Arguing Against Justification of Covering up Misconduct
It is difficult for a police officer to adhere to the code of silence to cover up for the misconducts of colleagues, and there is never any justification to covering up misconduct and maintaining a code of silence. Why should a law enforcement officer hide the negatives of another one, yet it is harming the other people who are true to the cause? Police misconducts are linked with unconscious discrimination, which affects the police agency culture of serving everyone equally in a diligent way. It shows that officers who hide the wrongs are not well-educated about the ethics of work.
There is no need to protect individuals in the force who are using their position to discriminate, steal, hide, harass, or allow unlawful acts on others. According to the utilitarian way of thinking, the harm posed to the public is significantly higher than it is, compared to keeping silent, because the trust placed on police officers is much higher than protecting few individuals at workplace. Hiding these wrong acts opens up avenues for more and more breaking of the law. Although it might lead to creating enemies at the workplace, especially the officers who expose the rot within may become a target from the perpetrators, placing their lives in danger, hence, a need to have protection policies for the officers exposing such misconducts. For a better future, there is a need to have better reviewing of the silent code, and have alternative ways to minimize police misconducts, and the destruction resulting from them.