There are many ethical issues that police officers are faced with on a daily basis. The code of ethics is critically important to a police officer, who must respond quickly to criminal activity, make life and death decisions and obtain correct legal evidence. For example, in America without the legal and ethical administration of Miranda rights, informing and offender of his right to an attorney and letting him know that anything he says can be used against him, an assailant's confession might not hold up in court. (Tucker Kristine, 2014) or in Jamaica where police officers are supposed to state that,’ You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and presented as evidence in court’ when making an arrest.
Because of ethical issues and the overall expected conduct of police officers from the general public, the big issue of police misconduct continue to increase worldwide. Police officers play an important role in the maintenance of our democratic society and so are compelled to maintain high ethical standards of conduct. Before entering the profession officers are required to take an oath of office and adhere to a code of ethics.
In recent times several high profile cases, locally and nationally, have brought this topic to the forefront as the right and wrong actions of police officers towards civilians is continuously questioned. I have seen a number of reports of persons being arrested in which these persons are later found dead in custody and these cases go unexplained. According to Scriptonite Daily there has been 333 Deaths in Police Custody since 1998 with Zero Prosecutions.
I agree with the College of Policing UK which states that police integrity and ethics are fundamental to effective policing and help build trust within communities and so therefore simply having a Code of Ethics is not enough to reduce unprofessional behaviour it needs to be talked about as an everyday business consideration.
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