Citizens usually offer various good to the law enforcement officers. The reasons why they do so vary from the need for a biased treatment to just being a grateful citizen to the service. To take or not to take these goodies has been a serous topic of discussion over the years. This paper tries to answer this question from the author who finds himself in a situation where the owner of the established has offered to pay for the meal they have had with his partner. The main question the paper tries to answer is “What do you do next”. The paper first evaluates the meaning of ethics, corruption, integrity, and professionalism before answering the question.
Officer Receives Free Lunch
Officers have been receiving free lunch and gifts from the public for a long time. The main contention is ‘What to do next?’ after such an offer. There are various reasons why people offer goodies to the police; these include the theory of reciprocity where the public feel they owe the officer because of their constant selfless acts. The free meal is a form of repayment. Others make the offer to guarantee future cooperation from the officer. This will ensure the person of a biased treatment in the future despite the prevailing conditions. Some business owners offer the lunch so as to attract officer and prove to a potential criminal that the area is safe. They can also be used to attract police officer, which can, in turn, prove the place is safe and attract potential clients (McCartney, 2015. This paper will try to explore the question ‘what to do next” after receiving such an offer. First, the author will discuss deeply the issue of ethics, corruption, integrity, and professionalism.
Ethics
Oxford dictionary defines the term as the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or conducting an activity. Ethics is the ability to discern the right from the wrong. It is more of a thought process than it is practical. A good example is the knowledge that copying assignment is wrong. Possessing this belief is ethical, however, if you know this and still carry it out, that is unethical. Ethics trickles down to the notion of morals; good ethics results in good morals even when no one is looking. The field of ethics involves defending, developing and recommending the concept of a good or bad behavior. The concepts are not relative and do not change with a person’s needs on location. Ethics are concerned with the basic questions of what are the important values in a person’s life and how to achieve them.
Defining ethics as what is right or wrong is also ambiguous and these factors may change with situations. According to Leavitt (2013) states that engineers had a particular perspective on ethics, but when the same people were in positions of administration, their standings on the same drastically changed. In the same way, service members in the army view on civilian casualty were completely different depending on how recent they were on the frontline. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate a standard at which ethics should be based. Most of the existing standards are based on the influence of philosophical thoughts and, the influence of the values of the society or religious teachings and their interpretation. A good example is that it is wrong to kill in any society, which is based on all of the above.
Humans always attempt to make the best decision in their lives and as such, ethics exists as a guidance of choosing the right decisions. They do describe how people are supposed to act. Ethical people make decisions that are not based on their own personal interests but rather rationalize their thinking using well-established guidelines. Thinking ethically usually provide a tool for thinking about moral problems through various ways. These include providing a moral map when our minds are worked up, for example, when people think of an issue such as euthanasia, the emotional nature of the topic makes our argument to come from the heart rather than the brain. In such cases, ethical rules and principles enable us to take the best look at the moral issues. Ethics can also provide a direction in situations where there is a disagreement between two individuals on a moral issue. It may provide the arguing groups a roadmap on the correct course of action. However, it may not be the best solution as it may provide several directions. This is cases where there exist more than one right answers, with some least correct answers among them.
Corruption
Transparency International defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain ("Transparency International - What is Corruption?”, 2018). Every day in different parts of the world, there are people demonstrating or suffering because of corruption. Most people are only attracted to the story of corruption whenever it involves looting a lot of resources and media attention. However, small cases of corruption happen around us every day. These corruption cases occur at the implementation level of politics where the government officials meet the public. At this level, the amount of money involved is small and people can encounter it daily in hospitals, traffic officers, schools and taxing authorities.
Corruption is an unethical behavior carried out by people in places of influence or authority, who use their position to obtain favors. It has become a great hindrance to development in most countries especially in Africa, where the leaders amass large amounts of wealth at the expense of their citizens. However, the problem is not limited to a particular country or limited by wealth as it also occurs in rich countries. Corruption has existed as long the humans have as in the earlier days, leaders were showered with gifts from the influential class to consider them for various positions, or influence their decisions.
The vice of corruption can also be defined based on corruption perception, which is a cultural phenomenon that depends on how the society understands the existing societal laws and what they consider as the deviation from the same. The perception is based on moral values and personal principles. For example, a person may produce a bribe because he or she feels it is a justifiable action, while another one cannot. Increased levels of corruption perception are dangerous than the corruption itself (Melgar, Rossi " Smith, 2013). This is because it results in distrust among the members of the society. It may lead to increased cases of gift giving in an institution. When there is a high perception of corruption, there is an increased level of overall corruption in the community.
Integrity
Integrity is following your own moral conviction and always doing what is right. Example of some simple actions that can prove a person’s integrity include going back to the store and paying for a commodity that had been forgotten to be paid for, never betraying a friend’s trust even when in trouble. Not to gossip about a person, remaining faithful to a spouse and keeping promises even if it means going an extra mile to achieve it among others. All these actions have similarity in that people are able to see a person through their actions, words, methods, decisions, and outcomes. People with integrity treat people equally, always tell the truth, take responsibility for their actions and feelings and are honest. It can be summed as behaving in an ethical manner.
Integrity can be used as a measure of a person willingness to do the right thing, honesty level, and moral commitment. A good example is a doctor, who in most societies is presumed as a person of high integrity. Therefore, most people are confident that the medication is given by him/her will have the expected results and will not have adverse effects on their body. If a doctor is compromised by drug companies, such as through bribes, he or she might commit a patient to doing tests that they do not require. Academic integrity is also an important aspect of a student’s life as the instructors require any assignment given to be handed in as original work of the student and not plagiarized paper containing another person’s ideas. Political integrity requires the politicians to follow on the pledges they made to their electorate during the campaign period, as these are the claims that make people elect them. However, rarely do they work on the policies once elected.
The character of integrity is one of the most important features to survive in most environments. Most employers usually look up for integrity as one of the primary values for the employee they need to hire. Most people will love to work with people of ethical and moral principles in their workplaces. These are only shown by integrity. This way, people are able to build trust and interpersonal relationships. Among the basics of integrity is truthfulness and honor, these ensure that a person is able to exist with the coworkers, customers, and other stakeholders. People with integrity are dependable because they are trustworthy, behaves in honorable ways and principled and can behave in honorable ways even when no one is supervising them.
Professionalism
According to the Meriam-Webster dictionary, professionalism is the qualities, aims or conducts that mark a profession or a professional person. It talks about the display of workplace competence, behaviors, and how one interacts with others in the workplace. Some of these behaviors include using language properly. Workplace ethics requires less use of slang and always being careful the way they talk and ensure the message is always passed. It also requires one to keep commitments or otherwise only promise what they can achieve only. It requires one to keep their commitments and avoid being reminded of their tasks. Professionalism also requires good appearance; keeping a clean environment, wearing clean clothes and ensuring individual hygiene. It is also necessary to avoid bringing too much home and personal life drama to the workplace. Life in its wholesome has family, parents and other relationships, ensuring that they have minimal influence on your working life will play a big part in ensuring professionalism.
Gossiping is another aspect that waters down the character of professionalism. Gossiping is hard not to listen as one assumes that if he or she leaves they will be the next victims of the gossip. This behavior should be avoided at all cost. Showing appositive attitude towards work is a hallmark of good professionalism; most workers will enjoy working with individuals who are always positive and energetic. The employees should also avoid jokes and sexual talk in the workplace. These usually result in some section of the employees becoming uncomfortable and as a result, reduce their productivity. It is also professional for an individual to be accountable for their actions even if they have positive or negative results. Giving lame excuses and pointing fingers is unprofessional. Another important characteristic of professionalism is the capability to control one’s emotions. This means that an individual is able to control their temper even when operating under pressure. In summary, a professional is determined by an individual’s behavior at work. The word comes from the word profession, which refers to careers that require high education and results in high earnings. One can, therefore, assume that it is restricted to those professions only, however, many waitresses, workers and cashiers can demonstrate a higher level of this quality than most engineers, lawyers or doctors.
What Do You Do Next?
Despite the offer, the author would kindly reject it and pay for the meals or drinks. This is because a government officer has in himself or herself the integrity of the government institution and therefore putting himself in a position that a member of the public expects a special consideration is quite risky. First accepting the small offer might be a slow slide into corruption. According to Coleman (2016), the first stage in becoming corrupt is accepting a cup of coffee. By accepting a small cup of tea, it means that the officer can in future accept even a larger gift from the public. He compares a police officer who takes a cup of tea with the one who deals in narcotics as similarly corrupt. The slippery slope of corruption argues that there is a trivial difference between accepting a cup of tea and tea and doughnut, and there is a small gap between tea and doughnut and a meal, then a gift then all-away to full-blown corruption. Another argument is that accepting a cup of coffee is wrong, but not as wrong as accepting a thousand dollar bribe. However, accepting the cup of coffee shows the ability to be bribed and thus another reason why the author would not take the offer.
By accepting the offer from the joint owner, it would mean that an officer would be more attracted to the particular joint, which will result in a more police presence in the particular dinner. The presence of the officer’s vehicle at the dinner would be enough deterrent for would-be criminals. This means that the particular dinner would enjoy more of the police services compared to other dinners in the region, which is unfair considering police and government workers are supposed to serve all citizens equally. Despite the gift not being a bribe, they may reward a police officer motivating him or her to perform in a particular way that mostly serves the interests of the payer.
In addition, this offer was put forward because the author and his companion were law enforcement officers. This means that the purpose was aimed at influencing how they carried out their work or to convince them to spend more time in the establishment. Whatever the reason, the fact that the coffee was offered to the author since he was a law enforcement officer leaves so much suspect and yet another reason for not accepting the offer. Alternatively, the owner of the establishment might feel he deserved to offer a gratuity to the police officers. In this case, it should be known that the public has already paid for the police force in their taxes and thus no need to offer the extra gratuity to the department. Therefore, any offers aiming at the police because they are law enforcers should be rejected no matter the motive.
Conclusions
Ethics, integrity, and professionalism are important qualities for any individual. However, corruption is a vice that needs to be phased out this world. Ethics refers to the ability to discern what is right and what is wrong. Integrity, on the other hand, is following one’s moral conviction and always doing what is right, while professionalism refers to having a good behavior in the workplace to help interact with fellow workers, the management, and the customers. Corruption is the act of using one’s position of influence for personal gains. Members of the police force have a responsibility of upholding the law and are thus held to the highest ethical standards. Their professionalism should be at the highest possible level. A behavior that is not condoned by the public and citizens can result in a scandal when exposed. Acceptance of gifts and discounts is one such behavior. This is because they can easily influence the officers’ decision-making ability. In the case given, the author would not accept the offer from the owner of the establishment. Accepting a gift might initiate a slide into corruption, additionally it might lead to impartial and unbalanced services to the public and lastly, he will refuse because the offer was made to him because he is a police officer. Therefore, the next action will, be to courteously refuse the offer and make the payment.
References
Coleman, S. (2016). When police should say “no!” to gratuities. Criminal Justice Ethics, 23(1),
33-44.
Leavitt,, K. (2013). Wearing two different hats: moral decisions may depend on the
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Melgar, N., Rossi, M., " Smith, T. (2013). The Perception of Corruption. Journal Of Consumer
Research, 22(1), 120-131.
McCartney, S. (2015). Ethics in Law Enforcement. BCcampus Open Textbooks.
Retrieved 28 February 2018, from http://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2012/may/wearing-two-
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