The Blue Wall of Silence
The Blue Wall of Silence
Being a police officer is an honorable career. For the majority of the public, a police officer is one of the more respected members of the community because everyone looks up to them to protect their community. The work that police officers do, for the most part, is noble for the reason that they put their life on the line for everyone, every day. There is no doubt a great deal of personal fulfillment that comes from the duties and responsibilities assigned to police officers, because they get to help out in the community. Police officers have a duty to serve and protect and that type of job description can only affect the community in a positive way. We see the way that people can affect their community in the reading by Psychology Professor Howard Gardner et al, “Good Work in Difficult Times.” This essay describes people who do good work and it not only shares the value systems of people who do good work but it shares how that carries over into the community. Additionally, this reading discusses standards, by which professionals ought to adhere too. Being a police officer does not come without challenges that can cause problems with community relations. One of the many challenges, both past and present, facing police departments is police corruption. To further explore the topic of corruption we look the reading entitled, “The Code of Silence” written by senior research experts in the field of criminology and crime prevention, Joycelyn Pollock, Juha Kaariainen, Ahti Laitinen, and Tomi Lintonen, who concede that the most prevalent form of corruption facing our police departments and police administrators is The Blue Wall of Silence. The Blue Wall of Silence is the name used to explain the unity exhibited by police officers in an attempt to limit their co-operation when a police official is accused in the line of duty. Even though the Blue Wall of Silence has arisen out of the understandable need for police officers to be able to
Being a police officer is an honorable career. For the majority of the public, a police officer is one of the more respected members of the community because everyone looks up to them to protect their community. The work that police officers do, for the most part, is noble for the reason that they put their life on the line for everyone, every day. There is no doubt a great deal of personal fulfillment that comes from the duties and responsibilities assigned to police officers, because they get to help out in the community. Police officers have a duty to serve and protect and that type of job description can only affect the community in a positive way. We see the way that people can affect their community in the reading by Psychology Professor Howard Gardner et al, “Good Work in Difficult Times.” This essay describes people who do good work and it not only shares the value systems of people who do good work but it shares how that carries over into the community. Additionally, this reading discusses standards, by which professionals ought to adhere too. Being a police officer does not come without challenges that can cause problems with community relations. One of the many challenges, both past and present, facing police departments is police corruption. To further explore the topic of corruption we look the reading entitled, “The Code of Silence” written by senior research experts in the field of criminology and crime prevention, Joycelyn Pollock, Juha Kaariainen, Ahti Laitinen, and Tomi Lintonen, who concede that the most prevalent form of corruption facing our police departments and police administrators is The Blue Wall of Silence. The Blue Wall of Silence is the name used to explain the unity exhibited by police officers in an attempt to limit their co-operation when a police official is accused in the line of duty. Even though the Blue Wall of Silence has arisen out of the understandable need for police officers to be able to
Cited: Bianco, Anthony. “Behind that Blue Wall of Silence.” BusinessWeek 3697 (2000): 22-6. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. IU South Bend Lib., South Bend, IN. Web. 29 March 2011. Dempsey, John S., and Linda S. Forst. “Chapter 6: Police Culture, Personality, and Police Stress.” An Introduction to Policing. 5th. New York: Delmar, 2010. Print. 169-70. Gardner, Howard et al. “Good Work in Difficult Times.” Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet New York: Basic, 2001. Print. 3-14. Koepke, Jennifer E. "The Failure to Breach the Blue Wall of Silence: The Circling of the Wagons to Protect Police Perjury." Washburn Law Journal 39.201 (2009): 211-40. JSTOR. IU South Bend Lib., South Bend, IN. Web. 2 Apr 2011. Marché, Gary E. “Integrity, culture, and scale: an empirical test of the big bad police agency.” Crime, Law and Social Change, 51(5) (2009): 463-86. Retrieved April 15, 2011, from Criminal Justice Periodicals. (Document ID: 1679795431). Pollock, Joycelyn, Juha Kaariainen, Ahti Laitinen, and Tomi Lintonen. "The Code of Silence." Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Crime Prevention. 9. (2008): 86-96. JSTOR. IU South Bend Lib., South Bend, IN. Web. 1 Apr 2011. Sherman, Lawrence W. “Scandal and Reform: Controlling Police Corruption.” Berkeley: University of California Press. 1978. Print. 3-242.