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| NEWS > 02 March 2009 |
Other related articles:
Residents of NJ city say cops
CAMDEN, N.J. — Prosecutors say some police officers in one southern New Jersey city have bullied residents for years, making cases by planting drugs on suspects, falsifying police reports, and conducting searches without warrants.
Now four Camden officers are being investigated by a federal grand jury and have been suspended; one officer has already pleaded guilty.
And prosecutors say they've had to drop charges or vacate convictions in 185 criminal cases because of possibly corrupt police work — meaning scores of criminals could end up back on Camden's drug-infested streets.... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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The Patriot Ledger - Quincy,MA
02 March 2009
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Ethics in Policing
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Good cop, bad cop: Headlines m
Fired Stoughton police chief Manuel Cachopa faced up to seven years in prison when he walked into Superior Court in Dedham last week.
He walked out unshackled, essentially a free man, sentenced to three years probation and ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service.
Cachopa, convicted of trying to cover up another officer’s attempt to extort money from a Stoughton businessman, was the latest in a string of police officers convicted of crimes in the region.
It also comes as law enforcement officials here and nationally take a tougher stand on cops who cross legal or ethical lines on or off the job.
Since December, three police officers in the region were convicted of crimes ranging from drunken driving to drug dealing. A fourth officer was acquitted of rape charges and a fifth — in a case similar to the one in Stoughton — was fired after a Brockton man alleged the officer arrested him on a bogus warrant to get him to pay a debt to a Raynham businessman.
While the cases make headlines, experts say the number of police officers who run afoul of the laws they’re sworn to uphold is low.
“We’re finding the numbers are pretty constant,” said Neal Trautman, executive director of the National Institute of Ethics and author of “How to be a Great Cop.” “It is less than 1 percent.”
What may be a surprise is that the numbers aren’t higher, experts say.
“Police have other temptations on the job that other people don’t have,” said Marcel Beausoleil, criminal justice professor at Anna Maria College.
They can take away someone’s liberty through arrest, are alone with cash and drugs, and often can feel isolated from others in different professions because of what they see on the job, leading in some cases to alcohol abuse, he said.
One of the largest studies on why cops may go bad found greed, anger, lust and peer pressure were at the top of the list.
Michael Josephson, president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in California, said the pressures of the job, coupled with isolation from others in a community, can lead to cover ups of even the smallest of infractions.
“The notion can be there is a higher degree of loyalty to the person who backs me up than to the law or the public,” he said.
That can run deep in smaller communities, Josephson said.
“The smaller the department, the greater the problem,” he said. “Simply because the difference between rank is much less and the friendships are deep and personal.”
That could explain what happened in Stoughton, he said.
Cachopa was officially convicted of accessory after the fact to attempted extortion by a subordinate police officer. The charges stemmed from a case involving then-sergeant. David Cohen, also an attorney, who was accused of trying to use his badge to get a businessman to pay a debt to one of his clients. Cachopa was charged with trying to cover up the case.
Cohen was later convicted in 2007 of two counts of witness intimidation, one count of attempted extortion and one count of filing a false police report and is serving a 21/2 to 3 year prison term.
Cachopa, the former chief, will appeal his conviction, his attorney said. He could lose his pension because he was convicted of a felony.
The investigation and political turmoil of the case split the town. Cachopa was initially demoted by selectmen and a new chief replaced him. A recall election was held and the selectmen who demoted Cachopa were ousted, replaced by officials who fired the newly hired chief and reinstated Cachopa.
When those election results were announced, Cachopa was hoisted up by fellow officers in victory. Even when Cachopa was indicted in connection with the case, he maintained a strong core of supporters and was placed on paid administrative leave.
“The mere fact that he had that much support, that the people that fired him were removed, this shows this old-boys network goes a lot deeper than the department,” Josephson said.
“The chief is probably a hero in the eyes of the department,” he said. “The culture of sticking together is so very strong that they weren’t really ready to say that what this officer did was that bad.”
But it can taint the public perception of police officers everywhere.
“Good officers have to pay the price of the bad officers,” Anna Maria’s Beausoleil said.
Trautman, one of the leading experts in police ethics, said the key to preventing problems is to start changing the culture of a police department.
Training programs on ethics issues have been one step in addressing the issue, he said.
“I am convinced that law enforcement as a particular occupation has done more to address integrity,” Trautman said. “Law enforcement per se is much more interested in stopping misconduct than ignoring it than it has ever been. We are in much better shape than we used to be.”
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