The necessity of dishonesty: police deviance, ‘making the case’, and the public good

This study presents the results of structured interviews of 10 urban police officers conducted by an insider – a fellow police officer – regarding their attitudes towards and motivations for the use of dishonesty and extra-legal means in furtherance of their law enforcement function. Their vocabulary of motives include a wide range of justifications and rationalisations for their own and their fellow officers’ unlawful stops, searches, arrests, planting of evidence, false report writing, and perjured testimony. The officers’ techniques for neutralising their own moral guilt or others’ questioning of their untoward conduct go beyond furtherance of their noble cause, which is a dominant force. The officers benefit both personally and professionally from their deviance. They express a firm belief that their extra-legal methods are a necessary deterrent to criminal behaviour, and even desired by those segments of society most victimised by criminal behaviour. Given the constellation of motives driving the officers’ behaviour, the authors suggest that multiple approaches will be necessary to address the police dishonesty problem.