Its Not My Fault!
March 21, 2012 – 8:00 am
Stories about “accountability”, or a lack thereof, appear regularly in the media, are frequently the topic of congressional hearings and are often the basis for civil lawsuits. We discuss accountability as a component of trustworthiness during our ethics training in the police academy. I forcefully inculcate to the recruits that, as criminal justice officers, they have an obligation to stand accountable for their actions. I even suggest that, as a supervisor, I have a range of options that are available to me when a person under my charge violates a rule. I caution them that the quickest way to see the harsh end of my disciplinary scale is to offer up excuses for their actions or failure to act, or to attempt to shift the blame to someone else. I would prefer that a recruit who violated a rule come before me and simply say, “I screwed up. I am the dumbest ass that God ever breathed breath into. I cannot undo what I have done but I can assure you that I will never do it again.” I would find it very difficult to dole out much of a punishment to a person with this level of accountability. There’s that word again – accountability – but what exactly is it?
One theory is that the word “accountability” originated from the money lending system in Ancient Greece. Basically, a person would borrow money from a lender, usually the local temple or a merchant, and he would then be held responsible to his account with the lender.
However, the concept of accountability has been interjected throughout recorded history. Perhaps you were introduced to the Code of Hammurabi during a review of ancient legal systems as part of your academy training. The Code is considered to be the first written statement of accountability. Basically, Hammurabi described certain undesirable actions that might occur within society and the consequences that would be imposed for those actions. In other words, he was putting the members of society on notice that if they violated certain social standards, they would be held accountable for their actions. Notice that Hammurabi was not interested in the “why” of these social missteps, only the fact that they were committed. Mitigating factors, such as an unhappy childhood, did not render a person less accountable for his actions. That came along a little later with the invention of attorneys which, had Hammurabi been on the ball, should have been punishable by death . . . but I digress.
I bring up this issue of accountability because, over the years, I have observed a gradual reduction in the level of accountability in young adults in general, but more importantly, in our criminal justice recruits. What I find even more troubling is a growing tendency toward an institutional acceptance of this conduct. Whether it is caused by a diminishing level of accountability in our society as whole or by the difficulty in recruiting criminal justice officers, some agencies are hesitant to drop the hammer on those officers and deputies who simply won’t get with the program. One officer told me that the unofficial motto in his agency when faced with an accusation of improper behavior is, “deny, demand proof and make counter-accusations.” Of course, as you might expect, the general ethical climate in his agency consists of a near total lack of accountability and “blame shifting” has been elevated to a new level.
This type of ethical climate is totally predictable since, as I am so fond of saying in my professionalism class, “ethics are caught – not taught.” Accountability begins with the chief or sheriff and reverberates downward throughout the agency. If a sergeant is not accountable for his actions, one can hardly expect accountability from the officers or deputies that work under his supervision. In fact, the paramilitary structure under which most criminal justice agencies function requires everyone to be accountable for their job tasks for the system to work properly.
The academy environment is where we must indoctrinate the new members of our profession and instill in them that they are “accountable” for their actions and inaction. This requires a commitment on the part of the academy staff, the instructors and the agency administrators. We must be cognizant of the fact that we are not just training recruit officers, we are laying the foundation for the leaders of tomorrow. Let’s make it an ethically solid foundation.