilian employees or the general population (e.g., students). Occasionally, the focus of a project was only on some types of scenarios, such as the acceptance of gratuities (e.g., White 2008) or the use of force (Micucci and Gomme 2009). In some studies, the original set of scenarios has been indexed (e.g., Jenks et al. 2014) and regrouped (e.g., Lee et al. 2013).

The original U.S. application of the questionnaire resulted in a national sample of 3235 police officers from 30 police agencies (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004; Klockars et al. 1997, 2000, 2004). The same data set has been reanalyzed by several scholars (e.g., Marche 2009; Micucci and Gomme 2009; Raines 2010). The questionnaire has been distributed to police officers in Philadelphia (e.g., Chappell and Piquero 2004; Greene et al. 2004; Hickman 2005; Kargin 2009; Wolfe and Piquero 2011), and several other U.S. agencies (e.g., Gamarra 2011; McDevitt et al. 2011; Pogarsky and Piquero 2004; Rothwell and Baldwin 2006; Schafer and Martinelli 2008; Smith 2009) or officers from different agencies attending a police training facility (e.g., Vito et al. 2011). For the survey of U.S. studies, see Table 1.5.

Table 1.5 Publications utilizing the first questionnaire: USA
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Over the span of the last 20 years, the questionnaire has been applied in 23 countries (Armenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic , Eritrea , Finland , Hungary, Japan , Malaysia , the Netherlands, Norway , Pakistan , Poland, Romania , Slovenia , South Africa, South Korea , Sweden , Turkey , the UK , and the USA; see Table 1.6) , spanning continents, cultures, legal systems, and economic states. The book Contours of Police Integrity (2004) features chapters from 14 countries (Austria, Canada, Croatia, Britain, Finland, Hungary , Japan, Netherlands , Pakistan, Poland, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, USA) .

Table 1.6 Publications utilizing the first questionnaire: other countries
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Most of the studies focus on the exploration of police integrity in one country (Table 1.6). However, in a handful of studies (Table 1.7) the authors compared the results from “their” country with the results from other countries, typically with the original U.S. data set (e.g., Andreescu et al. 2012; Johnson 2003; Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 1999; Khruakham and Lee 2013; Vito et al. 2011). Most of the comparisons included two- or three-country comparisons, with an introductory chapter in the book Contours of Police Integrity (Klockars et al. 2004) offering a comparison across all 14 countries .

Table 1.7 Publications utilizing the first questionnaire: cross-country comparisons
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The original U.S. sample was a nonrandom national sample of U.S. police officers from 30 agencies. The samples of police officers that followed included national samples, both representative (e.g., Croatia, Slovenia) and nonrandom national samples (e.g., Finland, Poland, and South Africa) , as well as samples from particular regions or cities (e.g., Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the USA; Table 1.6). Sometimes the samples were collected at police academies or training facilities (e.g., Andreescu et al. 2012; Vito et al. 2011). On several occasions, the scholars were interested in civilian employees (e.g., Rothwell and Barldwin 2006) or general populations (e.g., Klockars et al. 2000; Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 1999; Kutnjak Ivković et al. 2002).

In addition to exploring overall contours of police integrity (see Tables 1.5–1.7), scholars sometimes focused on specific measures, such as evaluations of seriousness (e.g., Kutnjak Ivković et al. 2004; Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 1999; Kutnjak Ivković 2004, 2005), code of silence (e.g., Kremer 2000; Kutnjak Ivković and Shelley 2010; Kutnjak Ivković and Sauerman 2012; Pagon and Lobnikar 2004; Rothwell and Baldwin 2007a), or disciplinary fairness (e.g., Kutnjak Ivković and Klockars 1998; Kutnjak Ivković and Shelley 2010). They explored district-level differences (Greene et al. 2004; Yun 2003), rank differences (e.g., Kutnjak Ivković 2004; Kutnjak Ivković and Klockars 2000; Kutnjak Ivković et al. 2002; Kutnjak Ivković and Shelley 2010; Lee et al. 2013; Pagon and Lobnikar 2000; Rothwell and Baldwin 2007a), and race and/or gender differences (e.g., Andreescu et al. 2012; Charles 2009; McDevitt et al. 2011; Westmarland 2005). On occasion, they compared hypothetical cases with actual court cases (e.g., Gottschalk 2009a, 2009b) or disciplinary records (e.g., Klockars et al. 2006).

Although the authors initially postulated the organizational theory of police integrity (see above), which has been the guiding theoretical approach in most of these studies (see Tables 1.5–1.7), they have expanded their approach since, also theorizing about the relation between the code of silence and the perceptions of disciplinary fairness (e.g., Kutnjak Ivković and Klockars 1998; Kutnjak Ivković and Shelley 2010). Others have combined the original theory with other theories or tested other theories using the police integrity approach (e.g., Bucak 2012; Chappell and Piquero 2004; Long et al. 2013; Pogarsky and Piquero 2004; Smith 2009; Zschoche 2011).

Clearly, during the last 20 years, the body of research based on the first questionnaire has grown substantially, spanning the globe. Yet, the research connected with the second questionnaire—the questionnaire, which measures the resistance to various forms of police misconduct—is still in its infancy. At present, there are only seven publications from the research team, covering three countries (Tables 1.8 and 1.9). First, the second questionnaire has been used to assess the extent of police integrity in three U.S. police agencies and measure temporal changes in their environments of integrity (Klockars et al. 2006). Then, a large municipal police agency (“Rainless West”) has been surveyed and the findings compared with the three U.S. agencies (Kutnjak Ivković et al. 2013). Furthermore, the second questionnaire has been used to measure the changes in a country in transition and explore the connection between police integrity and community policing (Kutnjak Ivković 2009, 2012). Finally, there was an initial application of the questionnaire to a small sample of police officers and students in Slovenia (Pagon et al. 2004) . The exploration of police integrity—its contours and finesse—has only just begun.

Table 1.8 Publications utilizing the second questionnaire: USA
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Table 1.9 Publications utilizing the second questionnaire—other countries
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