Can the police change their ethics?
For over a year now, “Yellow Vest” protests and social movements have been taking place one after another in France, leading to recurring clashes between protesters and law enforcement.
Stéphane Lemercier, University of Montpellier
The demonstration on Thursday, January 9, has also led to the release of new videos calling into question the way in which police officers—who appear to be overwhelmed—use violence and engage in “illegal practices” that are now casting doubt on their profession.
How can we put a stop to this escalation of violence? How can we return to a police force that acts with integrity and serves the public? One might be tempted to say that police officers need to be taught professional ethics and better supervised. But they already know full well that they must respect the laws of the Republic and the code of ethics. They also know that they are often filmed in public, yet this does not prevent them from occasionally engaging in violent behavior, as evidenced by the numerous videos and tweets following the recent protests.
Police misconduct
Michel Foucault defined “illegalities” as the set of illicit practices, each associated with distinct social groups.
He pointed out that illegality entails the possibility of respecting the law depending on the circumstances. This may seem paradoxical, but experts know that:
“Clearly, as the classics of police sociology demonstrate, an attitude of strict adherence to the rules would inevitably lead to the paralysis of the entire organization.”
The judges themselves are complicit in this situation, as criminal procedure has become so complex that it is difficult to carry out a police investigation while strictly adhering to laws and regulations without risking a procedural flaw. Jean-Paul Brodeur, a leading expert on policing, even stated that
“The ever-present possibility of breaking the laws to which other citizens are subject with impunity is central to the concept of the police.”
Mimicry and anomie
Mimicry, for example, plays a significant role in police misconduct. This refers to the behavior adopted by police officers to carry out their duties: driving at high speeds to catch a fleeing driver, using force to subdue a violent individual, or using a weapon to neutralize a terrorist.
Something that may be considered legal and legitimate under certain circumstances but that contributes to making police officers less restrained in their day-to-day work.
Anomie also plays a role. Here, it refers to the absence of clear rules. This concept may seem contradictory, but since illegal acts are tolerated depending on the circumstances, we can speak of police anomie when certain rules are no longer clearly established.
Take identity checks, for example: these are strictly regulated by law, but police officers on the ground often disregard these regulations. And when they act “outside the rules,” if they discover an offense, they then find a valid reason for the check retroactively to justify their initial action.
Finally, habitus refers to the internalized dispositions acquired during socialization within a particular environment, which serve as a framework for perceiving and evaluating that environment. Thus, from their very first days on the job, veteran officers encourage new recruits to forget what they learned in police academy and teach them what to do based on their own criteria…
In the field, young officers tend to want to explain the reasons for their stops or interventions to the public, but their senior colleagues discourage them from doing so, arguing that “people don’t need to know” and/or “can’t understand,” and that “we don’t have to justify ourselves.”
A step toward ethics
The line between tolerated irregularities and illegal conduct by certain police officers is sometimes blurred. This leads us to believe that strengthening police officers’ professional ethics does not seem relevant, since it would amount to reinforcing legal statutes that are not always followed in the first place. We therefore suggest that it might be more effective to train officers in deontics, which is fundamentally different from ethics.
Deontology is the field of study that examines the formal relationships between normative concepts such as obligations, permissions, and prohibitions. There is even talk of deontic logic, which, to be effective, articulates time, the agent, the law, and the recipients by relying on the exercise of informed judgment (which is of interest to us because we will encounter it again later in the code of ethics).
When faced with an emergency, a police officer must act quickly while balancing compliance with applicable laws, his rights, and his duties. He rarely considers the potential consequences of his actions but focuses solely on what he can do within the time allotted to him.
Furthermore, drawing on virtue ethics, we could encourage police officers to reflect on their personal conduct—so that officers no longer ask themselves merely, “How can I do the right thing?” but rather, “How should I be in order to do the right thing? ” For, according to John Stuart Mill, “it is the consequences for others that allow us to morally evaluate our actions,” and even though most police officers claim to act in good faith and with a clear conscience, André Comte-Sponville points out that:
“Goodwill is no guarantee, nor is a clear conscience an excuse: for morality alone is not enough for virtue; it also requires intelligence and clarity of mind.”
Reflective practices
And this is precisely one of the new provisions included in the latest code of ethics for the police and gendarmerie (2014):
“In the performance of their duties, police officers and gendarmes exercise sound judgment: they take into account, in all circumstances, the nature of the risks and threats posed by each situation they face, as well as the time available to them to act, in order to determine the best course of action.”
We are no longer talking about laws that must be enforced at all costs; rather, we are talking about the need for personal ethical reflection. But this would require a reevaluation of police training, as the goal is no longer to impose rigid notions of rights but to encourage officers to reflect on the consequences of their actions through the implementation of reflective practices.
Currently, operational debriefings are held after operations or events, but these take place in group settings, and officers are not encouraged to reflect individually on their practices, express their feelings, or consider the consequences of their actions. Implementing more in-depth reflective practices would help change mindsets and operational procedures.
Indeed, it must be understood that the end does not justify the means, and that force should only be used to enforce the law when it is absolutely necessary and legitimate.
The key to ensuring public safety lies in a return to ethical conduct on the part of police officers, grounded in consequentialist ethics—that is, a moral framework based on the consequences of individual or collective actions—so that the police serve the public and are respected because they are worthy of respect, not because they are feared.
The author recently published *A Guide to Ethics and Professional Conduct in Policing*, Editions du Prévôt, 455 pages, 2019.
Stéphane Lemercier, Lecturer – Member of the Montpellier Criminal Law Team (EDPM), University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.