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Police Ethics Kleinig focused on three cases namely Knapp and Miller Commissions in New York, and Christopher Commission in Los Angeles, on analyzing the unwritten law of the police department. This unwritten law, blue wall, or code pertains to the police seeming reluctance in testifying against fellow officers misconducts. The authors position maintains that this blue wall is the cause of the hampering of inquiries in such misconducts. However, the author also made mention of some proponents that projects this blue wall as a myth and took care to mention that these denials only further proves that this blue wall actually exists. This blue wall has two opposing sides: the loyalty for a fellow officer versus the truth and justice of matters at hand. Unfortunately, according to this reading; and I happen to agree with it, that the side is tip towards protecting a fellow officer.
Unjust as it may seem, reports in this article show that more often than not, even the most honest of police officer tends to be silent in the face of inquiry against a corrupt police personnel. The author expounded on why this is the case. He explored the aspects of friendship, doctrine of opera, familial structures, privacy, loyalty (personal and group), costs of breaching the code, reciprocity, fear of threats, morality, and self-serving agendas to try to understand why this culture of silence exists in the police force. Of all these aspects that he broached, the aspect of loyalty was pertained as the most significant and the prevalent factor in the persistence of the blue wall. Hopefully, this code of silence would be eradicated as it is preventing justice and in actuality, rewarding the misdeeds of the police officers instead of punishing them. The author made some suggestions of reconstructing the concept of the blue wall, of proper police training by explaining boundaries on the concept of loyalty, of positive reinforcement for just police officers and negative reinforcement or punishment for the corrupt ones to help in the eradication.
I believe that the police force would do well to implement these suggestions. In reality, these suggestions are difficulty to do so as there are a number of obstacles at play. To illustrate these difficulties, the author introduced a case wherein the blue wall is prevalent all throughout; in the case, the author was able to explicitly explain how the police officers working in the context of the blue wall achieve a misguided sense of justice and that the right brand of justice could have been achieved if only the police officers have acted the right way. Despite the obstacles, I think that just by virtue of putting the suggested motions in place, it would be enough to start the process of wielding out the culture of silence that persists in the police force. Although, the author seem to close his statements on a cynical note that real change might not occur, I believe that he has done enough to highlight the blue wall situation and would awaken some to be aware and just may be to do some action.
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