CJUS 530 Final Essay: Truthfulness in Criminal Justice Organizations

This essay delves into the critical issue of honesty and ethics within criminal justice organizations, specifically focusing on the consequences of lying police officers. The paper begins by establishing the gravity of dishonesty within law enforcement, referencing real-world examples of officers terminated for lying and the legal precedents established by the Supreme Court. It explores the two types of lies, those related to public duty and internal administration, and emphasizes the stress placed on police officers and their families. The essay examines the impact of undercover work and the potential for corruption and violation of human rights when lying is tolerated. Ultimately, it argues for the termination of lying police officers to maintain agency credibility, recommending the adoption of sound officer selection processes, mechanisms to promote policy adherence, and comprehensive training to uphold ethical standards. The essay underscores the importance of truthfulness for effective decision-making and trust-building within the criminal justice system.

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Human Resource Management
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliate
Date
Introduction

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A lie by a police officer is treated as a criminal offense by the law enforcement of the
state and that an abortion penalty will consequently lead to the termination of the police officers.
In Washington DC, about thirteen police officers have been terminated and disqualified off their
services as state police officer due to lying in a period between five years to July 2007. The
supreme court of the United States declared a case of “United Paper Workers International Union
V. Moscow Inc,” and acknowledged that a court in the United States can choose to use
arbitration award if only the arbitration of the lying police officer in his case manifests a brief
battle with other legal previous laws (Bogaard, et.al, 2016). Any police officer caught violating
the public policy intentionally in Washington State, a dishonest officer has limited appeal to his
termination from office otherwise the dishonesty is proven.
Though not a fair way of penalty, it sounds so easy to terminate a police officer because
of committing a crime of lie. A ruling on terminating personnel on the focus of lying have
several times been appealed to the supreme court of the U.S. There are two types of lies, lies that
are related to a public officer on duty and that which relates to internal police administration.
Police work has got extreme effects on the police officer’s family (Peters, 2018). The police
officer has always been provided with minimum education regarding their guidance on how to
employ the use of discretion and how to handle stress. This in turns causes stress to the officer
which in some other ways are transferred to and shared by the officer’s family. This stress is
mostly caused by adverse strain, pressure or difficulties in job operations.
The roles of a police officer range from prevention of crime, protection of life and
property, safeguarding human rights and law enforcement. The officer's life is always under
scrutiny by the public especially when the public gives their own interpretation of the actions
they believe the officers should handle. An officer’s response to handling this stress which

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touches their family altogether (Deeb, et.al, 2018). Constant guilt follows the officer home which
causes the family to fall victims of the short dead parents which might cause the potential of the
kids to become abusive.
Consequently, undercover work as an area of law enforcement is another source of stress
to the police officer's family. Due to the secrecy of the assignments that police officers attend to,
they work for long uncertain hours with their families ever in the dark. They struggle to keep
safe and always worried about their family's safety. Sometimes the undercover operations
possess threats to the officer's properties, children or wife making the officer go an extra mile
and multitask in doing his job and keeping the family safe. In the undercover findings, there are
disruptive personal consequences for law enforcement personnel (Walke & Archbold, 2018). It
affects the lives of the officers together with his close family making the officer to neglect some
of his family responsibilities leading to the abuse of human right.
Keeping lying officers in the agency can cause more harm than good as this can affect the
credibility of the entire agency. As described above on the roles of a police officer, the lies can
be part of the violation of human rights or can cause major harm to human lives and as well lead
to the destruction of properties. To keep the credibility of the agency, there should not be a
compromise on any ethical code of conduct and any violation should be followed with
appropriate consequences as required by the law (Wolfe, et.al, 2018). Chance of corruption in the
agency, increase daily due to applying leniency to the law-breaking officers. Just to mention,
lying officers can reform and serve as the change agents who will uphold integrity and honesty to
the agency. This might not work well with every officer who lied, for it will depend on the nature
of lie committed.
Conclusion

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In summary, this research supports the fact that lying police officers should be terminated
from work to maintain the credibility of the agency. In regards to the accountability and
efficiency to work ethics and code of conduct of the officers, compromising and tolerating a
lying police officer may come with other negative effects in the agency such as; corruption cases
will be enhanced, more lies will be committed and this may become a routine (Fabbe, Hazlett &
Sınmazdemir, 2019). Some of the policies that I would suggest to the agency regarding the lying
police officers are; there should be adoption of sound and effective officers, the agency should
implement the mechanisms to promote policy adherence and accountability and finally, the
agency should train their officers to ensure that they acquire knowledge, skills, and judgment to
act in accordance of the agency policies.

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References
Bogaard, G., Meijer, E. H., Vrij, A., & Merckelbach, H. (2016). Strong, but wrong: Lay people’s
and police officers’ beliefs about verbal and nonverbal cues to deception. PloS one,
11(6), e0156615.
Deeb, H., Vrij, A., Hope, L., Mann, S., Granhag, P. A., & Strömwall, L. A. (2018). Police
officers’ perceptions of statement inconsistency. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(5),
644-665.
Fabbe, K., Hazlett, C., & Sınmazdemir, T. (2019). A persuasive peace: Syrian refugees’ attitudes
towards compromise and civil war termination. Journal of Peace Research, 56(1), 103-
117.
Peters, B. G. (2018). American public policy: Promise and performance. Cq Press.
Walker, S. E., & Archbold, C. A. (2018). The new world of police accountability. Sage
Publications.
Wolfe, S. E., Rojek, J., Manjarrez Jr, V. M., & Rojek, A. (2018). Why does organizational
justice matter? Uncertainty management among law enforcement officers. Journal of
Criminal Justice, 54, 20-29.