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The purpose of this paper is to explore the contours of the police code of silence, a critical component of the ability to control misconduct and enhance integrity within any police agency. Unlike the extant research, dominated by single-country studies, this paper provides an in-depth exploration of the code across five countries and tests the relation between the code of science and societal characteristics.

A police integrity survey was used to measure the contours of the code of silence among police officers in Australia (n=856), Croatia (n=966), South Africa (n=871), South Korea (n=379) and the USA (n=664). The respondents evaluated 11 hypothetical scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct.

Bivariate analyses reveal considerable divergence in the code of silence across the five countries. Multivariate models of the code of silence show that, next to organizational factors (i.e. the respondents’ assessment of peers’ willingness to report, evaluations of misconduct seriousness and expected discipline) and individual factors (i.e. supervisory status), societal factors (i.e. the Corruption Perceptions Index score and the percent of irreligious citizens) are significant predictors of the respondents’ willingness to report.

While the same questionnaire was used in all five countries, the nature of the data collection differed somewhat across the countries (e.g. online survey vs paper-and-pencil survey), as did the nature of the samples (e.g. representative sample vs convenience sample).

Perceived peer pressure, measured as the perceptions of whether other police officers would adhere to the code of silence, is the key variable explaining the police officers’ expressed willingness to adhere to the code of silence. Changing the police officers’ perceptions of peer culture and potentially changing the peer culture itself should be critical elements in the toolbox of any administrator willing to curtail the code of silence.

Whereas the study of the code of silence has started several decades ago, no prior study has tested the effects of organizational and societal variables on the code of silence in a comparative perspective.

Drawing on over two decades of studying and researching police recruitment, selection, and training, a correlation of the three prongs to professional policing in a democratic society is established.

The author overviews the current approaches to professional policing through an analysis of a statement made by a legendary chief of police August Vollmer, who is credited with the inception of the era of “professional policing.”

The transition from a young adult and inexperienced adult into a life-and-death decision maker needs to take into consideration a host of characteristics identified by Vollmer. These characteristics cannot be found nor honed within the current recruitment, selection, and training practices of American police departments.

This chapter provides an analysis of the required skills and characteristics necessary to hone and develop a professional police officer in a democratic society.

The purpose of this paper is to test an aspect of the theory of police integrity by exploring the perceived disciplinary threat made by police agencies in Croatia, South Africa, South Korea, and the USA.

A police integrity survey was used to assess perceptions of the expected discipline meted out by police agencies in four countries. Samples of police officers from Croatia, South Africa, South Korea, and the USA evaluated 11 hypothetical scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct.

Bi-variate analyses reveal considerable divergence of perceptions of disciplinary consequences across the four countries. The majority of the respondents in each country expected some discipline for every scenario, but dismissal was expected for very few scenarios. Multivariate models of perceptions of expected discipline show that the country effect remains strong in the majority of the scenarios even in the presence of numerous controls.

To accommodate the diversity of legal rules, answers providing disciplinary options were not identical across countries. Some of the samples are representative, while others are convenience samples.

The results show that, controlling for societal integrity, organizational variables play a critical role in shaping the respondents’ perceptions of expected discipline. Teaching police officers official rules might be an effective tool toward attaining more accurate perceptions of expected discipline.

Police integrity research is dominated by single-country studies; this paper provides an in-depth exploration of perceptions of expected discipline across four countries.

During the last decade Croatia and Poland underwent a period of major political transformation from communist regimes to democratic forms of government. Although their police forces function within similar political frameworks, their operational agendas are somewhat different. Due to the differences in social and economic environments, as well as the recent war in Croatia, the challenges the two police forces faced in the transition period varied substantially. This paper analyzes and compares the processes of change encountered by the two law enforcement agencies.

In January of 1999, following the philosophy of community oriented policing, the Polish National Police restructured its organization. This article presents results of two phases out of a larger research project conducted with the Polish police and community members representing diverse environments including college students, politicians, and media representatives. Our results represent an analysis of over 2,000 questionnaires distributed to the members of the Polish police and contrasted against data collected from hundreds of questionnaires answered by college students in three cities. The questionnaire was designed to measure the degree of understanding of the role of the police in a democratic society, as perceived by both the public and the police. Some of the main principles of community‐oriented – problem‐solving policing are revisited in the questionnaire, providing a baseline for discussion about the feasibility of implementation of a philosophical paradigm in real‐life environments, when the actors involved have no clear concept about the roles they are supposed to play.

Following the theoretical model of reporting and disciplinary fairness developed by Kutnjak Ivković and Klockars (1998), the purpose of this paper is to use a survey of US police officers to explore empirically the contours of the code of silence and the potential relation between the code and perceptions of disciplinary fairness.

In 2013-2014, a police integrity survey was used to measure the contours of police integrity among 604 police officers from 11 police agencies located in the Midwest and on the East Coast of the USA. The questionnaire contains descriptions of 11 scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct, followed by seven questions measuring officer views of scenario seriousness, the appropriate and expected discipline, and willingness to report misconduct.

The results point out that the code of silence varies greatly across the scenarios, both for supervisors and line officers. While the supervisor code and the line officer code differ substantially, they are the most similar for the scenarios evaluated as the most serious. Compared to the respondents who evaluated expected discipline as fair, the respondents who evaluated it as too harsh were more likely to say that they would adhere to the code. On the other hand, compared to the respondents who evaluated discipline as fair, the respondents who evaluate the expected discipline as too lenient were as likely to adhere to the code.

The data were collected online, resulting in a lower response rates those typical of traditional paper surveys.

The results of the research allow police supervisors interested in the controlling the code of silence to assess where the code is the weakest and easiest to break. Furthermore, the findings suggest to the supervisors who want to curtail the code that the strategy of meting out discipline perceived by line officers as too harsh will potentially only strengthen the code.

Whereas the study of the code of silence has started several decades ago, empirical studies exploring the relation between the code of silence and perceptions of disciplinary fairness are rare.

In the fall of 1989 Poland was the first Eastern European country to free itself from Soviet domination. One of the strongest arms of the communist regime was the Militia, also called the Civic Militia. The main objective of this organization was not strict law enforcement, service, nor emergency response. Despite the initial goal of crime fighting, in reality, the Militia closely cooperated with the Security Bureau and in effect served the role of political police, aiming and targeting political opposition to the communist regime. Presents a study which aimed to analyze the difficult transformation police organizations face in the Eastern European bloc, and the impact of this transformation on the public’s perception of the new police role within the framework of police‐community relations. Owing to the scarcity of information available from the local law enforcement agencies the study largely relied on journalistic sources. Recognizes the limitation of such an analysis and presents the findings and conclusions accordingly.