Ethical and Unethical Behaviors in Organizations
Ethical and Unethical Behaviors in Organizations
Unethical behaviors in organizations are generated and caused by a variety of factors. Very often, a misbalanced organizational culture and the lack of ethical commitment in organizations lay the foundation for the development and encouragement of unethical behaviors. The LAPD Rampart Scandal is the bright example of how unethical behaviors undermine the reputation and image of law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. The LAPD Rampart Scandal became the turning point in the development of the new ethical vision in criminal justice agencies. Apart from the fact that the scandal was the direct product of a violent organizational culture based on aggression and self-interest, the scandal also proved that fighting these behaviors is impossible without a profound organizational transformation and increased civilian support.
The LAPD Rampart Scandal The Background of the Issue
The year 2000 was marked with one of the largest scandals in criminal justice the Los Angeles City Council voted to pay a sum of 15 million to Javier Ovando who had been shot by the two LAPD officers (PBS, 2008). In addition, 29 lawsuits regarding corruption and unethical behaviors at the LAPD unit were awarded 11 million, with 140 more lawsuits waiting for their logical resolution (PBS, 2008). That was the culmination and the beginning of an end in the notorious history of the LAPD Unit and its CRASH team. For many years, professional policemen and criminal justice professionals terrorized the local population, trying to hide behind its mission to work in partnership with all of the diverse residential and business communities of the City (Peak, 2002). Later, the mission turned into a set of empty phrases which did not serve the needs of the diverse LA communities but, on the contrary, were used as a shield behind which the LAPD professionals were hiding the signs and the consequences of their ethical misconduct. The culture at the LAPD was the major factor responsible for the ethical scandal that followed the lack of managerial oversight, the distorted vision of leadership, and the exaggerated sense of self-worth were later identified as the major impulses in unethical behaviors among the LAPD police professionals.
The LAPD Rampart Scandal Assessing the Organizational Culture
Generally, the CRASH was a group of elite anti-gang units within the LAPD set up to tackle increasing gang-related crime (PBS, 2008). One of the major tasks was to get the CRASH members into the streets, closer to gang members and their leaders, and to monitor the gang activity on a daily basis for the purposes of deterrence. Unfortunately, since the very first days at the CRASH, neither leaders nor its members had been prepared to promote an ethical organizational culture. With the emphasis on the best of the best, and trying to expand the boundaries of appropriate behaviors with gang members, the CRASH department at the LAPD was soon characterized by a complex combination of corruption, overwhelming permissibility, the lack of managerial control, and the growing sense of self-worth in its members. Even that all members of the CRASH unit had to wear the same vests and to have the same tattoos which distinguished them from other police officers was the sign of the growing organizational consolidation, in which the lack of ethics was the determining feature, which everyone had to follow (PBS, 2008).
Rampart was always considered to have a unique way of doing things (PBS, 2008). Formally, that unique way of doing things implied the lack of effective leadership and the lack of managerial oversight. Since the very first days, in their majority the CRASH team had been illegal immigrants from the Central and the South America, who had a vision of crime different from that in the U.S. and who also did not want to change the order of things in their department (PBS, 2008). In the middle of the 1950s, with Bill Parker being the LAPD Chief, proactive and even aggressive policing became the central instrument of crime deterrence at the LAPD (Peak, 2002). That was a kind of paramilitary culture, which favored aggressive violent attitudes toward those, who were at the other side of the crime barricade. One of the major elements of the organizational culture at the LAPD and the CRASH team was their leaders desire to protect their agency and their employees in any situation, regardless of whether ethical or unethical that situation could be (Peak, 2002). More often than not, the new leaders at the LAPD, no matter how effective they were, either had to comply with the already established cultural principles or to give up their positions. As a result, the CRASH team operated in its small world with its own rules and standards of conduct, and with its own vision of management and control.
The lack of managerial supervision and oversight was another critical element of culture at the CRASH. This particular Rampart unit was in a building away from the main station because of space problems, without supervision (PBS, 2008), and while one of the mottos within the department was to intimidate those who were to intimidate (PBS, 2008), officers in the CRASH unit knew that they would not be held accountable for their possibly unethical behaviors. The autonomous unit with its autonomous culture in a building autonomous from the rest of the criminal justice system and the rest of the world made it possible for the police officers to effectively conceal or openly ignore the growing flood of complaints, which resulted of excessive use of force, injuries, and legal violations (PBS, 2008). All those cultural controversies were further heated by corruption, power, and racism, and the Us vs. Them philosophy divided the world into the black and the white camps, which let the CRASH members discriminate against minority representatives and confirmed the unlimited authoritarian power of the CRASH members (Peak, 2002).
Unethical Behaviors at the LAPD and the CRASH Unit
Under the influence of the misbalanced organizational culture and the lack of organizational managerial control, members of the CRASH Unit displayed a whole range of unethical behaviors, from corruption and racism, to officer-involved shootings and open violence against minorities. Apart from the fact that the CRASH Unit representatives sentenced minority individuals for the crimes which they had never committed, they actively involved in brutality and aggression against those, who were not considered to be a part of their society. Those included homosexuals, pornographers, and Blacks (Peak, 2002). Such discrimination was a tool of establishing an authoritarian and omnipotent image of the CRASH Unit and its members and to give them unlimited opportunities for exercising their power, which in no way favored the establishment of a peaceful order in the local community but, on the contrary, undermined conventional social values and turned criminal justice into a continuous bloody fight.
The LAPD Rampart Scandal Evaluating the Response
The public recognition of the scandal became the starting point in the development of the new police vision at the LAPD. Gang approaches promoted by the CRASH Unit gave place to other, more civic-minded programs (Gottlieb, Freer Vallianatos, 2006). In many aspects, the LAPD itself behaved like a large gang, and with numerous police accountability organizations involved, the LAPD vision was transformed to restore its legitimacy and to develop societys trust in police (Gottlieb, Freer Vallianatos, 2006). A number of public reforms were initiated to establish civilian control over the LAPD and to track off possible incidents of unethical conduct. However, despite their relative effectiveness, all those initiatives had to be further complemented with an effective system of ethical education within the department the element, which had to develop a new ethical awareness in the LAPD members. Needless to say that officers can only be counted as good when they use their characteristic skills in the right way, and for the right ends (Peak, 2002). As a result, unethical behaviors in organizations such as criminal justice agencies are always in need for a profound organizational transformation, without which combating ethical violations becomes impossible. The LAPD scandal shows as a relatively successful example of an organizational transformation, which goes from the outside of the organization and is the result of the civilian pressure. This is the example of the transformation, which could have been more effective if the LAPD Unit applied to the benefits of continuous ethical education and testing at workplace.
The year 2000 was marked with one of the most significant ethical scandals in criminal justice system. The LAPD Rampart scandal is fairly regarded the turning point in the development of new ethical visions in criminal justice. Misbalanced organizational culture, the lack of managerial oversight, authoritarian aggressive approaches to crime and the lack of accountability contributed to the development of unethical atmosphere in the CRASH Unit. Under the influence of profound transformations, the LAPD members were able to develop a new sense of trust in police. However, all those initiatives could have been more effective with a well-developed system of ethical education the element, which similar organizations should consider as the tool of developing ethical awareness at all levels of their organizational performance.
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