The Ethical Bar Will Risefor Law Enforcement in the Future. Why?

Abstract

This article looks at the question of why the ethical bar will rise for law enforcement in the future. It examines how technology has made it so that officers actions and words are now recorded on body cams, and everything they do and so now will be scrutinized by the publicso this necessarily entails a higher ethical bar. It also looks at the rise of cancel culture and how this is impacting the constant call for higher ethical standards in law enforcement. It finally examines the application these findings and what it will mean for law enforcement going forward.

Introduction

Law enforcement has come under intense scrutiny since 2020, with the death of George Floyd. Police misconduct is viewed as a reason for protesting and rioting among parts of the public community, and the costs are tremendous. Police simply cannot afford to do anything that might be construed as police brutality, corruption or misconduct. Thus, the ethical bar will rise for law enforcement in the future, as there is just too much attention now being brought to bear on police departments.

Discussion of Literature

One reason the ethical bar is rising for law enforcement is the fact that technology has caught up to the practice of law enforcement so that now all officers tend to be harnessed with body cams that record everything that happens between an officer and a person in the community (Adams & Mastracci, 2017). This heightened power of monitoring and recording a situation means that more scrutiny is brought to bear on every action and word an officer of the law does or says. If there is a negative outcome in an interaction between the community and an officer of the law, the community will see the body cam footage and make a judgment call based on how that officer acted (Adams & Mastracci, 2017).

Moreover, the media is always presenting a narrative in its communications and the more that an event can be sensationalized the more likely it is to gain viewers, which helps to increase ad revenue (Wong & Harraway, 2020). This is a problem as it pertains to the ethical bar because those media narratives are driving responses in the public, particularly among government leaders, who hear from the public and must find ways to satisfy the public whenever it becomes outraged about the latest problem, such as homicide. If an officer of the law is accused of homicide, the event is sensationalized in media because sensationalism drives narratives that provide returns for media outlets (Wong & Harraway, 2020). This creates a dynamic by which heightened scrutiny is coupled with public outrage and media attention, leading to a charged atmosphere wherein a call for increased ethical standards is inevitable. Even if there are already high ethical standards in law enforcement, it does not matter. The outrage, the sensationalism, and the fact that another event has occurred in which an officer is accused of wrong doing is all it takes for the cry for a higher ethical bar in law enforcement. Reason, logic, proper analysisnone of these necessarily enter into the conversation.

There is also the problem of diverging opinions on police: some see police as necessary for maintaining the law and order of a community; others want to defund and abolish police completely. Thus, for example, one portion of communities still strongly believes that police presence helps to maintain order and a sense of safety, even in schools (Turner & Beneke, 2020). However, not everyone agrees with that assessment, and some view police as the problem as there is...

…worst abuses under the surface. When the laws of prohibition in the 1920s were implemented it triggered the rise of the criminal underworld. People became scofflaws and the 1920s became known as the Lawless Decade. People were simply not going to live according to some arbitrary higher standard of morality that they felt was pushed upon them by people who did not share their values or walk in their shoes or live the kind of lives that they lived. It is no different for police officers today. They do not want to be judged by a community that has never engaged in policing or that has never had to put its own life on the line every day to try to enforce the law. Police often feel disrespected and unappreciated when their decisions are questioned or when there are calls for retribution from a community that feels violated.

Yet police also have to realize that the climate has changed. Communities want to feel just as respected as they do as officers. Can there be a middle ground? Perhaps it is not the ethical standards of law enforcement that need to change but the laws themselves. Perhaps the problem is that officers of the law are tasked with enforcing laws that the community rejects. If that is it, then the nature of the discussion has to change as well.

Conclusion

Law enforcement shold be held to a high ethical standardbut how high should it go? How high can it go? The standards are rising because more and more attention is being directed at law enforcement. Communities want accountability. But at the same time, the cancel culture and outrage mob have taken over the discussion of what standards should be. This presents problems in terms of fairness and impartiality. When culture itself is degraded to the…