Explain the four categories of ethical dilemmas typically facing a police officer and give a real world example of each

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• Discretion – The law provides rigid guidelines for how police officers must act and how they cannot act, but it does not offer guidelines for how officers should act in many circumstances use discretion to determine how they should act, and ethics plays an important role in guiding discretionary actions.
• Duty – Duty is the obligation to act in a certain manner. Society, by passing laws, can make a police officer's duty clearer and, in the process, help eliminate discretion from the decision-making process. But an officer's duty will not always be obvious, and ethical considerations can often supplement "the rules" of being a law enforcement agent.
• Honesty – A law enforcement agent must make hundreds of decisions in a day, and most of them require him or her to be honest in order to properly do the job.
• Loyalty – What should a police officer do if he or she witnesses a partner using excessive force on a suspect? The choice often sets loyalty against ethics.