Abstract
The author of Peer Reporting of Unethical Police Behavior contributes to the literature on unethical police behavior by presenting the issue through peer reporting. Kargin’s book is a reworking of his dissertation research. It offers an extensive overview of police officers’ ethical decision making. It is written primarily for police organizations and administrators; however, this book could be used as a supplemental reading or to inform the public, persons in academia, and others interested in understanding factors that might influence police officers’ ethical decision making.
The book comprises of six chapters, and three appendices. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the nature and complexity of police work, history of unethical practices of police personnel, theoretical framework on ethical decision making, research questions, and a synopsis of the book organization. More specifically, in the introductory chapter, Kargin proposes five research questions. “What influences do individual demographics have on police officers’ ethical decision making with regard to peer reporting? What influences do individual dispositional factors have on officers’ ethical decision making with regard to peer reporting? What influences do organizational factors have on police officers’ ethical decision making with regard to peer reporting? What influences do issue-related factors have on police officers’ ethical decision making with regard to peer reporting? Which one of these individual, organizational, and issue-related factors has the strongest influence on police officers’ ethical decision making with regard to peer reporting?” (Kargin, 2011, p. 6). Kargin uses secondary data analysis, based on a survey questionnaire from the Philadelphia Police Department to answer these questions.
In Chapter 2, Kargin focuses on the different theories of ethical decision making including the Cognitive Moral Development Theory, which has been the foundation for many theories on ethical decision making. The author also defines ethical issue, ethical decision making, ethics and morality, as well as other basic concepts to assist readers in interpreting the ethics literature. He suggests that the policing literature contains no studies investigating police officers’ ethical decision making and his study is the first of its kind. Kargin identifies several models such as the four-component model, a person–situation interactionist model, and an issue-contingent model as ethical decision-making models previously used as the basis for peer reporting. The current ethical decision-making models indicate several factors which are influential in ethical decision making, based on different perspectives. Some of those influential factors are demographics, dispositional, organizational, and situational.
Chapter 3 assesses the factors that are related to peer reporting of unethical behaviors among police officers. Kargin indicates that much of the previous literature on ethical decision making has placed a significant emphasis on moral intent as an indicator of moral behavior because of the difficulty of both observing and measuring ethical behaviors. Kargin defines some additional key concepts such as moral intent and peer reporting. A brief discussion of demographic factors such as age, gender, work experience, supervisory status, and marital status is presented. Other concepts relating to disposition such as cynicism and attitudes toward code of ethics are addressed. The social learning theory is introduced as a plausible and influential factor in understanding police officers’ unethical behaviors. The author tabulates previous studies based on different aspects of organizational factors relating to police officers’ behaviors, which are illustrated in four separate tables. In an attempt to fill the gap in policing literature on ethics, the factors influencing police officers’ ethical decision-making intentions are investigated. Consequently, he introduces 12 hypotheses as a guide for investigating the current study. The hypotheses rest on age, gender, race, marital status, year of service, rank of police officer, cynicism, ethics, peer association, reinforcement, seriousness of consequences, and social consensus, which are hypothesized to influence police officers’ ethical decision making.
Chapter 4 contains a description of Kargin’s research design, the data, the sample, and the methodology employed. Kargin aims to describe the process of police officers’ peer-reporting decisions by investigating factors relating to ethical decision making. Also, he does not describe developmental changes or patterns in police officers’ peer-reporting decisions nor aims to establish a causal link with peer reporting (Kargin, 2011). As such, the author describes the study as cross sectional because an experimental or longitudinal study is not feasible.
Chapter 5 provides the findings of the study. Based on the proposed 5 research questions and the 12 hypotheses developed from the research questions, the author tabulates a summary of the support available for the hypotheses. In doing so, the author conducts an exploratory data analysis to identify potential problems in the data, employ regression analysis, and correlations to interpret the findings. He assesses the reliability and validity of scales to ensure consistency and accuracy based on expected outcomes.
Chapter 6 concludes the book with discussion and implications of the findings on peer reporting on unethical police behavior. Kargin notes that, based on the findings, some factors are significant predictors of police officers’ peer-reporting intentions including individual (attitudes to ethic codes and cynicism), organizational (reinforcement and peer association), and nature of offense (seriousness of the issue; Kargin, 2011). He acknowledges that the findings of the current study are limited because they derived from only one large police department—the Philadelphia Police Department and patrol officers. The appendices include the law enforcement code of ethics, law enforcement code of conduct, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s (IACP) national law enforcement standard for the scenarios.
Kargin has put forth a fascinating book geared mainly toward police officers and police administrators. The problem of unethical behavior and peer reporting, as put forth by Kargin, is suitable for his targeted audience. He provides an evidence-based description of the environment in which police officers operate, factors affecting police officers ethical decision making, and ways to improve awareness, and recognition of ethical issues. Although some of the scenarios used to depict ethical problems remain problematic, I found the book interesting because of the insights on how police officers respond to unethical peers. Kargin demonstrates the complexity in observing and measuring unethical behavior of police officers. Future recommendations for a more advanced research on peer-reporting decisions of unethical police behavior are offered.