In recent years, amidst an increase in public calls for police training in the areas such as implicit bias and cultural sensitivity, something fundamental has been noticeably absent from much of the discourse surrounding police misconduct and the need for more training—police ethics.

As we survey the most egregious cases of police misconduct and police negligence in recent years that have led to lawsuits and loss of public trust and criminal charges against officers and much more, the core virtues of police ethics—including duty, empathy, and selflessness—are woefully absent in these cases. After years of training intended to address police-community relations based on the particularities of a community or a citizen, it may be time to get back to basics and look to the human universals that do not change from zip code to zip code or based on race or ethnicity of the citizen an officer encounters.

The 18th Century author Samuel Johnson observed that, “people need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.” It may be time to remind law enforcement officers, at various stages of their careers, of the ethical obligations they have and the common ethical pitfalls that must be avoided in police operations.  

In this training, Attorney Matt Dolan will analyze issues of poor police operations through the prism of police ethics. 

• Meeting ethical challenges in hiring, training, supervision, and discipline
• Reminding your people of the honorable policing tradition that they have a duty to uphold
• Recognizing acts of commission and acts of omission (“no contact, no complaint”) in law enforcement
• Seeing the dangers of the rationalization slope, the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, and victim mentality in creating an ethical police culture
• Remembering your WHY