Ethics is an established set of standards that govern human behavior and determines people’s character. It covers virtues, values, fairness, and individual responsibility. These ethics are, however, compromised depending on the situation. Ethical dilemmas refer to situations where an individual is faced with two or more conflicting ideas. Police often face dilemmas in their duties as their morality is tested. For instance, they do not tell on each other because of the police culture created that is referred to as the blue wall of silence. This event is considered conflicting since they have a moral obligation to the law and to their colleagues. Additionally, to understand why this is a moral dilemma, the egoism and utilitarianism theories are used. The former is based on the notion that human beings tend to fulfill their needs without taking into consideration those of others. In contrast, the latter upholds that an action can be only be said to be either right or wrong by evaluating its outcome. Police are often faced with ethical dilemmas at work on whether to tell on their colleagues and this can be explained using the egoism and utilitarianism theories.
Law enforcers are more likely to be faced with an ethical dilemma on their line of duty. In is common for police officers to commit crimes, errors, and other misconducts ( Parsons, 2012) . These faults may, however, never reported by their colleagues. For example, where a police officer accidentally shoots a suspect rather than arrest them or use better channels to deal with the matter, their partner will not report them or act against them whatsoever ( Parsons, 2012) . According to Cottler et al. (2014), partners often help in clearing the defaulting officer rather than snitching on them, which is referred to as the blue wall of silence. Police officers, therefore, do not break this unwritten code. If the officer decides to snitch on their colleague, they will be seen as a threat to the others and the accused officer too ( Cottler et al. 2014) . Moreover, Cottler et al. (2014) stipulate that when police officers uphold the blue wall of silence, the public condemns them based on the expectations of the law and society.
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Some law enforcers commit many misconducts that violate laws and ethics, for instance, bribery. Parsons (2012) states that if an officer witnesses their fellow colleague taking a bribe, they may not report it. In the event of the official questioning the witness officer, they would claim to lack information concerning the accused colleague. Moreover, when an officer practices discriminatory arrest, their other officers will not tell on their colleague’s error. In the law enforcement sector, trust is critical. Similarly, loyalty is vital when it comes to duty. The police officers have to decide whether to be loyal to their fellow colleagues or the law. Choosing to be faithful to the law exposes an officer to several disadvantages. They include discrimination, loss of friends, being exposed to their errors, isolation, or even lack of back up upon need. If an officer chooses to be loyal to the law, they are seen as a threat to the other officers who uphold the blue wall of silence. Whistleblowing in law enforcement is very rare, thus supporting the claim that law enforcers do not expose each other because they are loyal. This makes it hard to expose critical offences like police brutality.
Police do not whistle blow on each other due to the self-centered nature of people. This may be explained in the ethical egoism theory that stipulates people are seen to pursue their self-interest without minding that of others. According to the approach, no one has the duty or mandate to promote other people’s interests. Moreover, this theory states that if everyone pursued, their self-interest without being mindful of other people, it would not result in the general good of society ( Machan, 2012) . It is unfortunate that law enforcers have adopted this theory in their duties. A police officer has to choose between the pursuit of loyalty to the law enforcement agency and the society at large or their interests. They constantly seek to fulfill their desires to fit and be respected by their colleagues. If a police officer witnesses a colleague breaking the law, for instance, being corrupt, they are most likely not going to report them.
According to the egoism approach, law enforcers want to maintain loyalty with the offending officer ( Cottler et al. 2014) . This will promote trust between them thus fulfilling their interest to be accepted by their associates. Additionally, the witness officer may also want their crimes covered in the future. They will, therefore, use that as leverage against their partners. Further, the witness police will want to maintain their friend. In pursuit of their benefits, they will wholeheartedly uphold the blue wall of silence to continue enjoying the benefits that come with friendship. They will choose not to tell on each other because if they do, their former crimes will be exposed, and this is against their self-interest, which is to ensure that their offenses are not revealed.
Utilitarianism also explains the cause of raising the blue wall of silence. The approach indicates the importance of finding the morality of actions based on the consequences of those acts (Mill, 2016). An act that is not seemingly good, but the outcomes of it are right, then that action may be said to be good. A police officer, for instance, shoots an armed criminal, their action may seem terrible because they were supposed to apprehend that criminal. In contract, their actions may be deemed useful since they have eliminated the likelihood of the criminal shooting and injuring or even killing other people or the officers themselves. According to the utilitarianism reasoning, the officer will have done a good thing. The utilitarian approach, therefore, considers what makes their fellow officers not to tell. Moreover, if they shot and killed a person, the consequences of such crime can be said to be good. Had the officer decided not to kill the criminal, maybe the latter would have escaped, committed more crimes, and perhaps even kill people. The justification for the killing by the officer is that the consequences of it seem right; that is, the elimination of the potential threat to the life and safety of others. It is based on teleological reasoning, also known as consequentialist moral reasoning. In this case, the ethicality of an action is based on its results rather than the primary act itself.
According to utilitarianism, an officer’s action is justified based on its consequences rather than judging by the statutes of the law itself. Its outcome judges an action’s morality. This approach explains why so many crimes and offenses committed by law enforcers go unnoticed. Police officers mainly do not want to be accused of betraying their colleagues ( Cottler et al. 2014) . Consequently, there will always be a reason to justify their actions and claim that the accused officer acted for the best of the larger good of the people. An ethical dilemma will always, therefore, face an officer who witnesses a colleague committing a crime. They have to either report them or uphold the blue wall of silence.
Both utilitarianism and egoism theories aid in understanding why police do not tell on their colleagues. They both assess how a witness officer is faced with a problematic value conflict whether to report their partner or to go silent. In most cases, they do not report each other, and instead, they endorse and carry on to recruit new officers to the blue wall of silence code. Moreover, using the egoism approach, a police officer will not speak of their colleague in pursuit of their interest without caring about the interest of the victim, the agency or the society at large. The witness officer will go silent about their colleague’s offense to continue benefiting themselves. The same form of justice applied to person A should be used to person B. During the administration of justice, police officers often find themselves on the wrong.
To conclude, morals and ethics should be for the common good of everybody, and a crime is a crime regardless of who has committed it. It is clear that police officers, as law enforcement agencies, do not tell on each other. While it is the irony of life, it does happen more than expected. The two explanations to this are the egoism nature of police and the quality of their action which is explained by utilitarian theory. It is expected that they will apply the same sentence they are promoting and be subjective to morals and ethics. This, however, is not usually the case. In most scenarios, law defaulting police officers go unpunished because they do not tell on each other. As a result of not snitching on each other, it becomes a tradition or culture in law enforcement that the officers cover up each other’s crimes and offenses to continue enjoying the outcome of erecting the blue wall of silence.
References
Cottler, L. B., O’Leary, C. C., Nickel, K. B., Reingle, J. M., & Isom, D. (2014). Breaking the blue wall of silence: risk factors for experiencing police sexual misconduct among female offenders. American journal of public health , 104 (2), 338-344.
Machan, T. R. (2015). Egoism, psychological egoism, and ethical egoism. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management , 1-4.
Mill, J. S. (2016). Utilitarianism. Seven masterpieces of philosophy (pp. 337-383). Routledge.
Parsons, S. (2012). Misconduct in a public office—should it still be prosecuted. The Journal of Criminal Law , 76 (2), 179-185.
