Unethical Practice in Workplace

my experience in investigating police corruption is that whilst people in the work place may see unethical practice they are reluctant to do anything about it as they feel they are breaking the 'Thin Blue Line' some sort of code that says they do not report other officers.

 In reality its self protection because they know if they report incidents of unethical behaviour they will be marginalised by others around them and not trusted.

If this is how a persons feels then we must question the environment in which they work.

Officers make mistakes and should be able to own up to mistakes without being overly defaulted by the establishment, this would encourage officers to be more open and prevent them falling into a spiral of unethical behaviour and procedure from which they can not escape and which can be manipulated by others.

 The officers need to have a confidential escape route?

Just an opinion ? What are other members views ?

What I think is crucial to creating an environment where employees' are comfortable in reporting unethical practice is having an organisation with a "healthy ethical climate". This must be driven, communicated and lived by the leadership who by example instill this environment. 

This of course is not easy to achieve particularly the bigger the organisation. I know of very good small police departments with good ethical leadership and whom have created this "healthy ethical climate" which have consequently reduced the number of ethical mishaps and public compalints. I would suggest that if any organisation had this environment then rather than report unethical practice to a supervisor etc it would be much easier to challenge the practice as it occurs and rectify the potential ethical time bomb before it has time to explode and create the inevitable "vortex" which affects and sucks in other people creating an even bigger problem.

Creating that environment for peer challenge is the way forward in my opinion.