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One dogma of police ethics: Gratuities and the “democratic ethos” of policing

In loving memory of Louis Pojman (1935-2005) One view about police gratuities that has acquired the status of ethical dogma is that their acceptance violates policing's "democratic ethos." This position was first expressed in 1985 by Michael Feldberg, (1) and has become one of the least-contested arguments against police gratuities. I believe the argument to be both highly original for its time, and well-intentioned, but also a victim of its own significant intuitive appeal. That Feldberg's argument has this appeal has meant that it has not been analytically parsed out to reveal its moving parts and assumptions. I will argue that when we do this, we find that the "democratic ethos" argument makes several important assumptions that are worth examining closely. I will consider how the implied reasoning behind Feldberg's arguments might be more systematically restated, and how it responds to a variety of critiques as a result. I believe that some of the challenges it faces are serious. Nonetheless, police gratuities remain problematic. I will offer an alternative, prudential rationale for prohibiting their acceptance, but conclude by suggesting that, to accord with both the philosophy of community policing and the tightly-held sensibilities of many police officers, the acceptance of gratuities of de minimis value be permitted provided that officers are thoroughly and effectively trained in the potential hazards of accepting them. The Narrow and Broad Conceptions of a Democratic Ethos The democratic ethos argument can be interpreted narrowly or broadly. The narrow conception does a lot of work, but it does it in a wide range of cases that are not likely to be very controversial, and so I consider it more briefly than the broad conception. This conception entails that it is ethically wrong for a person to intentionally offer the police gratuities in order to get either enhanced service in the form of their increased presence or a pass on minor violations that might otherwise be enforced, such as not ticketing the double-parked customers of the store that routinely offers the gratuity. In cases such as these, Feldberg correctly asserts that "bribes and payoffs serve precisely the same function as gratuities: they are rewards to the officer for his or her willingness to perform--or not perform--duties according to the wishes of the payer." (2) For example, it is wrong for a cafe owner to entice police officers to her shop by offering them free coffee and pastries in the hope that these officers will not issue tickets to double-parked customers who run into her store to pick up a few items. As a police officer working in crime-ridden areas in Brooklyn, I have been offered discounted food by business owners and frankly told that "it's great to see police officers in here. It lets criminals know that this is a place not to mess around with." To accept gratuities offered with this rationale would violate a democratic ethos because police resources are a social good paid for from the common purse of a democratic government. People should not be able to garner additional service because they have the resources to pay a surcharge in the form of gratuities. It is even more serious an ethical transgression to overlook minor violations of the law because one feels indebted to the giver of a gratuity. It is true that the violations we most often think of are indeed the ones over which officers have substantial discretion, such as parking and moving violations. If an officer accepts discounted food or free beverages from a shopowner, this introduces two potential problems. One of them is the simple one of a feeling of indebtedness to the person who gives you things for free, along the lines of the maxim that "there is no such thing as a free lunch." The other problem is that the actual giving of a gratuity--the act of proffering something to eat or drink--is only one small component of the exchange that actually takes place. …