Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Police misconduct
Summary
Police misconduct is inappropriate conduct and illegal actions taken by police officers in connection with their official duties. Types of misconduct include among others: sexual offences, coerced false confession, intimidation, false arrest, false imprisonment, falsification of evidence, spoliation of evidence, police perjury, witness tampering, police brutality, police corruption, racial profiling, unwarranted surveillance, unwarranted searches, and unwarranted seizure of property.
Types of police misconduct include:
Bribing or lobbying legislators to pass or maintain laws that give police excessive power or status
Similarly, bribing or lobbying city council members to pass or maintain municipal laws that make victimless acts ticket-able (e.g. bicycling on the sidewalk), so as to get more money
Selective enforcement ("throwing the book at" people who one dislikes; this is often related to racial discrimination)
Sexual misconduct
Off-duty misconduct
Killing of dogs unjustly
Noble cause corruption, where the officer believes the good outcomes justify bad behavior
Using badge or other ID to gain entry into concerts, to get discounts, etc.
Influence of drugs or alcohol while on duty
Violations by officers of police procedural policies
Abusive police procedures
Police officers often share what is known in the United States as a "blue code of silence" which means that they do not turn each other in for misconduct. While some officers have called this code a myth, a 2005 survey found evidence that it exists. A 2019 study in the journal Nature found that misconduct by one police officer substantially increased the likelihood that peer officers would also engage in misconduct. In addition to the blue code of silence, police misconduct also can lead to a miscarriage of justice and sometimes the obstruction of justice. At least 85,000 officers in the US have been investigated for misconduct, and some are constantly under investigation; nearly 2,500 have been investigated on 10 or more charges.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.