How Police Policy Infringes on Personal Liberties of Employees

It is the practice of many law enforcement agencies to forbid their police officers from knowingly have any relationship with any person who is under criminal investigation of any sort, has been indicted, or has been incarcerated by any law enforcement agency. This includes any sort of relationship except for a professional one or one that occurs through familial ties. Essentially, unless the person is a member of their family, or they simply know them because they are an agent of a law enforcement agency, they are expected to have no ties to any person who they know is in trouble with the law (International Association of Chiefs of Police, n.d) This would mean that if one was to strictly adhere to the policy, and a close friend or significant other of the officer were to come into trouble with the law, the agent would be expected not to maintain the relationship until the trouble was over. This would also mean that an agent would not be allowed to begin any sort of relationship with a person in trouble with the law, even if they did not know at the time.

This policy, while meant to protect and benefit the agency, severely infringes upon the employees' liberty to associate with whomever they see fit. It could potentially have a serious effect on the employee’s personal life, which should not be affected by their place of employment or their employment policies. However, the reason that this policy is in place because it allows the agency to attempt to control a bias towards the person in question on behalf of the employee (Standards on Urban Police Function, n.d) The fear is that if an employee is allowed to associate with someone who is known or suspected to be engaging in some sort of criminal behavior, they may feed the person in question information which could, intentionally or not, thwart the attempts of law enforcement to bring them to justice. Although this may be unintentional, the results can be disastrous for an investigation.

References

International association of chiefs of police global leadership in policing. (n.d.). Model Policy on Standards of Conduct. Retrieved from http://www.theiacp.org/PoliceServices/ProfessionalAssistance/Ethics/ModelPolicyonStandardsofConduct

Standards on urban police function. (n.d.). Standards on Urban Police Function. Retrieved from http://www.americanbar.org/publications/criminal_justice_section_archive/crimjust_standards_urbanpolice.html