Police executives understand the difference between misconduct and corruption. Misconduct occurs in every department; any violation of policy may logically be termed “misconduct.” Corruption, however, is a different story altogether. In its model policy on Corruption Prevention, dated October 1, 1996, the IACP defines corruption as “acts involving the misuse of authority by a police officer in a manner designed to produce personal gain for the officer or others.”1 Misconduct gets officers fired; corruption gets chiefs fired. Therefore, for decades, law enforcement agencies focused on preventing widespread corruption within the ranks and minimized isolated acts of misconduct as the result of a few negative influences. Abder Louima, Amadou Diallo, and Rodney King are examples of police brutality that police executives denounced as the acts of rogue officers. Are these acts the result of one figurative bad apple or the result of a figurative rotten barrel?
Chief’s Counsel: Internal Affairs: An Evolution in Organizational Culture?
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Much avoidable policing liability does not begin with bad intent. It begins with answering the wrong question.
Officers, supervisors, and chiefs are often asked after the fact to explain why...
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Police officers are intimately familiar with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.1 The terms contained in that amendment—and how judges interpret those terms—dictate how officer...
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Failure to understand the distinction between so-called immigration warrants issued by an immigration judge or traditional arrest or search warrants issued by a federal court judge can lead to liabili...
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For today’s police officers, the first sign of a serious threat increasingly appears not on a street corner or in a call for service, but on a screen. Posts, comments, livestreams, group chats, and ...
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The practice of placing officers "on call" raises questions concerning a municipality’s obligation to pay officers, as well as the ability to restrict such officers’ activities while on an "on-cal...
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In 2011, this author wrote an article for the Chief’s Counsel section of Police Chief magazine titled “Critical Incident Review Board: Creation and Refinement.” The purpose of the article was ...
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Immigration enforcement in the United States is generally a civil matter, handled exclusively by federal agents working for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Patrol....
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Imagine this: a qualified applicant submits a résumé for a position in a department. Before anyone on the team lays eyes on it, an artificial intelligence (AI) system screens them out. No interview....
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Words matter. The terms used to describe police work—law enforcement, public safety, guardian, protector, or warrior—do more than signal a philosophy. They define the profession’s purpose, s...
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On May 15, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Barnes v. Felix, fundamentally altering the legal evaluation of excessive force claims under the Fourth Amendment. The ruling reje...
