The problem is, most big city police departments do not have any written or enforced policy requiring officers to intervene and report other officers who commit misconduct.
They found that nearly 80 percent of cops said that a code of silence exists, more than half said it didn’t bother them, almost half admitted that the code was strongest when excessive force was used, and half also admitted they had witnessed misconduct by another officer but kept their mouths shut about it.
Because in many cases they were told to keep quiet by other officers, and in even more cases by department higher-ups.
The problem is that few police departments pound this point home to rank-and-file officers, or for that matter, to their superiors.
Put bluntly, telling them, and continuing to tell recruits at the academy and officers in orientation and training sessions and in their performance evaluations, that the department has zero tolerance toward police misconduct.
