Can the police change their ethics?
For over a year, "yellow vest" protests and social movements have been ongoing in France, leading to recurring clashes between demonstrators and law enforcement.
Stéphane Lemercier, University of Montpellier
The demonstration on Thursday, January 9, also gave rise to new videos questioning the way in which police officers, who appear to be overwhelmed, use violence and forms of "illegalism" that are now calling their profession into question.
How can this escalation of violence be stopped? How can we return to a virtuous police force serving the citizens? One might be tempted to say that police officers need to be taught professional ethics and better supervised. But they are already well aware 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 sometimes engaging in violent behavior, as evidenced by the numerous videos and tweets following the latest demonstrations.
Police misconduct
Illegalities were defined by Michel Foucault as the set of illicit practices each associated with distinct social groups.
He specified that illegality contains the possibility of compliance with legality depending on the circumstances. This may seem paradoxical, but specialists know that:
"Clearly, and as shown by the classics of police sociology, an attitude of strict compliance with the rules would inevitably lead to paralysis of the entire organization."
The magistrates themselves are complicit in this state of affairs, as criminal proceedings have become so complex that it is difficult to conduct a police investigation in strict compliance with laws and regulations without risking a procedural irregularity. Jean-Paul Brodeur, a leading police expert, even stated that
"The ever-present possibility of breaking the laws to which other citizens are subject with impunity is fundamental to the concept of policing."
Mimicry and anomie
Mimicry, for example, plays an important role in police misconduct. This refers to the behavior adopted by police officers in order to carry out their duties: driving at high speed to catch up with a fleeing driver, using force to subdue a violent individual, or using a weapon to neutralize a terrorist.
What may be recognized as legal and legitimate in certain circumstances but which contributes to disinhibiting police officers on a daily basis.
Anomie also plays a role. Here, it is understood as 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 in the field largely ignore these regulations. And when they have acted "outside the rules," if they discover an offense, they then find a valid reason for the check after the fact to justify their initial action.
Finally, habitus refers to dispositions internalized during socialization in a given environment, which act as a matrix for perceiving and assessing that environment. Thus, from their very first days on the job, senior officers encourage young recruits to forget what they learned at the police academy and teach them what to do based on their own criteria...
In the field, young police officers tend to want to explain the reasons for their checks or interventions to people, but their seniors discourage them from doing so because "people don't need to know" and/or "can't understand" and "we don't have to justify ourselves."
A step toward deontic ethics
The line between tolerated illegal practices and illegal behavior by certain police officers is sometimes blurred. This leads us to believe that strengthening the ethical standards of police officers does not seem relevant, since it would involve strengthening laws that are not always respected in the first place. We therefore suggest that it might be more relevant to train officers in deontics, which is fundamentally different from ethics.
Deontics is the science that studies the formal relationships between normative concepts such as obligations, permissions, and prohibitions. We even talk about deontic logic, which, in order to be effective, articulates time, agent, right, and recipients based on the implementation of informed judgment (which is of interest to us because we will find traces of it later in the code of ethics).
When faced with an emergency situation, police officers must intervene quickly while balancing compliance with applicable laws, their rights, and their duties. They rarely consider the potential consequences of their actions, focusing instead solely on what they can do within the time available to them.
Next, drawing on virtue ethics, police officers could be encouraged to reflect on their personal behavior, asking themselves not only "How can I do the right thing?" but also "How should I be in order to do the right thing?" According to John Stuart Mill, "it is the consequences for others that allow us to morally evaluate our actions," and even if most police officers claim to act in good faith and according to their 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; intelligence and lucidity are also required."
Reflective practices
And this is precisely one of the new features that appears in the latest code of ethics for the police and gendarmerie (2014):
"Police officers and gendarmes shall exercise good judgment in the performance of their duties: they shall take into account, in all circumstances, the nature of the risks and threats in each situation they face and the time they have to act, in order to choose the best response."
We are no longer talking about laws that must be enforced at all costs, but rather about personal ethical reflection. However, this would require a review of police training, as it is no longer a question of imposing strict notions of rights, but rather of encouraging officers to reflect on the consequences of their actions by implementing reflective practices.
Currently, operational debriefings are held after operations or demonstrations, but these take place in groups and officers are not encouraged to reflect individually on their practices, express their feelings, and/or consider the consequences of their actions. Introducing more in-depth reflective practices would help to change mindsets and operating procedures.
Indeed, it must be understood that the end does not justify the means and that force must remain within the law only if it is absolutely necessary and legitimate.
The key issue for everyday security is to return to virtuous personal behavior on the part of police officers, based on consequentialist ethics, i.e., a moral analysis based on the consequences of individual or collective actions, for a police force that serves citizens and is respected because it is respectable, not because it is feared.
The author recently published "Précis d'éthique et de déontologie dans la police" (A Guide to Ethics and Professional Conduct in the Police Force), Les 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.