Associate Director of Public Safety, Adjunct Professor,Kent State University.

With the recent emphasis on fighting terrorism added to the traditional police mandate, the police in America face an unprecedented demand on their responsiveness, competence and clarity of purpose. Although the past thirty years have seen great strides in the improvement of police professionalism in terms of technology, community-orientation and the reduction of police corruption, a serious re-examination of purpose is long overdue. Street officers and police executives alike are expected to reconcile the many, and often times diametrically opposed, demands placed upon them by their constituents. The state of the literature abounds with research of police culture, value-based hiring, police ethics and community policing yet it still proves insufficient to adequately provide the fundamental basis by which police can reasonably meet these demands. The “noble cause ” of crime fighting emerges as the self-defined role of the police against a backdrop of a hodgepodge of rules and expectations that too often conflict with one another. What is lacking is an inarguable set of principles against which police can weigh alternatives in matters both small and large; principles that unify police ethics. This set of principles is found in the Constitution of the United States and its Bill of Rights and is given clarification and relevance in the Federalist Papers. These are not moral rules or a litany of “dos ” and “don’ts ” contrived by well-intentioned police administrators but rather the unifying force by which ethical reasoning can flourish. They form the basis of our government and the powers that are entrusted to our public servants and, in particular, the police. By accepting and applying these constitutional principles, police in America can gain a unity of ethical purpose and truly enhance their effectiveness and competence while avoiding the pitfalls of cynicism, scandal and the alienation of the public they serve