Policing and integrity: what's the problem?

The changing landscape of policing in most mature democratic countries, fuelled in part by the economic recession, has meant a refocusing and questioning by communities and others regarding the attitudes and behaviour of their police service. In England and Wales there has been concerted questioning within the media and from other sources regarding the way the police deal with people as part of their day to day activities. In particular the question of the use of integrity in decision making by police officers has been a constant theme. Recent changes in the accountability processes have and will continue to focus upon how the police deal with their customers. This article seeks to examine the concept of police integrity and discusses why its use is so important for any country that utilises the democratic policing model, whereby the police work within communities. In doing so it considers what is meant by the terms police and democratic policing and examines the importance of police integrity in supporting these ideas. Further, this paper argues that without the use, maintenance and increase of integrity within policing organisations, the future of any true democratic policing model would be under jeopardy.