Explain the four categories of ethical dilemmas typically faced by a police officer as identified by criminologists Joycelyn M. Pollock and Ronald F. Becker.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. Pollock and Becker, both of whom have extensive experience as ethics instructors for police departments, identified four categories of ethical dilemmas, involving discretion, duty, honesty, and loyalty.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. Thus, police officers often use discretion to determine how they should act, and ethics plays an important role in guiding discretionary actions.2. Duty: The concept of discretion is linked with duty, or 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.3. Honesty: Honesty is a critical attribute for an ethical police officer. 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 do the job properly.4. 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, especially if the officer does not condone the violence.