Reference no: EM133106305

In law enforcement, role stress is closely associated with an officer's position within the organization. Line officers are committed to apprehending violators of the law, and generally keeping the streets safe for the public at large. For law enforcement officers, this is a simple concept to grasp and involves a rather simple process: stop bad guys from doing bad things. Officers enter the profession and attend hundreds of hours of training in furtherance of that goal. When they volunteer to strap a patrol car to their back and respond to our emergencies, they join a community of like-minded people who all want to serve the greater good. To them it is in keeping with their highest moral values.

Stress is applied when forces outside their control frustrate their efforts. When the bureaucrats of the organization, reacting to negative media stories, implement new policies that hinder their ability to stop bad guys from doing bad things, line officers come to view the organization as an opponent. This creates stress for the officer, who perceives their values as being attacked. The officer now has to choose between abandoning their moral values for the sake of policy, or circumventing policy to uphold their values. And so begins the path to noble cause corruption.