The code of silence and disciplinary fairness

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how police officer rank affects the relation between the extent of the code of silence and views of discipline fairness.Design/methodology/approachIn 2005, 150 police supervisors and 450 line officers from East Bohemia, the Czech Republic were surveyed, regarding crucial components of police integrity.FindingsSupervisor and line officer codes of silence are similar; whenever the codes differ, the supervisor code seems to be narrower. The majority of line officers and supervisors provided similar assessments of the expected discipline; they disagreed only regarding a small number of scenarios. The results clearly show a direct relation between how strongly police officers adhere to the code of silence and the way they view disciplinary fairness, regardless of their supervisory status.Research limitations/implicationsThe survey included only police officers from East Bohemia in the Czech Republic.Practical implicationsThe methodology can be utilized by police administrators to explore the contours of the code of silence in their agencies, police officers' views about appropriate and expected discipline, as well as the relation between the police officers' willingness to tolerate misconduct in silence, and their perceptions of the fairness of the expected discipline.Originality/valueStudies exploring the relation between the code of silence and discipline fairness are rare. This study contributes to this scarce literature along two dimensions: first, it provides an in‐depth analysis of the relation between the extent of the code of silence and views of discipline fairness in an emerging democracy; and second, it explores the effect of police officer rank on this relation.