Unethical Behaviours

Bribery - Bribery is a white collar crime in which money, a favor or something else of value is promised
to, given to, or taken from an individual or corporation in an attempt to sway his or its views, opinions,
or decisions.

Recommendations

"Controlling police misconduct involves two main tasks. First, prevent it from occurring in the first place.
Second, reduce and eliminate it once it exists." There are two main approaches that I agree with to help
the control of police misconduct: internal and external.

Internal approaches take place within the departments and generally are more effective when the
problem is not too serious.

"Some internal approaches include:

1. Strengthening police leadership - the chief and top administrators have to clearly and publicly show
their commitment to anticorruption policies

2. Developing clear written dept policies and procedures that “draw the line” and make it clear to the
officers and the community what behaviors are and are not acceptable. Violations of policies must be
followed up with disciplinary action. The problem here is often where exactly to draw the line.

3. Focus on administrative control. The dept environment must be changed to emphasize an anti-
corruption stance. This involves increased supervision of line officers, giving supervisors increased
responsibility for combating corruption, and eliminating dept practices that encourage corruption (e.g.,
arrest quotas). In addition, opportunities for corruption must be reduced. To do this, depts might make
public appeals to citizens to stop offering "gifts" to officers and/or make high-visibility arrests of people
attempting to offer bribes. Police work could be made more visible to further reduce opportunities for
misconduct - requring officers to keep daily activity logs, requiring regular check-ins during patrol, and
so on. Rewarding honest officers and encouraging officers to report corruption within the dept also
should be implemented.

4. Depts need to develop and/or expand their internal affairs division (IAD), with an increased focus on
internal corruption investigations

5. Increase the responsibility and authority of non-IAD supervisors to take action against most types of
corruption. Require all administrators and supervisors, even first-line supervisors, to deal with
corruption among officers under their command and give them the authority to deal with problems. This
would also include disciplining members of the chain of command who fail to deal with corruption by
officers under their command

6. Finally, put more emphasis on corruption control at the selection and training phase of policing. This
would include greater focus on each applicant’s integrity recruitment phase (background checks,
integrity tests, polygraph tests) as well as providing more anti-corruption and ethics training at the
academy.

External approaches are activities by other agencies. This becomes necessary when misconduct has so
pervaded dept that some sort of independent and unbiased control is needed External approaches
include:

1. Set up watchdog groups and special investigations. Use external and politically independent
commissions to investigate corruption. BEcause they are not part of the department, hopefully they will
be unbiased and not influenced by corruption in the dept. The problem with this, is that because the
members of the commission are not police officers, they may not understand how policing really works.

2. The courts could act as a greater mechanism of police accountability. Officers who violate the law may
be subject to criminal prosecution. OF course, his only deals with individual corrupt officers, not the
problems in the dept that led to the corruption.
3. Use the mass media to expose corruption, mobilize public opinion, and provide chief with support for
anti-corruption policy which may be unpopular with officers
4. Increase citizen involvement. Some depts have civilian review boards or oversight committees who
monitor the dept and review allegations of police misconduct. They work separately from but parallel to
IAD.
5. Decriminalize some vice offenses. This removes police involvement and reduces opportunities for
corruption (which is usually a serious issue in vice bureaus)
6. Change the political environment. If corrupt politicians are forced out of office or encouraged to
retire, and replaced with non-corrupt ones, a political climate that does not support corruption may
develop and spread to the police as well as elected officials. " (YahooUser- CrimeDoc)

Bribery of public officials is penalized under Articles 210 to 212 of the Revised Penal Code.

There are other laws that penalize corrupt acts/practices and prohibit the giving of gifts to public officers
under certain circumstances.

Republic Act No. 3019 (The Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act) is the main anti-corruption law. It
enumerates certain acts of public officers that constitute graft or corrupt practices, or which may lead
thereto, as follows:

 Persuading, inducing or influencing another public officer to perform an act constituting a

violation of rules, or an offense in connection with official duties

 Requesting or receiving any gift, present, share, percentage or benefit, for himself or for any
other person, in connection with any contract or transaction between the government and any
other party, wherein the public officer in his official capacity has to intervene under the law
  Requesting or receiving any gift, present or other pecuniary or material benefit, from any person
for whom the public officer has secured or obtained, or will secure or obtain, any government
permit or license

 Accepting or having any member of his family accept employment in a private enterprise that
has pending official business with him, during the pendency thereof or within one year after its
termination

 Causing any undue injury to any party, including the government, or giving any private party any
unwarranted benefits, advantage or preference in the discharge of his functions through
manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence

 Neglecting or refusing to act within a reasonable time on any matter pending before him for the
purpose of obtaining some pecuniary or material benefit or advantage, or for the purpose of
favouring his own interest or giving undue advantage in favour of or discriminating against any
other interested party

 Entering, on behalf of the government, into any contract or transaction manifestly and grossly
disadvantageous to the same, whether or not the public officer profited or will profit thereby

 Having financial or pecuniary interest in any business, contract or transaction in connection with
which he intervenes or takes part in his official capacity, or in which he is prohibited from having
any interest

 Becoming interested, for personal gain, or having a material interest in any transaction or act
requiring the approval of a board, panel or group of which he is a member, even if he votes
against the same or does not participate in the action of the board, committee, panel or group

 Knowingly approving or granting any license, permit, privilege or benefit in favour of any person
not qualified

 Divulging to unauthorized persons valuable information of a confidential character acquired by

his office or by him on account of his official position, or releasing such information in advance
of its authorized release date

Republic Act 6713 (The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees)
prohibits public officials and employees from soliciting or accepting, directly or indirectly, any gift,
gratuity, favour, entertainment, loan or anything of monetary value from any person: (a) in the course of
their official duties; or (b) in connection with any operation being regulated by, or any transaction which
may be affected by, the functions of their office.

Presidential Decree No. 46 (Giving of Gifts on any Occasion) punishes the act of giving, or offering to
give, to a public official or employee, a gift, present or other valuable thing on any occasion, including
Christmas, when such gift, present or other valuable thing is given by reason of the public
official/employee’s position, regardless of whether or not the same is for past favour or the giver hopes
or expects to receive a favour or better treatment in the future from the public official or employee
concerned, in the discharge of his official functions. Included within the prohibition is the throwing of
parties or entertainment in honour of the public official or employee, or of his immediate relatives.

Republic Act 7080 (Plunder) penalizes a public officer who acquires ill-gotten wealth in the total of at
least PHP 50 million through overt or criminal acts.

Abuse of Authority -A simple definition of the abuse of power is the misuse of a position of power to
take unjust advantage of individuals, organizations, or governments.

To address these issues, policing must have a clear commitment to human rights, adhere to the
mandates of a national use of force guide, and promote accountability measures that include
criminal and civil lawsuits, as well community accountability measures.

1) Create National Use of Force Guidelines

Congress and/or the Department of Justice should issue a National Use of Force Handbook, which
outlines recommendations that are consistent with constitutional and statutory obligations and the
Police Executive Research Forum Use of Force Principles. Applicants for federal funds should be
required, or encouraged, to comply with these guidelines in order to receive funding.

2) Hold Police Departments Responsible for Negligence

To promote accountability, local, state, and county legislatures should pass legislation that requires
police departments to pay half the amount of civil judgments that stem from police misconduct
lawsuits. Where insurance companies pay for the civil judgments from police misconduct lawsuits,
legislatures should allow insurance claims to seek compensation from police departments that should
have known that the police officer(s) in question would use excessive force. Furthermore, legislatures
should provide a negligent hiring cause of action against police departments for employing an officer
who the department should have known is likely to engage in excessive force.

3) Screen for Implicit Bias and Aggression

State legislatures should pass legislation that “requires current and prospective police officers to
undergo mandatory implicit racial bias testing, including testing for bias in shoot/don’t shoot decision-
making, and develop a clear policy for considering an officer's level of racial bias in law enforcement
certification, the hiring process, performance evaluations, and decisions about whether an officer should
be deployed to communities of color.”1 Candidates for police officer positions should also be required to
pass psychological testing that screens out candidates who display a proclivity for aggression and
violence.

4) Focus on Collaborative Approaches to Policing

Police departments should rely upon collaborative approaches that respect the dignity of individuals
within the community; focus on problem-solving; and are generally more community-centered and build
community trust. Tactics might include relying upon the use of structural and environment strategies to
reduce crimes, such as adding lighting in hot spot areas, securing abandoned buildings, and building
partnerships with community members to address specific crimes. The widespread and systematic use
of increasing police-civilian encounters through stop, frisk, and questioning, misdemeanor arrests,
tickets, and summonses for less serious offenses should be prohibited.

5) Encourage Consistent Monitoring and Screening

Police departments should create early warning systems for detecting patterns of behavior, such as
complaints filed against officers or personal hardships like divorce, which indicate potential
vulnerabilities for the officer and the department. The primary purpose of such systems is not to punish
but to provide counseling to officers so as to reduce their level of risk as well risk to residents and
communities.

6) Use Video Recording to Promote Accountability

Legislatures should require that police interrogations be electronically recorded "during the time in
which a reasonable person in the subject’s position would consider [them]self to be in custody and a law
enforcement officer’s questioning is likely to elicit incriminating responses." If video recording is used,
the camera should record both the interrogator and the person being interrogated. Police officers
should wear body worn cameras with applicable privacy protections including creating protocols that
require that cameras remain activated and guard against the tampering of footage.

7) Enhance Legal Accountability

State legislatures should pass legislation to promote accountability in policing by mandating standards
for police union contracts that foster police compliance with civil and human rights standards.
Legislatures should pass legislation that limits a police officer’s ability to invoke qualified immunity
against charges of excessive force, and Congress should amend the state of mind required to hold a
police officer under 18 U.S.C. 242 from “willful” to “reckless.”

8) Keep Immigration and Policing Systems Separate

Lawmakers should renew our commitment to international human rights; eliminate unworkable
collaborations between local law enforcement and immigration authorities; and protect the human
rights of families and children who migrate.

9) Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement

Congress should adopt and implement the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2015, H.R. 1232,
which has been introduced to the House and prohibits the transfer of military equipment that is not
suitable for law enforcement purposes by the Department of Defense.

10) Provide Demographic Data

The Department of Justice (DOJ) should require that law enforcement agencies provide disaggregated
demographic data on police interactions with individuals and communities in all funding applications,
including data on searches, stops, frisks, searches, summonses, tickets, arrests, and complaints.

Police should aim to eliminate the harms of an unnecessarily militarized police force, and departments
should eliminate militarized tactics that decrease their legitimacy in the communities they serve.
Congress can do its part as well by severely limiting the transfer and use of military equipment to local
law enforcement and creating a mechanism for investigating complaints and issuing sanctions regarding
inappropriate use of equipment and tactics during mass demonstrations.

Abuse of Authority is penalized under RA 6713, 1 otherwise known as the Code of Conduct and Ethical
Standards for Public Officials and Employees and usurpation of official functions tantamount to grave
abuse of authority, grave misconduct, neglect of duty and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of
public service.

Section 2. Declaration of Policies. - It is the policy of the State to promote a high standard of ethics in
public service. Public officials and employees shall at all times be accountable to the people and shall
discharge their duties with utmost responsibility, integrity, competence, and loyalty, act with patriotism
and justice, lead modest lives, and uphold public interest over personal interest.

Sexual Assault including the demand for sexual favors in exchange for leniency.

Sexual assault is a legal term used to describe a range of sexual offences,

from showing indecent images to another person, to kissing or touching
them, as well as penetration of the person’s body with a body part or object
‘Sexual assault’ is often called other names like:

Sexual abuse, rape, indecent behaviour, indecent assault, sexual

molestation, incest, child sexual abuse, child sexual assault, touching,
‘feeling up’, sexual harassment.