Police and Gratuities The Slippery Slope Essay - 1131 Words

Gratuity Something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service. (Dictionary, 2010) When does a cup of coffee become a gratuity for a police officer? What is acceptable and what is not acceptable? If a police officer takes a free cup of coffee or a half priced meal does that make him vulnerable to take more. Does that act make the officer a bad officer or a corrupt officer? Does the person giving the gratuity expect something in return or is it just a gesture for the work the officer is doing? Almost every police department has a policy on the acceptance of gifts and gratuities for the officers and the department. Some police departments allow no gifts or gratuities and some may have a policy that states as long as†¦show more content†¦Is there a middle ground that the officer can stand on or is the slope so steep that they can never recover? As a young officer, in the police academy you are told that you will never accept a gift, gratuity, or you career will be over. The young officer gets out of the academy and then reality sets in as they are paired with a veteran officer who is going to show them the ropes and how to survive on the streets. Some police departments are so riddled with police corruption that the public has no trust in them. One department that comes to mind is the New Orleans police department. That the department has been plagued by one scandal after another. Does the corruption of the New Orleans police department come from the officers taking a free cup of coffee or a half priced meal. John Kleinig points out that there are at least two different types of slippery slope arguments used when asserting that the acceptance of gratuities will lead to corruption, and both of these types of arguments can be employed in a variety of different ways.4 The two main types are the logical slope, and the psychological slope, and it is worth taking the time to distinguish the two. (Kleinig, 1996, pp. 163-87). Logical slippery slopes exist when there are no clearly defined boundaries that can be used to draw distinctions between different cases, and thus any line drawn in the sand between two extremes will have some degree of arbitrariness about it. (Kleinig, 1996) In this case, youShow MoreRelatedThe Slippery Slope to Corruption and the Public Corruption of Police Officers2483 Words   |  10 PagesFor the Running Header: THE SLIPPERY SLOPE TO CORRUPTION The Slippery Slope to Corruption and the Public Corruption of Police Officers Ricky A Price, Col. U.S.A.F. 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