Does sense of duty work as a protective factor for police misconducts ?

• In Event: Police Misconduct

Abstract

“Sense of duty” is believed to be a major core value of police organization, which is adopted by many police departments and those departments make large effort to establish sense of duty among their personnel. However many police misconducts deemed to be caused by lack of enough sense of duty have been reported (i.e. several dozens of police officer in New Orleans were fired for deserting after Hurricane Katrina hit).
In this paper, a premis that sense of duty works as a protective factor for police misconducts such as desertion or truant is examined based on the survey on police personnel served in devastated area hit by the earthquake and the Tsunami including nuclear danger zone caused by the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011 followed by a discussion on developmental process of sense of duty of police personnel. Finally, a variety of protective factors for misconducts of police personnel other than sense of duty will be explored.

Author

• Taisuke Kanayama, Nihon University